Introit: Sanctuary - Insert
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.
Tonight is our final Bible and Beer of the year. We’ll meet at 5 PM at John and Sondra Williams’ house. Their address is on the insert in your bulletin. You bring snacks to share, and the Piercys will bring home-brewed beer for us to sip on while we study a scripture together.
Next Sunday is our Thanksgiving Lunch after church. Be sure to sign up for your dish on the sign-up sheets at the entries. We will pass around the sign-up clip board during worship now.
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.
If you serve in any capacity on Sunday, I want to draw your attention to the various places the serving calendar for the month is posted: inside the tech booth, on the bulletin board right outside the sanctuary, and in the work room in the office.
Today is Covenant Sunday. We conclude our stewardship series today called, A Future with Hope! You should have received your covenant cards and letters in the mail this week and will be able to hand them in during our offering or fill it out online as we’ve done in the past few years.
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: Come and Find the Quiet Center - 575
Litany
One: By the waters of Babylon, there we wept when we remembered. How could we sing God’s song in a strange land?
Many: By the waters of Babylon, there we wept when we remembered.
One: We remembered that ancient rhythm of separation and homecoming,
Many: Exile and return, going out and coming in.
One: You who are by the waters of Babylon: Come!
Many: You who remember and you who do not: Come!
One: In Babylon and Jerusalem, in strange lands and familiar rooms, in sanctuaries and on screens, in pews or chairs, couches or recliners.
Many: We know God goes with every exile; God rejoices with every return.
(based on Psalm 137, a Psalm of exile)
Pastoral Prayer
The Lord be with you.
Join me in prayer.
Most Holy One,
In whose care we always are,
We recognize that our spiritual commitments have material implications.
We are connected not only to each other,
But also to those who have gone before us and to those who are not here yet
through the ways we give and the stories we tell in worship.
We trust that when we offer ourselves and what is ours to give, we are participating in the very long story between humanity and You, O God.
We hope that when we give, we are offering a prayer for the world You want, for Your coming reign.
We believe that when we give, we are living as if the gospel were true—indeed, we make it true every time we open our hand.
Expand our imaginations, O God, to live in this economy of grace,
An economy that does not hoard or hide, but lives with an open hand,
Not only to give our offerings to You, but also to receive Your provision for us.
Help us to embrace gospel logic, a logic that is free from the consumeristic, capitalistic cry for “More!” and “Mine!’ and instead, let us rest in Your community of mutuality and belonging.
May we look forward to a future with hope, a future that we help plant and water and cultivate, even if we may not see its fruitfulness in our lifetimes,
For we trust and practice that none of us are lost in Your long story of grace.
We pray this in the name of Christ, in whom all things hold together, who 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: I’ve Got Peace Like a River - 530
Children’s Moment
Anthem: Crowded Table - Nicole Hendley & Dede Darrow
Sermon
Luke 9:10-17
On their return the apostles told Jesus all they had done. Then, taking them along, he slipped quietly into a city called Bethsaida. 11 When the crowds found out about it, they followed him, and he welcomed them and spoke to them about the kingdom of God and healed those who needed to be cured.
12 The day was drawing to a close, and the twelve came to him and said, “Send the crowd away, so that they may go into the surrounding villages and countryside to lodge and get provisions, for we are here in a deserted place.” 13 But he said to them, “You give them something to eat.” They said, “We have no more than five loaves and two fish—unless we are to go and buy food for all these people.” 14 For there were about five thousand men. And he said to his disciples, “Have them sit down in groups of about fifty each.” 15 They did so and had them all sit down. 16 And taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven and blessed and broke them and gave them to the disciples to set before the crowd. 17 And all ate and were filled, and what was left over was gathered up, twelve baskets of broken pieces.
This is the word of God for the people of God. Thanks be to God.
We begin in the middle of a story today, which is my favorite way to read the Bible. Imagine that we have literally plopped down. As our bums hit the ground, dirt flies up. We’re a little shaken and we rub our eyes and look around, trying to orient ourselves. Where are we? When are we? Who are we?
The disciples have gathered with Jesus to talk about their travels. They’ve just return from being sent out by Jesus. His instructions were to heal the sick and proclaim the kingdom of God. And that’s what they did. I don’t know how long it took for them to all tell their stories—we don’t get any details in the gospels, but I imagine each disciple had their own comprehensive travelogue. Wild stories of healing. Being run out of town for preaching the gospel. Sleeping on a rock. Hiding with some sheep. Sharing bread with strangers. Finding themselves in unfamiliar places. Who knows what they got up to? Only Jesus and them, apparently.
But after all that was recounted, Jesus led them to Bethsaida, hometown of Peter, Andrew, and Philip. After all that traveling, Jesus led them to a place that was very familiar to some of them. A place they called home.
And word got out as it does when Jesus is around, and a huge crowd started to congregate. So Jesus continued the mission he gave the disciples: heal the sick and proclaim the kingdom of God. It took all day.
The disciples, fresh off all they had learned on their own time away, nudged Jesus to let the people eat and rest. They presented a need to Jesus. But Jesus put the need back on them and he told them, “Well, you give them something to eat.”
Between them, they only had five loaves and two fish and not enough money to feed five thousand people, but Jesus told them to have everyone sit down in groups of fifty. And the first miracle of the story is that this crowd did. They arranged themselves in an orderly manner, something crowds are not prone to do. If we’re looking at the math, that’s one hundred sets of people, and likely more than 50 people per group considering Luke only counted the men.
And Jesus did what we do each week and took the bread and blessed it and broke it and gave it away. And it’s important to note that Jesus is not doing a new thing by breaking and sharing bread somewhat miraculously—we’ve seen it in scripture before. In the way that God provided manna for the Israelites in the wilderness. In prophetic acts and songs. And just a little earlier in Jesus’s own Sermon on the Plain, where he says, “Blessed are you who are hungry, for you will be filled.”
And they were. They all had enough to eat. In fact, there were even leftovers.
And that’s where the story ends. It’s almost mundane if you’re not paying attention.
But perhaps we should pay attention to what’s left unsaid.
For one thing, the disciples returned after their mission, but what did they do?
We can only speculate because Luke didn’t record any of their narratives. It’s up to our imagination.
What is that disciples do anyway? Like what are the nuts and bolts, the concrete specifics, the tangible, on-the-ground details.
And there are leftovers, but what does that mean? Neither Jesus nor Luke draws conclusions for us. It’s left open-ended.
What does it mean to feed our neighbors?
And how are we now to trust in the abundance of God not in Bethsaida, but in Azle, Texas?
Perhaps the gift of this story is that we get to fill in the gaps. We get to take some creative license and decide what exactly we plan to do and what it looks like to care for our neighbors and how we engage with the economy of the kingdom of God.
Which is not very helpful if we’re not sure where to start, I realize.
But it does leave our work open-ended, porous, and adaptable.
Today is Covenant Sunday. We have been in a short stewardship series called A Future with Hope, in which we think about what it means to disperse and gather, to gather and disperse. We have looked at our own time away from each other through the lens of exile, thanks to the prophet Jeremiah. And now we have returned, but why? Why come back?
We don’t return to play house in a familiar place, at least that’s not what we see here in Bethsaida. The point of coming to church is not to play church.
We return to continue the work we were doing when we were away. Because the reign of God goes in and out with us as we gather and disperse, disperse and gather.
We get enough to eat, we share that bread, and then we go out and do the work of God. Rinse and repeat.
Part of the work of dispersal and gathering has to do with our money. This is a missional church, at its heart and mathematically. Over 50% of our budget leaves the church and does other things for neighbors near and far.
We gather our funds together and then we send them out to bring healing and proclaim the kingdom of God. And we also do that work here, within these walls, within a place that feels like home.
Some of you have already filled out your Covenant Card for what you plan to give in 2023, and some of you are still thinking about it.
I encourage you to finish the narrative of the loaves and fishes with your own creative license—what does a disciple do anyway?
And what does it meant to feed our neighbors?
And what does it look like to trust in the economy of abundance, of more than enough, of plenty, which is the economy of Jesus?
Amen.
After Sermon: There Are Many Ways of Sharing - Insert
Sharing Our Resources
CALL TO OFFERING
The people gather and disperse, gather and disperse. It is the way of life with God.
As with the people, so with our money: gather and disperse, gather and disperse.
As with the people, so with our money: the more we gather, the more we can disperse.
As with the people, so with our money: the gathering is good,
but the giving, the sending out into the world, is even better!
It’s the heart of the heart of everything!
Friends, the offering will now be gathered and sent,
all for the sake of “a future with hope.”
Final song: Pass It On
—Pass plates here
PRAYER OF DEDICATION
God of love and generosity, for the gifts you have dispersed into the world, we give you thanks: the people, the money, the hope, and the life. For all that has been gathered here from that dispersal, the people, the money, the hope, and the life, we give you thanks. Give us the strength to be separated, the courage to be commissioned, the generosity to give, and the wisdom to send ourselves and our money where you would have them go. Send your Spirit on us and in us, wherever we are, O God, and on this gathering of your gifts, for we have gathered ourselves and our offerings in the name of our Good Shepherd, the One who lives in exile with us, the One who leads us home: In Jesus’ name we pray, Amen.
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 and the Doxology.
Receive this blessing….
The time for sending is here, for separation, for dispersal, for exile.
It will not last forever; to return is our destiny.
We will be together again, and the question then ill be:
What did you do with your time when we were apart?
May the God who is the home of the exile,
Jesus, who was and is an exile himself,
And the Spirit, who goes with us as we love and serve,
Be with you until we meet again.
Amen.
Benediction: Pass It On - 377 (v 1 & 3)
Doxology