Welcome
Good morning, church. I’m Pastor Ashley Dargai
A couple of announcements before we begin:
Kid Zone 3:45/youth 6
Board Meeting Wednesday 7
Bible study Thursday at 7 “People You May Not Know from the Bible, but Should”
Food Hub Saturday
All Saints Service—7 pm outside in the courtyard on 11/1 (socially distanced)
Make sure to check the links in the comments for various resources including ways to give financially to the church. Like and comment this video to let us know you’re here.
We begin a new worship series today called How to Make Faith Grow Legs: Spiritual Reflections on Our Material World. Frederick Douglass once wrote, “I prayed for 20 years but received no answer until I prayed with my legs.” This worship series is an exploration of how our spirituality translates into the physical, material world. Our devotion to God extends from a love in our heart to love on the ground, feeding people, enacting justice, and transforming the world we live in today.
Let us prepare our hearts for worship.
Pastoral Prayer
We offer prayers for Kathy Hufstedler’s family at the death of her brother in law, Fred Purser. We also surround in prayer those who are searching for work; Those who are food and shelter insecure; And those who are dealing with injury, and illness. If you would like to add someone to our prayer concerns, you can comment below, or call the church office.
The Lord be with you, and with your spirit, let us pray
Lord, in your bountiful goodness we have watched many things grow and blossom over these summer months. The children, Lord, they speak new words. They learn new skills. They grow faster and taller than weeds in our gardens. As their growing season continues, let them feel the blessings of your spirit encouraging them every moment.
We watched love grow, and celebrated weddings sometimes thousands of miles away, because of our 21st century technology. May these couples sense the blossoming of love throughout the stages of life to come.
We have also witnessed the growth of division and hostility. As we move into this new season, in the spirit of Saint Francis, let us sow understanding, let us hope, let us sow peace, that we would harvest compassion, justice, forgiveness, and a sense of community. Let us find ways to affirm the other and recognize the divine spirit within each one of your children. Guide us in ministries of grace, affirmation and conflict resolution.
Inevitably, Lord, one season follows another. We grieve for the loss of loved ones. We ache for the death of our family members, neighbors, friends. We lament that we have not been able to be physically present in many situations. Help us do the best we can to be present for our neighbors in their time of need. As all of us struggle in different ways, open our eyes to the opportunity to minister to each other, planting seeds of kindness, to blossom in the seasons to come.
We pray these things, and so much more that we carry in our hearts, as we pray together, the prayer Jesus taught his disciples:
Our father, who art in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your 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, and the power and the glory, forever. Amen.
Sermon
Deuteronomy 26:1-15
When you have come into the land that the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance to possess, and you possess it, and settle in it, 2 you shall take some of the first of all the fruit of the ground, which you harvest from the land that the Lord your God is giving you, and you shall put it in a basket and go to the place that the Lord your God will choose as a dwelling for his name. 3 You shall go to the priest who is in office at that time, and say to him, “Today I declare to the Lord your God that I have come into the land that the Lord swore to our ancestors to give us.” 4 When the priest takes the basket from your hand and sets it down before the altar of the Lord your God, 5 you shall make this response before the Lord your God: “A wandering Aramean was my ancestor; he went down into Egypt and lived there as an alien, few in number, and there he became a great nation, mighty and populous. 6 When the Egyptians treated us harshly and afflicted us, by imposing hard labor on us, 7 we cried to the Lord, the God of our ancestors; the Lord heard our voice and saw our affliction, our toil, and our oppression. 8 The Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, with a terrifying display of power, and with signs and wonders; 9 and he brought us into this place and gave us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey. 10 So now I bring the first of the fruit of the ground that you, O Lord, have given me.” You shall set it down before the Lord your God and bow down before the Lord your God. 11 Then you, together with the Levites and the aliens who reside among you, shall celebrate with all the bounty that the Lord your God has given to you and to your house.
12 When you have finished paying all the tithe of your produce in the third year (which is the year of the tithe), giving it to the Levites, the aliens, the orphans, and the widows, so that they may eat their fill within your towns, 13 then you shall say before the Lord your God: “I have removed the sacred portion from the house, and I have given it to the Levites, the resident aliens, the orphans, and the widows, in accordance with your entire commandment that you commanded me; I have neither transgressed nor forgotten any of your commandments: 14 I have not eaten of it while in mourning; I have not removed any of it while I was unclean; and I have not offered any of it to the dead. I have obeyed the Lord my God, doing just as you commanded me. 15 Look down from your holy habitation, from heaven, and bless your people Israel and the ground that you have given us, as you swore to our ancestors—a land flowing with milk and honey.”
This is the word of God for the people of God. Thanks be to God.
My husband, JD, was born and raised in Hungary. When he was born, the Soviet Union still controlled much of Eastern Europe, and it fell when JD was 4 years old. So he grew up in the reconstruction of Hungary, a country that had been split up after World War I and then occupied after World War II.
And as one does when married, I have heard a lot of Dargai family folklore over the years. I don’t mean folklore as in its not true or it is to be dismissed as children’s stories, but by folklore, I mean the stories that are told over and over again in a family, that are mythologized and canonized as official family history. I say folklore because these are the narratives we tell and retell as illustrations of who our family is. We learn a lot about our family by listening to the stories they tell.
In late October 1956, a student-led protest against the Soviet Union-propped-Hungarian government began in Budapest and spread across the country. For days, the revolt went on and the government eventually collapsed. By early November, it looked like the Soviet Union planned to negotiate terms for Hungary to leave the Warsaw Pact, essentially freeing them. But then one morning, as JD’s family tells it, tanks rolled in. The government had changed its mind and fighting ensued for a few more days, killing over 2,500 Hungarians and creating over 200,000 refugees who fled the country shortly after.
My mother-in-law, a young girl at the time, and her family stayed in Hungary, while most of her extended family fled to the U.S., beginning a very different life here than she would know there.
JD’s great uncle was one of the young freedom fighters, just 16 years old, and fled to Austria under the boards of a bread truck, the driver bribing the Russian border patrol with money and vodka, and he eventually left Italy on a U.S. Navy ship, telling his family for the rest of his life that he survived only on ice cream to avoid seasickness, per the Navy’s recommendation.
JD’s mom tells stories about her time during Soviet occupation—how she dressed up as a boy when the Russians came to her village to protect herself from sexual assault, how she was forced to learn and speak Russian growing up, but refuses to speak a word of it now, how despite the suffering she has endured, at 67 years old, she still dances all night at Hungarian weddings where dinner turns into breakfast.
The pride runs so deep that if you mention the rubiks cube, the Ford Model-T, Houdini, or Dracula in front of JD, and you’ll hear about all the famous brilliant Hungarians. Mention freedom, and JD will tell you about the statue of Kossuth Lajos in New York, the Hungarian who brought democratic ideals to the U.S. in the 1840s. These family stories waft into the nostrils of all who will listen and turn into a fragrant offering of hope and resilience.
In the offering instructions we read together today, the directions for a first fruits offering are elaborate: Once you have settled down, bring the first of what the ground produces, which God gave to you, and bring it as an offering. But this is not a drop it in the basket and slip out the back kind of offering. No, then comes a recitation of Israelite identity: “A wandering Aramean was my ancestor.” It’s like a country song. The story continues with how Abraham’s descendants became as numerous as the stars, how in Egypt they had been enslaved and then delivered by the God of their ancestors, who had heard their cry, how God had brought them to this very land. This offering was an offering of thanksgiving, an acknowledgement that they had been blessed, and now they would help provide for the needy among them. They would finish their recitation with something like, “Look down and see, God, that nothing shady has happened with this offering, and bless us again, as you have blessed us before.”
These are some of the guidelines for being in a community together, a covenant community as God’s people. First and foremost, remember who you are in the narrative of God, remember that you belong to one another and to God. Act accordingly.
The text presents these instructions as being given to the Israelites before they enter the land. But scholarship tells us that these instructions were written centuries after the Israelites had entered the Promised Land. We’ve talked about this a lot in our study of Genesis and Exodus—that these remembrances of early community life were in fact, written after the Israelites had been driven out of their land, their Holy City of Jerusalem fallen, the Temple destroyed, the Israelites in exile, living abroad in Babylon under the rule of someone else. King David and King Solomon had long since died, their military defeat defying explanation and putting the Israelites in danger of losing their sense of nationhood, their commitment to God, and any direction for preparing for a future. This text was not written, as Deuteronomy presents, by Moses as he is about to die and the Israelites are about to enter the Promised Land, but rather after the nation had lived a lot of life and lost the land in a devastating military defeat and were looking back on their history forlornly.
So while the Deuteronomy text comes across as hopeful of the community life that will flourish once the Israelites enter the land, isn’t it curious that it was written in a time where hope had been crushed by violence and exile? After they had been stripped of everything, they weaved a worldview retroactively, perhaps nostalgically, in which they give and share with one another and with God, telling a story to remind themselves, and perhaps God, of God’s faithfulness.
I think now of how I want JD to tell Annie his family stories, to tell her that she has revolutionary in her blood, that she has Hungarian resistance and resilience in her family tree.
Because you see, the stories that JD’s family tells over and over again paint a picture of who Hungarians are, who the Dargais are, the history and identity that our daughter will inherit and eventually pass on to her family.
Obviously, if you know about international politics, you know that the current Hungarian administration does not match up to the stories of democracy and freedom and revolutionary courage, but these stories that are told not just in JD’s family but in Hungarian families around the world are like a prayer or a prophetic word—reminding the diaspora of Hungarians who they are and where they come from, allowing those who remained in the country to hope beyond the present-day by drawing on the courage of the past. They are essentially speaking Hungarian identity into existence each time they tell these stories. And JD is building Annie’s transnational identity every time he talks about the ice cream on the Navy ship and the Soviet tanks on a crisp November morning.
Annie is only 2 years old, and she already has centuries of history to her name. Even as she entered the world two years ago, a blob who couldn’t see clearly and cried incessantly, who she will become was already taking shape because of the stories she would hear and the identity she would inherit as the great-great-niece of a freedom fighter and the granddaughter of a stalwart woman who loves to dance.
And it seems like this storytelling ethic is an essential part of the instruction of these detailed offering passages in Deuteronomy.
As those in exile look back centuries to tell the story of how the Hebrew people came to be, perhaps at the dinner table or at family gatherings, beginning with “A wandering Aramean was my ancestor…” they are peddling hope and making paths for themselves back to who they were when God called them, when God delivered them, when God made a covenant with them long ago. Remember who you are, they are saying in these instructions. Remember what God has done. Remembering is the seed that we plant so that hope will bloom.
They are looking around at their Babylonian captivity and say, “This does not define us.” It is as if to weave the story of God within the religious rituals of the Israelites is to remind them who they are and what God has done each time they bring their offering.
That in bringing offering that will cover celebration feasts for everybody and food of the priests, the widows, the foreigners, and the orphans, the Israelites are saying, this is the story of the God who provides for everyone. We are all a part of that story. Their memory was a memory of suffering, of powerful deliverance, and of blessing and providential care. To remember that experience as they bring their offering and tell that story is what it meant to confess one’s faith. “God has given us the very food in our hands. It is not our food,” they said. It is not our table, we might say today.
This doesn’t sound like a community ethic we’re used to living in the U.S., the one that says to hoard and protect one’s own. There are no bootstraps in this story. This doesn’t sound like advice to build capital and give to charity only once you have the means to do so. No, even from the exilic perspective of disaster and destruction of everything they’ve known, the writers of Deuteronomy are saying, open your hand, willingly lending enough to meet the need, whatever it may be.
Because living with open hands is an act of thankfulness, it’s an acknowledgement of the work of God, it is part of the story of the Hebrew people, it is brave statement of faith.
And may I highlight, this offering was meant to throw a party for everyone in the community. Enjoy the bounty, the text says, with everyone. Because even your tithe is meant to be consumed by you—parties thrown in the temple, or in the parking lot at Trunk-or-Treat, or at pancake dinner before the Ash Wednesday service. In this passing back and forth of the offering, the Israelites take care of each other. The open hands are a posture of giving and also receiving. It is a corporate existence always by and for the sake of each member of the community.
And each generation of Israelites gets to add their name to this story. The offering and all that it signifies and provides connects each generation with the previous and the subsequent generations. Through this act, each Israelite tells the story and thus becomes a part of the story. This offering is saying, “This is what God has done. This is who we are.” It’s educational and spiritual—they are speaking that world into existence again, a supplication of hope, a prayer of faith, a reminder that this is the world that God still loves.
Because perhaps what this passage has to say for us today is that spiritual commitment has material consequences. That we are connected to each other, to the people who have gone before us and the people who are not here yet through the ways we give and the stories we tell in our worship. Our worship series is called When Faith Grows Legs: it’s an exploration of how our spiritual commitment has material consequences, how our faith moves from our heart to our hands, our legs, every part of our lives.
One of the ways you can give to Azle Christian Church is through an app called Venmo. It hooks up to your bank account and makes paying people quick and paperless. But the thing about Venmo is it acts like a social media account—there’s a feed like when you scroll Facebook where you can see what others are paying for and who they’re paying, but not how much they’re paying. When you pay a friend back for coffee, you can just write “coffee” in the memo line. Or you can put a coffee emoji. Or you can write a quip like, “#liquidstrength.”
Azle has a line item in its budget for outreach ministries, and one of those ministries is to give to Galileo Christian Church, a church that shelters spiritual refugees such as people who are LGBTQ+ or who have mental illness and have been hurt by the church before. It’s the church I come from. Their Venmo feed reads like a modern-day millennial gospel.
I invite you to scroll through Galileo’s Venmo account sometime to read what people say they are giving to when they give to Galileo. In the “What’s it for?” section, people have written things like:
#Goodnews
For the world God still loves.
Greatest need
For the continuing lesson of forgiveness
Because I’m here and I can and I love you
For making space for questions and love
#Wearethehandsandfeet
These Venmo entries tell the story of the work of God in this community in 21st century language. It’ll make you cry.
And when we give our resources, we are adding our name to the very long story of God and humanity.
When we give, we are saying, “This is the world God wants—a world where hungry people find food, where kids have a safe place to play, where every generation is valued and cared for, where those don’t have a church home because they are different find arms wide open, where the table of Christ puts our relationships into perspective, where God in God’s diverse imago Dei are welcome.”
When we bring our offering, we tell the story of God’s love and provision not only in our lives, but also in the generations before us, with hope that this story continues in generations after us.
Stewardship is a crucial part of bringing into existence the reign of God because we are living as if the gospel were true. We make it true every time we open our hand.
We are saying to those around us, with this offering, “I care about you. I care about us. Let’s have a party. Let’s help someone pay their bills. Let’s sign up for Food Hub or Kid Zone or a work day. Let’s keep throwing our door open with a big, wide welcome.”
Because this is gospel logic. This is how the kingdom economy works—not by hoarding and hiding, but by living with an open hand, not only to give our offerings to God, but also to receive God’s provision for us. Holding our hands open allows for an offering back and forth. Because isn’t that what freedom in covenant means? That we enjoy a community of mutuality and belonging? That we take care of one another?
And might this be some of the longing inside those in Babylonian exile—a yearning for the economy of God, a desire for a community that is together again, and a recognition of the goodness and faithfulness of God?
JD’s great uncle, the freedom fighter who fled to the U.S. on a Navy ship, eventually returned to Hungary at the end of his life. He wanted to see the fruits of everything he fought for. The Israelites who went into exile didn’t get to see the Temple rebuilt or their nationhood restored, but they held out hope, continuing to bring their offering, praying for the welfare of their city, as the prophet Jeremiah tells us, and telling the story of God and their people.
Because as Lin-Manuel Miranda writes in Hamilton, “Legacy? What is a legacy? It’s planting seeds in a garden you’ll never get to see.”
We get to see a lot of the blooming at Azle through our own and others’ offerings, but we are also planting seeds for a garden we’ll never get to see, just as the Israelites in exile told a story in hopes of a restoration they would never get to see.
Remembering is the seed we plant for hope to bloom. When we bring our offerings, we tell the story of God in our lives, at Azle, in the church at large, in the world God still loves. Amen.
Communion
One documentary, long ago, asked if we knew who was invited to our breakfast table. What was in the cereal? Where did it grow? Who harvested it? The milk, were were the cows? Who milked them, who processed the milk? Who stocked the shelves? Who picked the coffee beans? Who harvested the oranges? It’s a humbling process, but well worth the effort to give thanks for the many people with whom we are connected.
Maybe that’s why, as a part of the earliest celebrations of communion in the church, they passed the peace. It slowed them down. It reminded them that they were not alone in this experience. It connected them with each other, and with God.
“The peace of Christ be with you.” And the response is: “And also with you.” If you are with someone, share that phrase, or if you are watching by yourself, share that with me. The peace of Christ be with you.
This bread, it was first a gift of God, grain of the field, and by the work of human hands, it becomes bread. By the presence of God’s Spirit it becomes our spiritual food. This cup, it is, first, a gift of God, it is fruit of the vine, and by the work of human hands it becomes our juice, our wine. And by the presence of God’s Spirit, it is our spiritual drink.
On the night when Jesus gathered with his disciples, he took bread, blessed it, broke it and gave it to his disciples saying, “This is my body which is for you. Take it. Eat it, in remembrance of me.” And after supper, he took the cup. He gave thanks, and shared it with them. He said, “This is the cup of the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for many. Drink this, all of you, in remembrance of me.
May the presence of Christ be your strength this day, and always.
Sharing Our Resources
When we give, we add our chapter to that story, to the long history of God’s people, to the history of generosity and justice at Azle Christian Church. We affirm the legacy of God’s faithfulness and we pray with our hands, with our dollars, with our generosity that God will keep being faithful here in our tiny pop-up of the reign of God. It’s like a community garden, where we will share what we have with one another, taking turns sowing seeds and pruning leaves and harvesting.
If you have not already made a commitment to help resources the ministries of Azle Christian Church, I encourage you to consider doing so. There are several ways for you to give—your time, your gifts, and human power, and financially, online, Venmo, text-to-give, or by check. See the comments on this video for details.
Finally, if you or someone you know is in need of help during this time, please contact our church office or get in touch with us through Facebook or email.
Benediction
For our benediction today, I invite you to hold your hands out and open and repeat after me:
Go out as people of God
Forgiven, blessed, and filled
Share all that you have
Return no one evil for evil
Be the hands and feet of Jesus
In a world that needs what we’ve got.
Amen.