Introit: For the Beauty of the Earth - 56
Welcome/Sharing/Invitation: Emily Harden
Good morning! 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
reality 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.
On August 14, during our Sunday School hour, we will have a
Back-to-school Brunch in the Fellowship Hall. We’ll eat donuts,
write cards to our students, and enjoy each other’s company
before the school year begins. If you would like to help, please let
me know!
To keep up with all the life we live together here at Azle
Christian Church, make sure you follow us on Facebook,
Instagram, and TikTok. Subscribe to our weekly e-blast and
monthly newsletter on our website.
Pastor Ashley is on vacation and will be back with us August
21.
This morning, we are excited to welcome our guest preacher,
Mollie Donihe Wilkerson.
We continue our new worship series this morning: One Thing to
Tell You.
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.
Call to Worship: Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee - 2
Litany of Faith
One: O LORD, you look down from heaven and behold all the people in the world.
All: From where you sit enthroned you turn your gaze on all who dwell on the earth.
One: You fashion all the hearts of them and understand all their works.
All: There is no ruler that can be saved by a mighty army; a warrior is not delivered by great strength.
One: Our soul waits for you, O LORD; you are our help and our shield.
All: Indeed, our heart rejoices in you, for in your holy name we put our trust.
(From Psalm 33)
Pastoral Prayer: Mollie Donihe Wilkerson
Gracious and loving God,
We come to you today--
Tired,
Energized,
Fraught with anxieties,
Hopeful,
Afraid,
Joyful,
Grief-stricken,
At peace.
You commune with us there, God.
In this midst of our multiplicity, you meet us.
In each of our minds and hearts, there are prayers, spoken and unspoken, that appear at a
moment’s notice, that tug at our souls, that wake us from our sleep. We have prayed some of
them for so long that they have become like companions to us. Hear us, Holy One. Hold each of
our prayers with your tender care.
Draw us ever nearer into your divine embrace.
Like a mother for her children, swaddle us and nourish us,
Giving us strength for today and for tomorrow.
We witness the suffering of far too many of your children,
In our own backyard and all over the world,
We know you mourn with us. We know you keep watch with us.
Teach us always to care for one another through these tender times.
Illuminate for us our sins that have kept us separate from one another,
And lead us, in your gentle grace, to repentance.
We thank you, God, for each time we are filled with hope and joy.
Thank you for the moments in which we are able to see your vision for this world coming to be:
People looking out for one another;
Speaking up for one another;
Feeding, and clothing, and giving respite to one another;
Sharing with one another the abiding love of kinship.
Lead us always toward this vision of yours, God,
Through the whispers and nudgings of your Spirit,
So that we may be one with you and one with all of your beloved children.
With your help, God, may the way that we love one another be an offering of thanksgiving to
you.
Be with us as we create and imagine,
sow and harvest,
speak and listen,
serve and be served.
Help us to be bearers of your divine gifts of justice and mercy.
Through our reverence to the expansive mystery that is you, God, we pray the prayer that Jesus
taught us to pray…
Our Father, who art in heaven
Hallowed be Thy name
Thy Kingdom come
Thy will be done
On earth as it is in heaven
Give us this day our daily bread
And forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors
And lead us not into temptation
But deliver us from evil
For thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory, forever.
Amen.
After Prayer Hymn: The Lord's Prayer - 310
Children's Moment: Emily Harden
Anthem: O Love That Will Not Let Me Go - ACC Choir
Introduction of Mollie: Emily Harden
Scripture & Sermon: One Thing to Tell You: God is Greater (Genesis 11:1-9)
Genesis 11:1-9
Now the whole earth had one language and the same words. 2 And as they migrated from the east, they came upon a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there. 3 And they said to one another, “Come, let us make bricks, and fire them thoroughly.” And they had brick for stone and bitumen for mortar. 4 Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves; otherwise we shall be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.” 5 The Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which mortals had built. 6 And the Lord said, “Look, they are one people, and they have all one language; and this is only the beginning of what they will do; nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them. 7 Come, let us go down, and confuse their language there, so that they will not understand one another’s speech.” 8 So the Lord scattered them abroad from there over the face of all the earth, and they left off building the city. 9 Therefore it was called Babel, because there the Lord confused the language of all the earth; and from there the Lord scattered them abroad over the face of all the earth.
This is the word of God for the people of God. Thanks be to God.
To be scattered… to be jolted out of a place where belonging is certain and mutual understanding is shared… this is a fear that many of us may claim. And perhaps we know something intimately of this kind of isolation, after living now for two and a half years in the presence of a virus that often requires our separation from those we love. We share this fear of isolation with one another, and we also share it with the people in our scripture passage today.
There seems to be something inherently terrifying about not being understood. To be surrounded by others who speak our language, both literally and figuratively, is comfortable and comforting… perhaps it affirms our sense of belonging. But what if God’s sense of belonging is different? What if God desires for us to embrace something bigger, something more expansive, something more terrifying?
…
I attended a small liberal arts college, tucked away in the mountains of Western North Carolina. We raised animals, grew vegetables, tended to the land. We cared deeply about the earth and the people on it. Many students lovingly referred to this college as a hippie commune. Many others not-so-lovingly referred to it as a hippie commune.
I arrived there as a freshman, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. I was so excited to be in a place where I could finally feel like people got me. People understood my fledgling fervor for social justice and for the environment and didn’t labeling it as fanaticism. It was, in fact, our own form of holiness.
Sometime during my first week, I sat around a table with 10 or so classmates who made up my First Year Seminar group. We were in the process of planning class outings—for camping, service work, meals together…
One classmate suggested that we meet regularly as a group on Sunday mornings. I piped up confidently, proposing that meeting on Sunday mornings may not work for those of us who go to church. But then, my classmate looked at me in slight bewilderment. He began to glance around the room, trying to gauge everyone else at the table. “Does… anyone… else go to church?” he asked. I shot my eyes in a quick circle around the table, hoping for some backup, but found none. When no one responded, I gave my classmate a timid smile, wishing I hadn’t said anything at all.
Later that week, I was on the phone with my mother. “Momma, I’m transferring,” I blurted out. I heard a pause at the other end of the line. “And why’s that?” she eventually asked. I don’t remember what exactly I said in response, but knowing well my reliably over-dramatic 18-year-old self, I’m sure it was something along the lines of “nobody here gets me! They all hate Christians!”
…
You see, I yearned to be in a place where everyone spoke my language. I wanted so badly to feel seen and heard, like we all do on some level. But it was no longer enough that my classmates shared my passion for environmental and social justice. I felt like an outsider again. I was clinging desperately to the comfort that being surrounded by Christians had brought me throughout my upbringing, and it was slipping through my fingers like butter.
I was terrified. But I had a plan. I would transfer to a school where I thought I’d be at home; where I could develop and grow my faith amidst others who spoke my language.
…
The people of this story, settling in the land of Shinar, in Babylon, had a plan, too. Maybe they knew well God’s instructions to their ancestors, the sons of Noah: “Go, abound across the earth, and fill it.” But whether they knew this to be God’s will or not, they certainly did not want it to come to fruition.
Their plan was to build.
Their plan was to stay.
They would establish themselves there in that place, drawing on the power of their shared goals and vision to accomplish great things, to make a name for themselves. They would even build a grand tower, one that ascended into the realm of heaven. They knew, with their God-given intellect, that they could make this vision a reality, with the help of their single-mindedness and their flawless ability to communicate with one another.
And they would’ve gotten away with it too, if it weren’t for that meddling God.
Their plan, upon first hearing it, sounds like a pretty wholesome display of effective teamwork. In fact, it sounds like the goal toward which many corporations, nonprofits, and churches are wholeheartedly striving as we speak.
But God saw their plan and deemed it no good. God wasn’t pleased with their sameness, and, because of that, muddied their communication, halted their production, and did the thing of which they were so terrified: scattered them across the face of the earth.
And now we’re left with a story that makes little sense. What are we to do with this story in a society that tells us to work well with others and a God that has evidently made it so difficult to do so?
…
Many interpretations of this text claim that God interfered in the people’s project because they were trying to become like God themselves, they were trying to reach heaven on their own accord.
I wonder if there isn’t something else hidden within this text.
I wonder if the issue here in this story is perhaps that, rather than trying to be God, the people in it were making a god, making an idol, out of their sameness.
Perhaps they were getting caught up in their identity as one people with one language and one vision… so caught up that they were trapping God inside that singularity. Of course they would build a dwelling place for God in their city of sameness… if they could not conceive of a God that would even exist outside of it.
God’s interference, then, was maybe not an act of self-defense. Maybe, instead, God was pushing the people to look outside of themselves.
This act of interference rejected the notion that God could be reached in a single tower by a single people. It rejected the notion that God could be defined or contained in a single story.
…
This narrative sets us up for the world we live in today. A multiplicity of languages, a multiplicity of beliefs, and often a desire to silo ourselves in our own communities of sameness, accomplishing a great deal for our own benefit, but remaining unaffected, unbothered, or unaware of that which exists outside.
…
There is parable that shows up in a variety of traditions around the world in slightly different versions, and each time I hear it, it sticks with me. Maybe you’ve heard it, too. Here’s my version:
There’s a group of people in a room. The room is pitch black. And, oh yeah, there’s also an elephant in there.
Now, as we know, elephants are large already, and in a room full of perplexed people fumbling about in the dark, an elephant could be an especially confounding thing.
There’s one more detail that you need to know about this odd hypothetical situation: none of the people in this room know what an elephant is. They simply know that they are indeed in a room… with an elephant.
The people stand around the elephant, and do their best, inhibited by the lack of visibility, to make sense of what it is. One person reaches out and feels its trunk, convinced that an elephant is a snake-like thing with leathery skin.
Another person feels the wiry hairs of its tail brush up against them, now sure that an elephant is a broom of some sort.
A third person holds her hand up to feel the elephant’s underbelly, not exactly sure what the elephant is but knowing that it’s physically above her, it’s big, kind of scary, and making her feel a bit claustrophobic.
…
The point of this strange illustration is to show that we are all limited in our understanding anything from a single standpoint. While it may be difficult to grasp the reality of an elephant in a dark room, God’s enormity and infinitude make it impossible to grasp the fullness of the divine, especially from a single viewpoint.
The big problems come when we think we are capable, in our own limited experiences, to do just that. We need, in fact, the presence of all of these different perceptions of what the divine is, and we need the willingness to be inspired by them, so that we ourselves can experience God as mysterious, wonderful, unknowable, intimately present yet ginormous, and comforting yet awe-inspiring.
…
As people of faith, we make sense of our world through the lens of our experience. No one experience is the same, and likewise, no one understanding of God is the same. No one understanding of God could ever capture the fullness of the divine.
This is not to say that some understandings may not come closer to the heart of God than others. I believe in fact that they do. But to even begin discerning that which God is calling us toward, let us consider the possibility that God desires, and maybe even requires, difference.
The scripture today points us toward the possibility that God created us in our differences so that, through these differences, we can come to a more robust knowing of God and a more abundant manifestation of the kingdom of heaven on earth.
If this is the case, our desire to boil down God into a singular story is not only missing the point, it may just be disastrous. To assert that we have all the answers we need within our own scriptures, our own beliefs, and our own institutions creates an idol out of our own experience and understanding, looking into a mirror and seeing a reflection of ourselves and mistaking it for a comprehensive picture of God.
…
I think back to that first week of college, when I was so convinced that I needed to transfer to a different school (side note: I never did). That version of myself was scared. I feared the feeling of being challenged by people who did not and would not speak the only language I’d ever known. I feared that being in that place would cause me to lose my childhood faith.
And, by the grace of God, it did.
It turned out to be a life-giving process, through which I came to experience God in a way far greater than I could have previously imagined. Don’t get me wrong—my stubborn self didn’t want any of it, but I got a potluck-sized helping. It was a process of learning about a different, more expansive Christianity than the one I knew. It was a process of piecing together, leaving me with more question marks than exclamation points.
It was also a wretched process—a process of grieving, of mourning the loss of the particular faith that had raised me, the faith that had been the bedrock of my identity and of my life as I knew it.
But that firm foundation of a faith on which I had stood for so long didn’t extend an inch past the city limits of the place where people looked and talked and believed like me.
What are we to do when we find ourselves standing at those city limits?
What are we to do when God meddles in our grand plans for settling down, making it harder for us to make a name for ourselves, and making it more necessary for us to co-create with those around us, even and especially when their perspective is different from our own?
Do we have the courage to leave off building the cities and the towers that God is calling us away from?
Do we have the perceptive sensibility to notice this call?
…
I did go to divinity school with the intention of becoming an ordained minister, but curveball, I’m now a fiber artist for a living. I work with fabrics, all day every day.
While I’m not a weaver, I know a little bit about weaving. I know that a weaver will stretch a whole bunch of parallel threads onto a loom, running up and down. This is called, in weaving terms, the warp. Then, the weaver will take more thread, called the weft, and work it through in the other direction, side to side, so that this new thread is going over and under and over and under each thread of the warp.
These individual threads, with their own strength and texture and color and individuality, go on this journey of bumping up against other threads, of nestling in next to their neighbors, of weaving, of interconnecting, their individual journeys with the journeys of all the other threads in a piece of cloth.
And what we’re left with is something that so beautifully illustrates the idea that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. The fabric that comes off that loom is no longer a pile of thread. It’s something with weight, and warmth, and lots of purpose. The most beautiful fabrics are often the ones that have many colors and many textures all woven throughout—the individual pieces abiding together in this one creation.
It is the same thing that I believe our scripture this morning nudges us into. Because God is truly greater than the sum of our parts.
God is greater than our singular understandings, our fear of being challenged. God is greater than the idols we make out of sameness. God is greater than lines of division we draw in sand or in stone. God is greater than the mess we so often make of relationships and communities, yet God stays with us through it anyways.
God takes our individual beliefs and perspectives, our convictions and doubts, our answers and questions, and weaves them into a greater story. May we be inspired by this. May we witness the beautiful, complicated, messy, intricate, indescribable work of art that God is creating in this world. May we go from this place eager to be a part of it.
Thanks be to God.
After Sermon: Restless Weaver - 658
Holy Communion: Diane Weger
Invitation: Emily Harden
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.
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: Mollie Donihe Wilkerson
As you go from this place, may you revel in the beauty of the fabric that God is weaving still.
May you be filled with the grace of Christ Jesus, who teaches us how to love our neighbor, even
and especially when our neighbor’s differences are uncomfortable to us.
And may you be accompanied by the wisdom and comfort of the Spirit through it all, today and
every day.
Amen.
Benediction Song: Leaning on the Everlasting Arms - 560 (v 1&3)
Doxology