Daily Readings—Book of Alternative Services
Friday, September 25, 2020
Sergius, Abbot of Holy Trinity, Moscow, Spiritual Teacher, 1392—Commemoration
For All the Saints
Today we remember Sergius, a Russian monk of the fourteenth century who, even before his death in 1392, was regarded by the Russian people as their national saint.
Sergius left home around the age of twenty and built a hermit- age in the forest of Zagorsk just south of Moscow. He dedicated his little shelter — and his own life within its walls — to the Most Holy Trinity; here he learned to pray without ceasing, even while he helped out the peasants who lived nearby and showed hospitality to any strangers who passed by his hovel. In time word of his manner of life spread throughout the land, until contemporaries felt that his sanctity must be as great as the Russian forest itself. Disciples began to gather around him, and at first they lived in their own individual huts, each with a separate plot of ground for growing food. Sergius eventually brought them together to live as a community under one roof, but this reform caused some dissent and he went to live at another monastery. His exile was short, for the monks soon realized how great a loss they had inflicted on themselves and begged him to return.
With Sergius as its abbot, Zagorsk became the focus of a reli- gious and national revival among the Russian people. Tartar overlords had oppressed them for over a century, and as they began to fight for their freedom they found new strength in the Orthodox faith. Sergius gave this movement his blessing, and his spiritual power upheld the Russian princes in their resolve to lead their people into battle against the Tartar horde and finally break its hold on Russia. Sergius spent his final years travelling, always on foot, from one prince to another in an effort to keep them united. His journeys ended where they had begun, in the monastery of the Holy Trinity at Zagorsk, on this date in 1392.
He will be filled with the spirit of understanding, and give thanks to the Lord in prayer.
Sirach 39.6
O God,
you kindled the flame of your love
in the heart of blessed Sergius
and made his witness to your glory
a shining light and a steady guide
in the midst of the Russian people.
Lead us by your grace
and overshadow us with your mercy,
that in all things we may obey your will
and at all times know your presence;
through Jesus Christ our Lord,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.
He seeks out the wisdom of all the ancients,
and is concerned with prophecies;
he preserves the sayings of the famous
and penetrates the subtleties of parables;
he seeks out the hidden meanings of proverbs
and is at home with the obscurities of parables.
He serves among the great
and appears before rulers;
he travels in foreign lands
and learns what is good and evil in the human lot.
He sets his heart to rise early
to seek the Lord who made him,
and to petition the Most High;
he opens his mouth in prayer
and asks pardon for his sins.
If the great Lord is willing,
he will be filled with the spirit of understanding;
he will pour forth words of wisdom of his own
and give thanks to the Lord in prayer.
The Lord will direct his counsel and knowledge,
as he meditates on his mysteries.
He will show the wisdom of what he has learned,
and will glory in the law of the Lord’s covenant.
Many will praise his understanding;
it will never be blotted out.
His memory will not disappear,
and his name will live through all generations.
Refrain Look upon the Lord and be radiant.
I will bless the Lord at all times; *
the praise of God shall ever be in my mouth.
I will glory in the Lord; *
let the humble hear and rejoice.
Proclaim with me the greatness of the Lord; *
let us exalt the name of God together.
I sought the Lord, who answered me *
and delivered me out of all my terror.
Look upon God and be radiant, *
and let not your faces be ashamed.
I called in my affliction and the Lord heard me *
and saved me from all my troubles.
The angel of the Lord encompasses those who fear God *
and will deliver them.
Taste and see that the Lord is good; *
happy are they who trust in God!
Sell your possessions, and give alms. Make purses for yourselves that do not wear out, an unfailing treasure in heaven, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
“Be dressed for action and have your lamps lit; be like those who are waiting for their master to return from the wedding banquet, so that they may open the door for him as soon as he comes and knocks. Blessed are those slaves whom the master finds alert when he comes; truly I tell you, he will fasten his belt and have them sit down to eat, and he will come and serve them.
Ancient of days,
the strength of your servant Sergius
and the provision of all his needs,
receive from our hands
the gifts which you yourself bestowed
and surround this table with your mercy,
for the sake of Jesus Christ our Lord.
Preface of a Saint
Lord God,
who set your love as a seal
upon the heart of blessed Sergius,
grant that we may stand in the company of the righteous
and know our true stature by the measure of Jesus Christ,
our salvation, light, and peace.
Alternative Collects and Prayer after Communion
Alternative RCL Daily Prayer
Hear my teaching, O my people; *
incline your ears to the words of my mouth.
I will open my mouth in a parable; *
I will declare the mysteries of ancient times.
That which we have heard and known, and what our ancestors have told us, *
we will not hide from their children.
We will recount to generations to come
the praiseworthy deeds and the power of the Lord, *
who has done wonderful works.
God worked marvels in the sight of their ancestors, *
in the land of Egypt, in the field of Zoan,
splitting open the sea and letting them pass through, *
making the waters stand up like walls;
leading them with a cloud by day, *
and all the night through with the glow of fire;
splitting hard rocks in the wilderness, *
and giving them drink as from the great deep;
bringing streams out of the cliff, *
and the waters gushing out like rivers.
The Israelites, the whole congregation, came into the wilderness of Zin in the first month, and the people stayed in Kadesh. Miriam died there, and was buried there.
Now there was no water for the congregation; so they gathered together against Moses and against Aaron. The people quarreled with Moses and said, “Would that we had died when our kindred died before the Lord! Why have you brought the assembly of the Lord into this wilderness for us and our livestock to die here? Why have you brought us up out of Egypt, to bring us to this wretched place? It is no place for grain, or figs, or vines, or pomegranates; and there is no water to drink.” Then Moses and Aaron went away from the assembly to the entrance of the tent of meeting; they fell on their faces, and the glory of the Lord appeared to them. The Lord spoke to Moses, saying: Take the staff, and assemble the congregation, you and your brother Aaron, and command the rock before their eyes to yield its water. Thus you shall bring water out of the rock for them; thus you shall provide drink for the congregation and their livestock.
So Moses took the staff from before the Lord, as he had commanded him. Moses and Aaron gathered the assembly together before the rock, and he said to them, “Listen, you rebels, shall we bring water for you out of this rock?” Then Moses lifted up his hand and struck the rock twice with his staff; water came out abundantly, and the congregation and their livestock drank. But the Lord said to Moses and Aaron, “Because you did not trust in me, to show my holiness before the eyes of the Israelites, therefore you shall not bring this assembly into the land that I have given them.” These are the waters of Meribah, where the people of Israel quarreled with the Lord, and by which he showed his holiness.
Do not speak evil against one another, brothers and sisters. Whoever speaks evil against another or judges another, speaks evil against the law and judges the law; but if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law but a judge. There is one lawgiver and judge who is able to save and to destroy. So who, then, are you to judge your neighbor?
Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a town and spend a year there, doing business and making money.” Yet you do not even know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wishes, we will live and do this or that.” As it is, you boast in your arrogance; all such boasting is evil.
Morning Prayer
O Lord, my God, my Saviour, *
by day and night I cry to you.
Let my prayer enter into your presence; *
incline your ear to my lamentation.
For I am full of trouble; *
my life is at the brink of the grave.
I am counted among those who go down to the Pit; *
I have become like one who has no strength;
lost among the dead, like the slain who lie in the grave, *
whom you remember no more, for they are cut off from your hand.
You have laid me in the depths of the Pit, * in dark places, and in the abyss.
Your anger weighs upon me heavily, *
and all your great waves overwhelm me.
You have put my friends far from me;
you have made me to be abhorred by them; *
I am in prison and cannot get free.
My sight has failed me because of trouble; *
Lord, I have called upon you daily;
I have stretched out my hands to you.
Do you work wonders for the dead? *
Will those who have died stand up and give you thanks?
Will your loving-kindness be declared in the grave *
or your faithfulness in the land of destruction?
Will your wonders be known in the dark? *
or your righteousness in the country where all is forgotten?
But as for me, O Lord, I cry to you for help; *
in the morning my prayer comes before you.
Lord, why have you rejected me? *
Why have you hidden your face from me?
Ever since my youth, I have been wretched and at the point of death; *
I have borne your terrors with a troubled mind.
Your blazing anger has swept over me; *
your terrors have destroyed me;
They surround me all day long like a flood; *
they encompass me on every side.
My friend and my neighbour you have put away from me, *
and darkness is my only companion.
On that day King Ahasuerus gave to Queen Esther the house of Haman, the enemy of the Jews; and Mordecai came before the king, for Esther had told what he was to her. Then the king took off his signet ring, which he had taken from Haman, and gave it to Mordecai. So Esther set Mordecai over the house of Haman.
Then Esther spoke again to the king; she fell at his feet, weeping and pleading with him to avert the evil design of Haman the Agagite and the plot that he had devised against the Jews. The king held out the golden scepter to Esther, and Esther rose and stood before the king. She said, “If it pleases the king, and if I have won his favor, and if the thing seems right before the king, and I have his approval, let an order be written to revoke the letters devised by Haman son of Hammedatha the Agagite, which he wrote giving orders to destroy the Jews who are in all the provinces of the king. For how can I bear to see the calamity that is coming on my people? Or how can I bear to see the destruction of my kindred?” Then King Ahasuerus said to Queen Esther and to the Jew Mordecai, “See, I have given Esther the house of Haman, and they have hanged him on the gallows, because he plotted to lay hands on the Jews. You may write as you please with regard to the Jews, in the name of the king, and seal it with the king’s ring; for an edict written in the name of the king and sealed with the king’s ring cannot be revoked.”
Then Mordecai went out from the presence of the king, wearing royal robes of blue and white, with a great golden crown and a mantle of fine linen and purple, while the city of Susa shouted and rejoiced. For the Jews there was light and gladness, joy and honor. In every province and in every city, wherever the king’s command and his edict came, there was gladness and joy among the Jews, a festival and a holiday. Furthermore, many of the peoples of the country professed to be Jews, because the fear of the Jews had fallen upon them.
When evening came, his slaves quickly withdrew. Bagoas closed the tent from outside and shut out the attendants from his master’s presence. They went to bed, for they all were weary because the banquet had lasted so long. But Judith was left alone in the tent, with Holofernes stretched out on his bed, for he was dead drunk.
Now Judith had told her maid to stand outside the bedchamber and to wait for her to come out, as she did on the other days; for she said she would be going out for her prayers. She had said the same thing to Bagoas. So everyone went out, and no one, either small or great, was left in the bedchamber. Then Judith, standing beside his bed, said in her heart, “O Lord God of all might, look in this hour on the work of my hands for the exaltation of Jerusalem. Now indeed is the time to help your heritage and to carry out my design to destroy the enemies who have risen up against us.”
She went up to the bedpost near Holofernes’ head, and took down his sword that hung there. She came close to his bed, took hold of the hair of his head, and said, “Give me strength today, O Lord God of Israel!” Then she struck his neck twice with all her might, and cut off his head. Next she rolled his body off the bed and pulled down the canopy from the posts. Soon afterward she went out and gave Holofernes’ head to her maid, who placed it in her food bag.
Then the two of them went out together, as they were accustomed to do for prayer. They passed through the camp, circled around the valley, and went up the mountain to Bethulia, and came to its gates. From a distance Judith called out to the sentries at the gates, “Open, open the gate! God, our God, is with us, still showing his power in Israel and his strength against our enemies, as he has done today!”
When the people of her town heard her voice, they hurried down to the town gate and summoned the elders of the town. They all ran together, both small and great, for it seemed unbelievable that she had returned. They opened the gate and welcomed them. Then they lit a fire to give light, and gathered around them. Then she said to them with a loud voice, “Praise God, O praise him! Praise God, who has not withdrawn his mercy from the house of Israel, but has destroyed our enemies by my hand this very night!”
Then she pulled the head out of the bag and showed it to them, and said, “See here, the head of Holofernes, the commander of the Assyrian army, and here is the canopy beneath which he lay in his drunken stupor. The Lord has struck him down by the hand of a woman. As the Lord lives, who has protected me in the way I went, I swear that it was my face that seduced him to his destruction, and that he committed no sin with me, to defile and shame me.”
All the people were greatly astonished. They bowed down and worshiped God, and said with one accord, “Blessed are you our God, who have this day humiliated the enemies of your people.”
Then Uzziah said to her, “O daughter, you are blessed by the Most High God above all other women on earth; and blessed be the Lord God, who created the heavens and the earth, who has guided you to cut off the head of the leader of our enemies. Your praise will never depart from the hearts of those who remember the power of God. May God grant this to be a perpetual honor to you, and may he reward you with blessings, because you risked your own life when our nation was brought low, and you averted our ruin, walking in the straight path before our God.” And all the people said, “Amen. Amen.”
God did extraordinary miracles through Paul, so that when the handkerchiefs or aprons that had touched his skin were brought to the sick, their diseases left them, and the evil spirits came out of them. Then some itinerant Jewish exorcists tried to use the name of the Lord Jesus over those who had evil spirits, saying, “I adjure you by the Jesus whom Paul proclaims.” Seven sons of a Jewish high priest named Sceva were doing this. But the evil spirit said to them in reply, “Jesus I know, and Paul I know; but who are you?” Then the man with the evil spirit leaped on them, mastered them all, and so overpowered them that they fled out of the house naked and wounded. When this became known to all residents of Ephesus, both Jews and Greeks, everyone was awestruck; and the name of the Lord Jesus was praised. Also many of those who became believers confessed and disclosed their practices. A number of those who practiced magic collected their books and burned them publicly; when the value of these books was calculated, it was found to come to fifty thousand silver coins. So the word of the Lord grew mightily and prevailed.
Evening Prayer
Psalm 91
Those who dwell in the shelter of the Most High, *
abide under the shadow of the Almighty.
They shall say to the Lord, “You are our refuge and our stronghold, *
our God in whom we put our trust.”
The Lord shall deliver you from the snare of the hunter *
and from the deadly pestilence.
The wings of the Lord shall cover you, and you shall find refuge under them; *
the faithfulness of God shall be a shield and buckler.
You shall not be afraid of any terror by night, *
nor of the arrow that flies by day;
of the plague that stalks in the darkness, *
nor of the sickness that lays waste at mid-day.
A thousand shall fall at your side and ten thousand at your side, *
but it shall not come near you.
Your eyes have only to behold *
to see the reward of the wicked.
Because you have made the Lord your refuge, *
and the Most High your habitation,
there shall no evil happen to you, *
neither shall any plague come near your dwelling.
For the angels of God shall have charge over you, *
to keep you in all your ways.
They shall bear you in their hands, *
lest you dash your foot against a stone.
You shall tread upon the lion and adder; *
you shall trample the young lion and the serpent under your feet.
“Because they are bound to me in love, *
therefore will I deliver them;
I will protect them, *
because they know my name.
They shall call upon me, * and I will answer them;
I am with them in trouble; *
I will rescue them and bring them to honour.
With long life will I satisfy them, *
and show them my salvation.”
Psalm 92
It is a good thing to give thanks to the Lord, *
and to sing praises to your name, O Most High;
to tell of your loving-kindness early in the morning *
and of your faithfulness in the night season;
on the psaltery, and on the lyre, *
and to the melody of the harp.
For you have made me glad by your acts, O Lord; *
and I shout for joy because of the works of your hands.
Lord, how great are your works! *
Your thoughts are very deep.
The dullard does not know, *
nor does the fool understand, *
that though the wicked grow like weeds, and all the workers of iniquity flourish, *
they flourish only to be destroyed for ever;
but you, O Lord, *
are exalted for evermore.
For lo, your enemies, O Lord, lo, your enemies shall perish, *
and all the workers of iniquity shall be scattered.
But my horn you have exalted like the horns of wild bulls; *
I am anointed with fresh oil.
My eyes also gloat over my enemies, *
and my ears rejoice to hear the doom of the wicked who rise up against me.
The righteous shall flourish like a palm tree, *
and shall spread abroad like a cedar of Lebanon.
Those who are planted in the house of the Lord *
shall flourish in the courts of our God;
they shall still bear fruit in old age; *
they shall be green and succulent;
that they may show how upright the Lord is, *
my rock, in whom there is no fault.
In Jezreel, the sentinel standing on the tower spied the company of Jehu arriving, and said, “I see a company.” Joram said, “Take a horseman; send him to meet them, and let him say, ‘Is it peace?’” So the horseman went to meet him; he said, “Thus says the king, ‘Is it peace?’” Jehu responded, “What have you to do with peace? Fall in behind me.” The sentinel reported, saying, “The messenger reached them, but he is not coming back.” Then he sent out a second horseman, who came to them and said, “Thus says the king, ‘Is it peace?’” Jehu answered, “What have you to do with peace? Fall in behind me.” Again the sentinel reported, “He reached them, but he is not coming back. It looks like the driving of Jehu son of Nimshi; for he drives like a maniac.”
Joram said, “Get ready.” And they got his chariot ready. Then King Joram of Israel and King Ahaziah of Judah set out, each in his chariot, and went to meet Jehu; they met him at the property of Naboth the Jezreelite. When Joram saw Jehu, he said, “Is it peace, Jehu?” He answered, “What peace can there be, so long as the many whoredoms and sorceries of your mother Jezebel continue?” Then Joram reined about and fled, saying to Ahaziah, “Treason, Ahaziah!” Jehu drew his bow with all his strength, and shot Joram between the shoulders, so that the arrow pierced his heart; and he sank in his chariot. Jehu said to his aide Bidkar, “Lift him out, and throw him on the plot of ground belonging to Naboth the Jezreelite; for remember, when you and I rode side by side behind his father Ahab how the Lorduttered this oracle against him: ‘For the blood of Naboth and for the blood of his children that I saw yesterday, says the Lord, I swear I will repay you on this very plot of ground.’ Now therefore lift him out and throw him on the plot of ground, in accordance with the word of the Lord.”
When King Ahaziah of Judah saw this, he fled in the direction of Beth-haggan. Jehu pursued him, saying, “Shoot him also!” And they shot him in the chariot at the ascent to Gur, which is by Ibleam. Then he fled to Megiddo, and died there. His officers carried him in a chariot to Jerusalem, and buried him in his tomb with his ancestors in the city of David.
In the eleventh year of Joram son of Ahab, Ahaziah began to reign over Judah.
When Jehu came to Jezreel, Jezebel heard of it; she painted her eyes, and adorned her head, and looked out of the window. As Jehu entered the gate, she said, “Is it peace, Zimri, murderer of your master?” He looked up to the window and said, “Who is on my side? Who?” Two or three eunuchs looked out at him. He said, “Throw her down.” So they threw her down; some of her blood spattered on the wall and on the horses, which trampled on her. Then he went in and ate and drank; he said, “See to that cursed woman and bury her; for she is a king’s daughter.” But when they went to bury her, they found no more of her than the skull and the feet and the palms of her hands. When they came back and told him, he said, “This is the word of the Lord, which he spoke by his servant Elijah the Tishbite, ‘In the territory of Jezreel the dogs shall eat the flesh of Jezebel; the corpse of Jezebel shall be like dung on the field in the territory of Jezreel, so that no one can say, This is Jezebel.’”
He went down to Capernaum, a city in Galilee, and was teaching them on the sabbath. They were astounded at his teaching, because he spoke with authority. In the synagogue there was a man who had the spirit of an unclean demon, and he cried out with a loud voice, “Let us alone! What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are, the Holy One of God.” But Jesus rebuked him, saying, “Be silent, and come out of him!” When the demon had thrown him down before them, he came out of him without having done him any harm. They were all amazed and kept saying to one another, “What kind of utterance is this? For with authority and power he commands the unclean spirits, and out they come!” And a report about him began to reach every place in the region.