I Come With Joy - 420
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.
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 third Sunday of Advent.
After our opening prayer, ____ will light our candle of joy.
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: Youth Group
This morning, we gather around the candle of joy.
Joy is seeing people you love after months apart.
Joy is hearing, “Come on over! It’s been too long.”
Joy is the stretches and giggles of a newborn baby.
Joy is making it home after a journey too long.
Joy is your dog wiggling to meet you at the door.
Joy is the energy of a new season.
Joy is feeling found when you thought you were lost.
Today we light the candle of joy, because the welcome God has for us is nothing short of joyful.
Rest in that good news and let it wash over you.
Family of faith, we are close to home. Joy is coming. Amen.
One Candle is Lit - 128 v 3
Of the Parent’s Heart Forgotten - Insert
Litany of Faith
One: On that day this must be the message to Jerusalem: Fear not, Zion, let not your hands hang limp in despair, for the LORD your God is in your midst, a warrior to keep you safe.
All: God will rejoice over you and be glad of it.
One: The LORD will show you love once more, and exult over you with loud singing. God will soothe those who are grieving.
All: At the appointed time, the LORD will take away your cries of woe and you will no longer endure reproach.
One: When that time comes, God will deal with all who oppress you; the LORD will rescue the lost and gather the dispersed.
All: When that time comes, God will gather you and bring you home. The LORD will restore your fortunes before your eyes. It is Yahweh God who speaks.
(From Zephaniah 3:16-20)
Pastoral Prayer
The Lord be with you.
Join me in prayer.
God of open doors and porch lights,
Of welcome mats and candles in the window—
We cannot thank you enough for your open door policy.
You are forever welcoming us home.
In a world that puts hand rails on park benches so that those without a roof over their heads cannot lay down, you offer something radically different.
You welcome all of us, just as we are.
You paint a picture of a world that could be.
You remind us that there is enough love to go around, and that neighbor helping neighbor is who we are called to be.
Thank you for the voice in the wilderness that calls to us.
Thank you for the radical welcome and the unchanging love.
Today, God, we give extra thanks for the people and places that are home to us, but we also pray for all those without a home.
We pray for immigrants and refugees navigating the waters of trauma, change, and loss. We pray for those who experience homelessness and for those scraping together every coin to pay last month’s rent. We pray for those who do not feel at home in their body. We pray for those who do not feel at home in your church—wounded by strict rules or judgmental accusations. We pray for those who long to build a home with another, but instead find themselves eating another meal alone.
God, there are so many who need a home, so help us be builders of that new day. Give us the courage of John, who saw a way forward so clearly. Turn our words into action and our conviction into change.
Gracious God, you are a God who of open doors and welcome home celebrations. Teach us to be the same.
We ask it in the name of the one for which we wait, Jesus, who gave us this prayer…
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.
Abide With Me - 636 v 1
Children’s Moment
Anthem - O Holy Night - Chris Piercy and Nicole Hendley
Sermon: A Home for All
Luke 3:1-18
In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, and Herod was ruler of Galilee, and his brother Philip ruler of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias ruler of Abilene, 2 during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness. 3 He went into all the region around the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, 4 as it is written in the book of the words of the prophet Isaiah,
“The voice of one crying out in the wilderness:
‘Prepare the way of the Lord;
make his paths straight.
5 Every valley shall be filled,
and every mountain and hill shall be made low,
and the crooked shall be made straight,
and the rough ways made smooth,
6 and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.’ ”
7 John said to the crowds coming out to be baptized by him, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? 8 Therefore, bear fruits worthy of repentance, and do not begin to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our ancestor,’ for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham. 9 Even now the ax is lying at the root of the trees; therefore every tree that does not bear good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.”
10 And the crowds asked him, “What, then, should we do?” 11 In reply he said to them, “Whoever has two coats must share with anyone who has none, and whoever has food must do likewise.” 12 Even tax collectors came to be baptized, and they asked him, “Teacher, what should we do?” 13 He said to them, “Collect no more than the amount prescribed for you.” 14 Soldiers also asked him, “And we, what should we do?” He said to them, “Do not extort money from anyone by threats or false accusation, and be satisfied with your wages.”
15 As the people were filled with expectation and all were questioning in their hearts concerning John, whether he might be the Messiah, 16 John answered all of them by saying, “I baptize you with water, but one who is more powerful than I is coming; I am not worthy to untie the strap of his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. 17 His winnowing fork is in his hand to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his granary, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”
18 So with many other exhortations he proclaimed the good news to the people.
This is the word of God for the people of God. Thanks be to God.
Ah, John the Baptist, the radical cousin of Jesus who lives in the woods and eats bugs and shouts at people walking by. What a buzzkill, right?
John’s birth story is well-documented in the book of Luke. He was born too late to parents too old. He the patron saint of spiritual joy, and perhaps it’s because of the event when his elderly pregnant mother encountered a pregnant Mary, and he leapt for joy in her womb at being in close proximity to the coming Messiah.
Due to his miraculous birth story—nearly as miraculous as Jesus’ own arrival—people saw him as a sign of God’s work in the world. The expectations were high for this family. What would John grow up to do, his parents might have wondered as his mother’s belly grew.
Would he serve as a priest, helping cultivate connection to God for his fellow Jewish brothers and sisters? Would he make an impact in the humble service of carpentry like his cousin would, talking to ordinary people about the goodness of God? Or would he be like Simeon and Anna, prophets residing in the temple, ushering in God’s presence?
Well, imagine his parents’ disappointment that he was loud and at times, obnoxious and rude, shouting at the very religious leaders they were hoping he would emulate.
His call was to prepare the way for the one to come, who we would understand to be Jesus.
And so John lives off the radar, in the woods, where crowds gather and surprisingly, want to hear what he has to say. Not one for hospitality, he shouts at them, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you of the coming wrath?”
He tells them to bear fruit worthy of repentance. And he calls out their self-justification, their claims of, “Well, we have Abraham as our ancestor, so I think we’ll be fine. Or our family has a lot of history around these parts, or our roots go deep, so maybe slow your roll, Johny boy.
He then tells them something audacious, them being the Very Religious Persons, the VRPs. He says that you cannot dismiss God’s ongoing call on your life with some of kind of appeal to heritage. John points to the stones and says, “Heritage? Ha! God can makes these stones the sons and daughters of Abraham if God needs to.”
He tells them the ax is waiting to be pulled back to chop down the tree with the deep roots they boast about! I can imagine the people in the crowd saying, “We came all the way out here for this?”
But miraculously, the people are curious about this confrontation. So, John, what then should we do? they ask. How do we bear fruit worthy of repentance? How do we avoid the coming wrath?
And so he proclaimed the good news to the people, our text ends.
I don’t know what you heard as I was reading the scripture earlier, but a lot of it did not feel like good news. Not sure where Luke got that.
Except perhaps, we should think about the concept of good news, more specifically, the gospel, which comes from the Greek word, euangelion, which is where we get our word evangelism.
What qualifies as “good news” anyway? It’s good to interrogate this idea every once in awhile.
Let’s start with the word “news.” News does not necessarily equal information.
Take for example this fun fact: The species of fungus in the genus Penicillium known as penicillium rubens inhibits the growth of the bacteria staphylococcus aureus.
That fact is certainly information, but it has nothing to do with me this morning. What am I supposed to do with that information? It’s not news.
Because news is not simply information. It has to be relevant to the one receiving it. So that means it needs to be contextual and specific. Now say I had bacterial growth from the bacteria staphylococcus aureus in my body, otherwise known as a staph infection. That information is news. Because it is contextual and specific to me, and I did not know it before.
But news also needs to be dependent on something. If I had a staph infection, I would be in a predicament. People die from staph infections, which is nuts because they’re very easy to get. This information would become news that would require a response. What am I going to do about this staph infection? What are my options? If I choose to do nothing about it, that’s still a response.
And before we move on, news is not a direct equivalent of truth. Something can be true but not news. If I found out three weeks ago that I had staph infection and had since taken action to treat it, and you came up and told me today, “Ashley, you have a staph infection.” That would be true. But it wouldn’t be news. It wouldn’t require a response from me. It would not put me in a predicament.
Likewise if you told your cousin in California that a person in Texas had a staph infection, but don’t worry your cousin doesn’t, that is not news. Because it does not put your cousin in a predicament or require a response. My predicament does not affect your cousin.
So news has to be contextual, specific, and dependent on a response.
But we also need to consider the credibility of the giver of the news.
If a person walked up to me on the street and said, “You have a staph infection,” I would keep walking because what does that person know? But if my doctor told me after a series of tests, then I would listen. Because she had done the due diligence to find out that information about me and deliver it. Now the person on the street could have been telling me the truth that I would later find out from my doctor, but because that person does not have credibility to deliver this news in my eyes, then it’s not news.
And finally, the news has to be possible. If staphylococcus aureus did not cause a staph infection, then a doctor telling me that I had a staph infection wouldn’t be true. It wouldn’t be news.
Okay, I think we’ve established what “news” is.
So what about the “good” part?
Well, that initial piece of information becomes relevant. If the species of fungus called penicillium rubens inhibits growth of the bacteria known as staphylococcus aureus, then that means my staph infection can be treated easily with the medicine derived from that fungus, a medication we know today as Penicillin.
That is good news because it saves my life. It solves my predicament. It affects me directly.
Not only is that information credible because it has been tested since the early 20th century, but it is also very possible. Penicillin is the most prevalent antibiotic in the world.
So then how is what John is saying, shouting really, good news?
First: he acknowledges the specific context the people are in. It’s the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, when Pontius Pilate was governor Judea, and Herod was ruler of Galilee. These are names you may recognize from Jesus’ story. This tells us that what John has to say is taking place under the reign of powerful political rulers and servants of Rome.
And there’s another piece of contextual information that is relevant: John received his call from God during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, which means that the work of John, and ultimately Jesus, is in opposition to the priestly hierarchy.
So that not only is John going up against political powers, but also religious powers, which we know sometimes overlap.
John’s call is borrowed from the prophet Isaiah: to prepare the way of the Lord so that every valley shall be filled, every mountain and hill made low, a grand leveling. The crooked shall be made straight, the rough ways smooth. And all flesh shall see the salvation of God, including those present in the religious assemblies, and those absent.
And John speaks to the Very Religious People, the VRPs, and says not a new thing really, but reminds them of the religious call already on their lives. To repent and repair. To change what they have been doing for eons. He makes it clear that he sees no value in their familial heritage. You’ve got family roots here? Who cares? You’ve got history around these parts? Doesn’t matter. What matters is not what you’ve done or what your family has done in the past, but what you are doing right now, what fruit you are producing right now.
His directions are concrete and practical: build a home that requires everyone sharing. Establish relationships of trust, not interactions of manipulation and power imbalance.
And the hard thing of what he is saying is that this building of a home for all may require some deconstruction.
John the Baptist is judgy as hell, but judgment does not necessarily equate to condemnation. To judge something means to see it clearly. And he’s calling them to see clearly. To notice the structures that are rotting. To notice when the institutions have compromised to survive. To notice which rituals and routines and traditions need to be repaired, reformed, or even put to rest.
So this is definitely news, right? It’s specific, contextual, contingent—it requires a response. It comes from a credible source—one who is called by God, whose family line is priestly, who is Jewish to the bone, who is indeed the cousin of the Promised One.
But is it good?
It may not feel good to the Very Religious People. To the people who have memories of how things have always been, to the ones who have a stake in things remaining the same. It may feel like bad news. Trees cut down. Winnowing forks and unquenchable fire.
But consider this: penicillium rubens is not good news to staphylococcus aureus. That fungus kills the bacteria. But it is good news to the host of the bacteria, isn’t it? And who is the ultimate receiver of John’s news? It’s not just the religious leaders.
It’s “all flesh.” It’s those in the valleys. It’s those in the rough parts. If we are truly making a home for all, that means some will not be privileged in the way that they are used to.
In means that some will not be prioritized over others simply because they and their family have been around forever. It means that some will no longer be able to wield their power in their favor whenever they please. It means that some voices will not be given the mic anymore.
But that is because other voices that have not been heard will finally be able to speak. It means that power will be redistributed so that those with lots of power have some taken from them and it is given to those with no power.
It means that those who have no history here or hail from somewhere far away will be given equal access. It means that those who are routinely disenfranchised and overlooked and ignored and exploited will finally have their moment.
So that all flesh will see the salvation of God. And here’s the good news for all of us: we are all better for it when the mountains are laid low and the valley are lifted. Most of us are mountain folk. That doesn’t mean our lives haven’t been difficult or we haven’t had challenges or disadvantages. But it does mean that we haven’t had to face those challenges in a floodplain.
And us mountain folk, us Very Religious People, are called to pay attention to the structures that are rotting. To notice when the institution has compromised to survive. To discern which rituals and routines and traditions need to be repaired, reformed, or even put to rest. That is no easy task. It is painful and difficult. It is hard to see ourselves clearly. But it is a worthy task, a gospel task, a truly Advent task.
Sometimes good news feels like bad news until we zoom out and see it from the perspective of the reign of God.
It’s true that John the Baptist will always be a buzzkill. But he’s not saying anything that’s not 100% bonafide gospel.
And we rejoice because we are people of God. And we get to participate in the collective construction and repair of the world God wants.
Wherever there is a leveling, wherever their is repair, wherever there is repentance, there is God. And where there is God, there is joy.
Amen.
O God of Peace, You Sent Us John - Insert
http://www.carolynshymns.com/o_god_of_peace_you_sent_us_john.html
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.
Receive this blessing….
May the God who welcomes us home,
Who creates a place,
Who has a chair with our name on it,
Fill our hearts with audacious hope for a better world,
And may we use our gifts to move us closer to that promised day.
Amen.
O Day of Peace - Insert
Doxology