Introit: Emmanuel - 134
Call to Worship
Good morning! I’m Pastor Ashley. To those here in the sanctuary and those joining us online: we are so glad you’re here!
This morning, we will sing songs of worship, pray together, hear from scripture and one another, as we move toward the pinnacle of our service: the table of our Lord, where we will take the bread and drink the cup in remembrance of our most Gracious Host, Jesus. The purpose of our time together each Sunday is to bring our hearts closer to the heart of God, so I invite you to participate in as much or as little in our prepared liturgy as your spirit is willing.
We welcome all sounds and smells from the youngest to the oldest among us. The Kids Corner is in the back for anyone who needs to move around and play to worship God this morning. There is also a nursery available. We know that the energy and spirit of children can be different than adults and we consider that a gift.
There are information cards in the pew in front of you—if you are a guest, or if you have moved and have not updated your info with the church, please fill it out and drop it in the offering plate when it goes by later in worship.
For those watching online or for those who would like to follow along, our liturgy for every service is posted on our website before the service begins.
We invite you to Sunday School at 10 AM every week. There’s classes that meet in the Seekers room and the Parlor. There is also a combined children and youth class that meets in the MUB. Godly Play meets behind the sanctuary for our younger elementary students.
Our annual congregational meeting is today immediately following service. If you’re a member, the Board asks you to stay for the brief meeting and vote.
Following the congregational meeting, the DWM Christmas Party will take place in the Fellowship Hall from 1-3 PM.
As we make plans for the holidays, be sure to make plans to be here for our Christmas Eve service at 8 PM. It will be a 30 minute, family-friendly service that ends with our favorite tradition: a candlelit rendition of “Silent Night.”
And then Christmas morning, we will have a lessons and carols service at 11 AM! Come in your Christmas pjs or sweaters, grab a donut, and join us for all your beloved Christmas hymns. There will be no Sunday School that day.
You can find all this information in your weekly eblast, on Facebook, in the insert in your bulletin, and on our calendar on our website.
Today is the second Sunday of Advent.
After our opening prayer, representatives from the Sunday School class that meets in the Parlor will light our candle of peace.
Let’s pray to turn our hearts toward God for this hour.
Spirit of truth, open to us the scriptures, speaking your holy word through song, through the bread and cup, and through offering ourselves, and meet us here today in the living Christ. Amen.
Candle Lighting: Parlor Class
This morning, we gather around the candle of peace.
The home we long for is a home that knows peace—
Peace that rests between us and our grief,
Peace around our anxiety,
Peace between us and our self-criticism,
Peace in the midst our relationships,
Peace at the core of our being,
Peace hovering over our world.
So today, we light the candle of peace—as a reminder and as a prayer.
Let it be so. Amen.
Candle lighting: One Candle is Lit - 128 v 2
Call to worship: Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing - 16
Litany of Faith
One: I thank my God every time I mention you in my prayers. It is always a prayer of joy for the way you have been my partners in the ministry of the gospel.
All: We are sure about this one thing: the One who started a good work in you will stay with you to complete the job by the day of Christ Jesus.
One: This is my prayer: that your love might become even more and more rich with knowledge and all kinds of insight.
All: We pray that you will be able to decide what really matters and that you will be sincere and blameless on the day of Christ.
One: I pray that you will be filled with the fruit of righteousness, which comes from Jesus Christ, in order to give glory and praise to God.
All: We are all partners in God’s grace.
(Adapted from Philippians 1:3-10)
Pastoral Prayer
The Lord be with you.
Since it’s the first Sunday of the month, we will sing the Lord’s Prayer, which is #310 in your hymnal.
Join me in prayer.
God of days gone by, and God of the here and now—
We understand the story of Zechariah.
We know what it’s like to be speechless.
We know what it’s like to be awestruck.
We know what it’s like to change plans and leave everyone whispering.
What we don’t always know is what the next right step is. We crave your voice in our ear—guiding our steps, revealing the way.
So today, God, we pause to give you thanks for the things that leave us speechless—
For signs of new life,
For the moments when the doctors says the scan is clear,
For the family that runs to meet us at the airport and welcomes us home,
For every small miracle and concentrated beauty in our life—
We are awestruck.
We are speechless.
We are so deeply grateful.
But in between whispers of deep gratitude are those o fun who are speechless for other reasons.
We are speechless because of the suffering and despair, grief and loss, violence and injustice in our world.
With every life taken from us too soon, we lose our breath.
With every threat of violence, we lose our words.
With every updated report on climate change, we lose our peace.
And the cycle goes on and on.
Creator God, who breathed life into us, move between us and our despair. Give us a voice to speak gratitude in the face of beauty, and justice in the face of destruction. Give us words to heal where there is hurt and to invite where there is isolation.
There are so many things that leave us speechless, O God, but we never lose your words of love and hope. So today, we sing the prayer Jesus taught us to pray…
After prayer: The Lord’s Prayer - 310
Children’s Moment
Anthem: Open Up - Nicole Hendley
Sermon: Laying the Foundation
Luke 1:57-80
57 Now the time came for Elizabeth to give birth, and she bore a son. 58 Her neighbors and relatives heard that the Lord had shown great mercy to her, and they rejoiced with her.
59 On the eighth day they came to circumcise the child, and they were going to name him Zechariah after his father. 60 But his mother said, “No; he is to be called John.” 61 They said to her, “None of your relatives has this name.” 62 Then they began motioning to his father to find out what name he wanted to give him. 63 He asked for a writing tablet and wrote, “His name is John.” And all of them were amazed. 64 Immediately his mouth was opened and his tongue freed, and he began to speak, praising God. 65 Fear came over all their neighbors, and all these things were talked about throughout the entire hill country of Judea. 66 All who heard them pondered them and said, “What then will this child become?” For indeed the hand of the Lord was with him.
67 Then his father Zechariah was filled with the Holy Spirit and prophesied:
68 “Blessed are you, the Most High God of Israel,
For you have visited your people and redeemed them.
69 You have raised up a mighty savior for us
Of the house of David,
70 as you promised through the mouth of your holy ones, the prophets of ancient times:
71 salvation from our enemies and from the hands of all our foes.
72 You have shown the mercy promised to our ancestors
By remembering the holy Covenant you made with them,
73 the oath that you swore to Sarah and Abraham, granting
74 that we, being rescued from the hands of our enemies,
might serve you without fear, 75 in holiness and justice in your presence all our days.
76 And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High,
for you will go before the Lord to prepare the way for the Promised One,
77 giving people the knowledge of salvation
by the forgiveness of their sins.
78 Because of the tender mercy of our God,
Who from on high, will bring the Rising Sun to visit us,
79 to give light to those who live in darkness and the shadow of death,
to guide our feet into the way of peace.”
80 The child grew and became strong in spirit, and he was in the wilderness until the day he appeared publicly to Israel.
This is the word of God for the people of God. Thanks be to God.
I’m going to tell you 6 short stories. All of them are true.
The first three are from the New York Times this past week.
1. “The European Union’s top official on Wednesday proposed the establishment of a new United Nations-backed court to investigate and prosecute Russian aggression in Ukraine, an idea reflecting growing calls in Kyiv and the West for holding Moscow accountable in a specialized tribunal for atrocities committed during the war.”
2. “The assassination of Haiti’s president last year set off a new wave of terror across the Caribbean nation. But conditions in the country have plunged to horrifying new lows in recent months, as gangs carried out such extreme violence that the carnage has been compared to civil war.”
3. “Protests calling for widespread social and political change that erupted in September have led to a brutal crackdown by Iran’s security forces, with more than 14,000 people arrested, according to the United Nations. At least 326 people have been killed, according to Iran Human Rights, a Norway-based NGO. The demonstrations began following the death of Mahsa Amini, known by her first Kurdish surname Jina, in the custody of Iran’s morality police and have been primarily led by women.”
And now I offer you the other three stories:
1. The author and actor Rob Delaney recently wrote a book about losing his young son to a brain tumor and in it, he describes a conversation he had with a volunteer at the hospital who brought around therapy dogs. And Rob says, if you’re reading this book because someone you love is sick or if you’re sick and in the hospital, remember that playing with a dog is just as important, just as valuable as your chemo. Now the cynic inside me thinks, “B.S. Hyperbole. Whatever.” But then he says, playing with a dog is just as important as your physical strategies to get better because it works right now. If being present is important, if being present is all we actually have, then something that heals you in the moment is valuable.
2. When I was in seminary, I tried a lot of activities. One of them was Silent Sitting, which is exactly what it sounds like. We sat in silence for 20 minutes every Thursday morning in a room full of meditation cushions. At the end of the excruciatingly long 20 minutes, our leader, who was a literal Zen master, would end our silence with this phrase: “We offer our sitting for the peace of the world.” And I’m going to be honest, the first couple of times she said that, I thought, “That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.” But after sitting for a few months, I started to believe her. I started to believe that our silent sitting was contributing to the peace of the world in some way.
3. When I was pregnant with my daughter, Annie, I made a playlist of lullabies I would one day sing to her. The two that get the most airtime and are what she now calls her goodnight songs are “Dear Theodosia” from the musical, Hamilton, and “Have You Ever” by Brandi Carlile. I’m just going to read some of the lyrics of those songs:
“Dear Theodosia, what to say to you?
You have my eyes, you have your mother’s name
When you came into the world, you cried
And it broke my heart
You will come of age with our young nation
We’ll bleed and fight for you
We’ll make it right for you
If we lay a strong enough foundation,
We’ll pass it on to you
We’ll give the world to you
And you’ll blow us away.”
………
“Have you ever wandered lonely through the woods
And everything feels just as it should
You’re part of the life there
You’re part of something good
If you’ve wandered lonely through the woods.”
I didn’t realize it then, but these lullabies have become the prayers for the life I hope for for my daughter. One of wonder and peace, one of the freedom to wander lonely through the woods without fear. A life where she is secure.
In our text for today Zechariah sings a song of imagination for the life of his son, John. He has been mute ever since he found out he and his wife were going to have a baby in their old age.
And now, the baby has been born, and Elizabeth has decided to name him John, rather than after his father, Zechariah. It is a break from family tradition and also signals a break from the family business. John will grow up not to be a priest like his father, but rather a prophet, and a wily one at that.
And then, the text tells us, Zechariah’s mouth is opened and he sings a song where he imagines the world his son will live in.
He begins by recalling God’s promises and describing the presence of God among the people: the God who has visited Zechariah’s people and redeemed them, who has sent the Chosen One, John’s own cousin, to bring about salvation and mercy and forgiveness.
And he envisions the life his son will lead: one of a prophet, who prepares the way for the Promised One. Who will bring light and tender mercy, and who will guide their feet into the way of peace.
And what does that peace look like, according to Zechariah’s song? That his people could serve God without fear, in holiness and justice in God’s presence all of their days.
For Zechariah, peace is not just freedom from violence and oppression. Peace is not just quiet and order. It’s a heart that is open, unrestrained by hate and fear, unfettered by poverty and hunger. There’s bandwidth to be still, to close one’s eyes, to take time to serve others.
Today we lit the candle of peace. Nicole sang a prayer on our behalf that we may be instruments of peace. And we read Zechariah’s dream of peace.
But I don’t think any of us are under any illusions that we live in a peaceful world. I read just three stories of peace from the newspaper, but I whittled it down from ten. We don’t even have to look beyond our own borders to know that the world is unwell and that peace does not reign supreme.
But I don’t think Zechariah was under any illusion that he lived in a peaceful world either. By the time Luke’s Gospel was written, the Romans had destroyed the Jerusalem temple and news about Jesus had begun to spread beyond Palestine to pockets throughout the Roman Empire. Things were not much better at the time of Jesus’ birth.
And yet somehow, this song of peace, God’s peace, stands in striking contrast to the peace of Roman Caesars, during whose reign John and Jesus are both born and executed.
When we rehearse the coming of Christ at Advent, we aren’t merely hoping that peace will somehow work itself out. We aren’t banking on human rulers to ensure the peace of all.
Rather, we are practicing peace in our spaces. We are doing the things that make for justice, that is the holy work of God, no matter how difficult or tricky, because we believe in God’s presence among us. We are part of the fulfillment of God’s promises by acting as if they are already true, thus making them true.
The late Fred Rogers said, “In the external scheme of things, shining moments are as brief as the twinkling of an eye, yet such twinkling are what eternity is made of—moments when we human beings can say, “I love you,’ ‘I’m proud of you,’ ‘I forgive you,’ ‘I’m grateful for you.’ That’s what eternity is made of: invisible imperishable good stuff.”
We may not have the power to draw up international peace treaties or provide extensive humanitarian aid to the neediest around the world.
But we can make peace in our tiny corners of the world.
When we are petting a dog, or a cat, or we have cast our line into the water waiting for the fish, we know we have not fixed the world’s problems. We have not yet achieved world peace. But we have found peace in that moment, and that’s not nothing.
When we choose to engage in 20 minutes of silent sitting, or a daily walk, or listening to our beloved with alzheimer’s or a young child chatter on, we have chosen peace over something else. With that choice, we have said no to many things including escalation, provocation, and fortification. And that makes a difference.
And when we ache in the middle of the night for what the world will be, for the world our children and grandchildren and nephews and nieces and young friends will inherit, when we sing over them, when we pray over them, when we hope for something gentler, softer, and more tender for them than what we know now, we are expecting and awaiting and giving contours to what the world could be. We are dreaming a world into being.
Our prayers become our hands become the infrastructure become the peace that Zechariah dreamed about, that God dreams about.
May the cruelty and brutality of the world, the things that keep us up at night, the things that turn our stomachs into knots, be met, at least some of the time, with our prayers of amity, our work of justice, our hope for all to find God in peace. Amen.
After Sermon: Zechariah’s Lullaby - Insert
Sharing Our Resources
There are many ways to support and resource the ministries of Azle Christian Church. You can give online on our website, on Venmo, or in the offering plate as the deacons come by during our final song.
Invitation
If you’d like to become a member of this faith community, or if you’d like to become a disciple of Jesus, please talk with me after service or sometime this week.
Benediction:
Please rise in body or spirit for our benediction, the final song, and the Doxology.
Our benediction his morning comes from the famous prayer by St. Francis of Assisi.
Receive this blessing….
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
and where there is sadness, joy.
O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek
to be consoled as to console;
to be understood as to understand;
to be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive;
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
Amen.
Benediction: O Day of Peace - Insert