kneel in wonder at heaven touching earth

Serve thee with a quiet mind

Today is the Twenty-first Sunday after Trinity, just another Sunday towards the end of Ordinary Time in the Church’s liturgical calendar. But for those of us lay people who lead a Book of Common Prayer Evensong on a regular basis, the main Collect for the day is very familiar, and, certainly in my case, much loved. It’s the prayer a lay person uses in place of the absolution, because we’re not able to absolve people of their sins as we’re not Priests.

The instruction in the Book of Common Prayers reads:

If no priest be present the person saying the Service shall read the Collect for the Twenty-First Sunday after Trinity, that person and the people still kneeling.

It’s the only place in the official service where what I’m able to differs from what an ordained Priest does. At Godmanchester we traditionally end the service with a blessing, and so I pray for a blessing for all of us, rather than blessing the congregation; just a small difference in the wording used, which makes a big difference to what is actually happening.

Evensong is the only service I lead on a regular basis where I’m able to do things so completely. Perhaps it’s, therefore, no wonder it’s the service I find most fulfilling as far as my upfront public ministry is concerned.

The prayer comes originally from the Gelasian Sacramentary, an ancient Catholic liturgy. Cranmer changed the original “indulgence” to “pardon” because of the medieval abuse associated with the prior term.

The Collect asks for pardon and peace, with the incomparable result of “a quiet mind”. Freedom from the heavy dead hand of the past, and past misdeeds, produces the opposite of anxiety. It produces tranquillity.

As someone who allows anxiety to take a hold of him all too readily, perhaps I should remember this prayer more often than when I’m leading corporate worship.

Grant, we beseech thee, merciful Lord,
to thy faithful people pardon and peace,
that they may be cleansed from their sins
and serve thee with a quiet mind;
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Collect for The Twenty-first Sunday after Trinity
from the Book of Common Prayer

Incidentally, had my health been better at the moment, we would have heard this prayer twice this evening at Godmanchester, as I was due to lead Evensong today. The first time when I prayed it after the corporate confession, and then again when I sang it as the first of the three Collects.

In whose service lies perfect freedom

It’s all too easy, I find, when we think about service or servanthood, to get caught up in the negative aspects of service to others.

We think of the servant/master relationship where the poor lowly servant has to do anything and everything their all-powerful, and sometimes cruel, master wants them to; and relying on that master for their livelihoods, and even their lives.

Picture the upstairs/downstairs environments, where the servants were expected to work long and hard hours for little monetary reward. And they could be thrown out of home and job on the whim of a master who virtually owned them. To maintain their livelihoods they had to bow and scrape to their “betters”.

Picture the slave trade where the masters did own their slave, and could, and did, demand everything from their “property”. Where to go against their master’s wishes, slaves risked more than their mere livelihoods, but risked their very lives.

Picture modern forms of slavery, where people are bought and sold as sex slaves, and trafficked across national boundaries; and bonded labour, where people are tricked into taking out small loans, and then forced into working seven days a week for basic rations — but their loans are never repaid and can be passed down for generations.

Unfortunately, it’s all too easy, to see negative aspects of service to God too. We can too easily confuse serving God with serving “the Church”, or, even worse, serving people in authority or of a “higher status” within it.

But is any of that the kind servanthood Jesus was talking about when he said, “the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many” (Mark 10:45)? And how does that fit with the idea of service being perfect freedom?

I think the example Jesus gives us through the pages of our Bibles gives us the answer. Jesus served those around him, but wasn’t subservient to them, or make them feel subservient to him. He served as one amongst equals; and that’s how we should serve each other.

Our service to the Church should be just the same as our service to other people, as service to equals. A Bishop might wear really fancy clothes, and carry a lot of authority, but they are still humans, not gods. The same applies to others in the Church, they are people, human people.

And in service to God, Jesus taught us to call God our Father, though he used the word “Abba” which means Daddy. Our English habit of naming God as “Father”, rather than “Daddy”, implies a different picture of service. We’re not serving a tyrant Victorian Father, but a Daddy that loves us more than we can even imagine, and our service to him is an expression of our love for him.

To my mind, serving others as equals, and serving God as Daddy, are both all about expressing love. And both are immensely liberating, freeing us to be the people we really are — perfect freedom.

Almighty God,
in whose service lies perfect freedom:
teach us to obey you
with loving hearts and steadfast wills;
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Additional Collect for The Twenty-First Sunday after Trinity
is Copyright © The Archbishops Council