Welcome/Call to Worship
Good morning! I’m Pastor Ashley Dargai 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. For our young ones, there is a coloring page and crayons for children to participate in worship as well as a designated area with toys in the back for families of little ones who need to move around and play to worship God. We believe that every age offers a unique perspective of the image of God, and we know that the energy and spirit of children can be different than adults and we consider that reality a gift.
There are visitor cards in the pew in front of you—if you arrived during the pandemic or later, of 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.
A couple of announcements before we begin:
This Saturday is our next Food Hub. You can sign up to volunteer on the link provided on Facebook and in your eblast.
Next Sunday afternoon, we will have another Bible and Beer. We will gather at John and Sondra Williams’ house at 5 pm. You bring a snack to share, the Piercys will supply home-brewed beer, and we’ll study a scripture text together as we watch the sun set.
We invite you to Sunday School at 10 AM every week. There’s classes that meet in the Seekers room and the Fellowship Hall. There is also a children and youth class that meets in the parlor.
Our nursery is open and available from 9 AM until the end of service for any little ones.
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.
And now an announcement from our Pandemic Response Committee:
As a church community, we have a particular responsibility to the 'least of these,' which in the case of the pandemic, are those most vulnerable to severe disease and death. We have exercised caution in order to provide a safer environment for all to worship God and enjoy fellowship with one another. We understand that at times, our risk mitigation has been slower to lift than other groups, but we have moved slowly out of an abundance of care for those most at risk within our community. We will maintain this commitment by continuing to monitor relevant COVID-19 data in our area in order to provide guidance for safe communal gathering.
Beginning Sunday, March 27, masks will be optional* at ACC. Employees caring for children too young to be vaccinated will still be required to wear masks. Masks will also still be required in the church office area.
The Pandemic Response Committee continues to encourage masks while indoors, welcomes you to wear a mask, and asks you to maintain social distancing with those who choose to wear masks.
We also continue to encourage respect and consideration of others who may be high risk/especially vulnerable and want to maintain social distancing.
We will continue to closely monitor pandemic data and will update guidance accordingly. We will consider re-instituting the requirement for masks if the Tarrant county COVID hospital bed occupancy rate, found on the Tarrant County public health website, exceeds 200, evaluated in the context of other relevant metrics.
We continue to strongly recommend full vaccination and boosting.
We continue our worship series this morning: Full to the Brim: An Expansive Lent. This morning, we ask Jesus some hard questions.
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.
Litany
One: All of you who are thirsty, come to the water! Whoever has no money, come, buy food and eat!
All: Without money, at no cost, buy wine and milk!
One: Why spend money for what isn’t food, and your earnings for what doesn’t satisfy?
All: Listen carefully to me and eat what is good; enjoy the richest of feasts.
One: Listen and come to me; listen, and you will live.
All: I will make an everlasting covenant with you, my faithful loyalty to David.
(Isaiah 55:1-3)
Pastoral Prayer
The Lord be with you.
Join me in prayer.
Holy God,
So often, we treat our self-worth like something that can be bought at a store;
but you know this even better than we do.
Instead of trusting that we are made good,
Instead of trusting that we are loved exactly as we are,
We stockpile our value in earthly thing—
In trophies and awards, in likes and follows, in wealth and power.
Forgive us for creating our own measuring stick.
Heal our open wounds and tell our hearts that we won’t be forgotten if we slow down.
We won’t be forgotten if we rest.
God of fig trees and foxes,
Of today and tomorrow,
We ask that you scoop us up.
Pick us up like a great gust of wind.
Startle us awake like a first love.
Light a fire in us like tomorrow depends on today.
Do all of this to get our attention and then turn us toward you.
We are a scattered people, God.
The world is moving faster than we can keep up.
So we pray—scoop us up.
Catch our eye.
Open our ears.
Capture our attention.
We are here. We long to be close to you.
Gratefully, we ask it in the name of our brother and redeemer Jesus, who taught 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.
Sermon
Luke 13:1-9
At that very time there were some present who told him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. 2 He asked them, “Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way they were worse sinners than all other Galileans? 3 No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish as they did. 4 Or those eighteen who were killed when the tower of Siloam fell on them—do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others living in Jerusalem? 5 No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish just as they did.”
6 Then he told this parable: “A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard; and he came looking for fruit on it and found none. 7 So he said to the gardener, ‘See here! For three years I have come looking for fruit on this fig tree, and still I find none. Cut it down! Why should it be wasting the soil?’ 8 He replied, ‘Sir, let it alone for one more year, until I dig around it and put manure on it. 9 If it bears fruit next year, well and good; but if not, you can cut it down.’”
This is the word of God for the people of God. Thanks be to God.
Today, we’re going to begin with a test. Don’t worry—you needn’t have studied for this test. It’s a personality test, so all you have to do is answer honestly.
I am assuming that we have all engaged in a personality typing system at some point. For example, raise your hand if you’re an extrovert. Now raise your hand if you’re an introvert. Raise your hand if you’re Type A. Now Type B.
Raise your hand if you’ve taken the following tests either in a formal manner or on a quiz online:
Myers-Briggs
Strengths Finder
Taylor Johnson
Enneagram
Career Aptitude
Love Language
Are you street smart or book smart? Do you have a high traditional IQ or a high emotional IQ? What’s your astrological sign? Any fellow Aquariuses out there? I don’t know anything about astrology.
There are lots of ways for us to self-identify. And many of these tests help us step back from our inner world and see ourselves with clarity. They might help us navigate relationships or careers a little better. Or maybe they box us in or are used as excuse for bad behavior. You might think personality tests are a bunch of baloney.
Well, if that’s the case, get the bread and mayo out because we’re about to have a bologna sandwich because here comes your next personality test.
I’m going to describe three personality types for you. Take note of which one sounds most like you.
Type 1:
You are goal-oriented. You thrive on seeing results. People see you as someone who gets things done, who can handle responsibility well, and has a clear eye for business. While you do exhibit some creative or whimsical behavior from time to time, you are generally a serious person who values efficiency and productivity.
Type 2:
You are a visionary. You can see things that others can’t. People see you as a hard worker with a soft edge. While some think you pour energy into things that don’t matter, your work is grounded in wisdom and patience. You value organic and sustainable growth above all and hold space for ambiguity.
Type 3:
You often feel out of place. You are not focused on productivity but rather being true to yourself. While you pride yourself on being different, you feed off others’ energy and are inspired by those who invest in you and your work. People tend to see you as unpredictable but having a lot of potential. You value authenticity and moving at your own pace despite outside pressures.
If you most identified with Type 1, congratulations, you are the landowner in this story! If you most identified with Type 2, you are the gardener! And if you most identified with Type 3, you are the fig tree!
We’ll get back to what all this means in a minute, but first, we need to contend with the first half of this story.
The text begins with some headline horrors. First, they report to Jesus that Pilate had his soldiers kill some Galilean worshippers as they offered sacrifice at the temple. While this cruel incident is not corroborated with any other historical text, what is known is that Pilate had a reputation for doing similar horrific things. So this report that the people give to Jesus is not out of the realm of possibility.
And Jesus responds with a story of his own: a tower at the Pool of Siloam, which lay on the outskirts of Jerusalem, had fallen and killed 18 innocent people. While Pilate’s violence was an act of religious and political violence, the tower falling was a tragedy of fate.
Why are these things happening? This is the question the text presents. Why did God let this happen? We don’t have to continue reading to know that Jesus doesn’t address these questions because we still ask them today.
In typical Jesus fashion, he answers a big existential question with a story.
A landowner had a fig tree in his vineyard that hadn’t produced fruit in 3 years. He decides to cut it down and stop wasting soil. But then the gardener speaks up and says to give it a year. Let him dig around and put some manure in. If it still doesn’t produce any fruit, then sure, we can cut it down. The end.
If you remember, parables are not straightforward stories. They’re meant to be chewed on, to roll around in our hands, to step inside of. We walk around and around trying to find the trap door. One of the ways we do this is by asking questions.
For one thing, why is there a fig tree in a vineyard? That’s not where fig trees go. Perhaps it was planted to provide some shade or to diversify the soil, but if that were that case, then no one should care that it wasn’t producing figs.
And why isn’t the tree producing figs? Is it the landowner’s fault for planting a fig tree in a vineyard? Is it the gardener’s fault for not tending to it the way he should? Is it the fig tree’s fault? Depending on your personality type from earlier, you may be making a case in your head for why it isn’t your type’s fault.
But remember Jesus is telling this story in response to two tragedies: the murder of the worshipers and the tower collapse. These tragedies have people asking why they happened.
And it’s not that Jesus doesn’t like questions. It’s just that instead of giving them an answer to their questions, he is trying to help them ask a better question.
Maybe a better question is what shall we do with this unproductive fig tree? What shall we do with the fact that we have a tree but no figs? That we have a tree in the middle of a vineyard?
You know, you don’t find a lot of fig trees in vineyards in scripture. But there is one place that’s quite lovely: the prophet Micah envisions the day of the Lord, and he writes that on that day, “Everyone will sit under their own vine and under their own fig tree, and no one will make them afraid.”
That sounds really nice.
I wonder what made the landowner plant that fig tree. His gardener may have planted it sure, but he approved it, right? Was he imagining making wine with hints of fig? Or do you think he was thinking about Micah? I can’t say, but maybe.
In any case, do you think he was having a moment of divine imagination? Do you think his heart was opening to God’s vision for the world? And what changed? It’s been at least three years, and still no figs. Waiting around for the relief of a moment of sitting under your own vine and fig tree and none shall make you afraid was probably disheartening. Perhaps you, too, know a little about waiting for something that never seems to come.
I wonder what has broken his heart so much that he is ready to cut down a tree and use the soil for something else. Has he given up on this God dream?
And what about the gardener? “Dig around and put manure on it”—that plan seems both helpful and also inelegant. The gardener is ready to try for a little longer. He seems to have some faith in the tree or his own ability to coax some fruit from it. Or maybe he’s become attached to the tree. Maybe he sits underneath it looking out at the vineyards wishing for his own vine and fig tree where none shall make him afraid.
And what about this fig tree? Why he is languishing? Has he contracted a disease? Is he getting enough water? Does his soil have the nutrients he needs? What is the purpose of a tree anyway? Is it only to produce? It makes me think of that children’s book, The Giving Tree, where the tree gives and gives until there’s nothing left.
We don’t know if this tree ever did produce any fruit after that year. The story ends before that. What do you wish happened? That it did produce fruit in the end? Or maybe that it didn’t and the landowner and gardener had a change of heart? Or that it didn’t produce fruit, the tree was chopped down and something else flourished in its place?
Maybe what we wish happened tells us a little bit about ourselves. It might allow us to step back from our inner world and see more clearly.
Why do terrible things happen? This is the question that prompts this story.
And what we see in this story is that at one time, this landowner had a vision for something impractical and beautiful. And he doesn’t want to waste anything.
And this gardener is a tender, one who tends to things. He sees something the landowner can’t at the moment.
And this fig tree. Well, if I were to take this personality test, I would be the fig tree. What is my worth if I can’t produce? Why am I here? Could I have a little more care and patience?
And perhaps this moment when all three actors converge is the answer we’re looking for.
The end that the reign of God is looking toward is not one focused on endless production and consumption. It is one of slow, careful, steady work. The kind that abides and loves and pays attention.
The slow work is not for the outcome, but for the sake of care itself. Care is an end to itself. This work is for us to see something as beautiful as one’s own vine and fig tree where none shall them afraid as a worthy way to spend our lives. Where all can live in care and security.
The slow work is for the tending, of digging around and getting dirt under our fingernails as we wait and pray. It’s for taking the manure, to put it less delicately, taking the crap in our lives, and letting it be repurposed for life and acts of hope.
The slow work is letting ourselves be tended to. Of moving at a pace that is soul- and body-honoring, of providing shade and finding our worth in the fact that God has called us good and worthy as we are. We do not have to produce to earn care. We do not have to strive to be worthy. We do not have to achieve to be loved.
Which is a roundabout way to say that after all this time, we don’t know why bad things happen. But we are here together, dreaming about the reign of God, helping take care of one another. That is what we can do when bad things happen. And that might be the best answer we will get.
Amen.
Stewardship Moment
There are many ways to support and resource the ministries of Azle Christian Church: Venmo, giving online, or the offering plate. I also invite you to bring nonperishable items for our Little Free Pantry. The collection shelves for the pantry are in the Fellowship Hall right outside the kitchen.
The deacons are going to hand these plates over during our final song, starting at the front row and they just to need make their way to the back where a deacon will collect them. You can drop your offering, an “I gave online card,” or an information card.
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.
May we trust that the God of the cosmos is at work here,
That God is fertilizing the soil,
That God is planting roots,
That God is growing fruit yet to be tasted.
And until that promised day, when the fig tree stands tall and swords are beaten into plowshares,
Even when our work does not bear fruit,
Even when the soil grows dry and cracked,
When all seems hopeless here on earth,
May we trust that the God of the cosmos is still at work here.
Amen.