Introit: All of Life is Filled With Wonder - Insert
http://www.carolynshymns.com/all_of_life_is_filled_with_wonder.html
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.
After service today is our Thanksgiving Lunch in the Fellowship hall.
You can purchase a poinsettia for the church sanctuary or you can do a virtual poinsettia, which means your donation goes to the general church budget. Poinsettia are traditionally purchased in memory of a loved one. They’re $10, and you can drop by the church office or call or email secretary@azlechristianchurch.org to order them remotely.
Our annual congregational meeting is Sunday, December 4th, immediately following service. Please make every effort to attend.
Beginning today, you can pick up your Advent materials to take home that coincide with our Advent worship series, Close to Home. There is an Advent calendar, a daily devotional replete with poetry, hymns, art work, and devotional material. And there are coloring pages for grown-up that go with the artwork you’ll see next week. You can bring the coloring pages to worship and work on them while you listen!
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, you can find the serving calendar for the month is on the bulletin board outside the sanctuary, inside the tech booth, and in the work room in the office.
Today, we say goodbye to Ordinary Time as we prepare for the coming season of Advent.
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: For the Fruit of All Creation - 714
Litany of Faith
One: God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.
All: Therefore we will not fear, though the earth be moved, and though the mountains be toppled into the depths of the sea;
One: We will not fear, though the sea waters rage and foam, and though the mountains tremble at its tumult.
All: The LORD of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our stronghold.
One: Come now and look upon the works of the LORD, what awesome things God has done on earth.
All: Be still, then, and know that God is God, exalted among the nations, exalted in the earth.
(From Psalm 46)
Pastoral Prayer
After Prayer: Give Thanks - 528
Children’s Moment
Anthem: For Everything There is a Time - ACC Choir
Sermon
Ecclesiastes 3:1-15
For everything there is a season and a time for every matter under heaven:
2 a time to be born and a time to die;
a time to plant and a time to harvest;
3 a time to kill and a time to heal;
a time to break down and a time to build up;
4 a time to weep and a time to laugh;
a time to mourn and a time to dance;
5 a time to scatter stones and a time to gather stones together;
a time for holding close and a time for holding back;
6 a time to seek and a time to lose;
a time to keep and a time to throw away;
7 a time to tear and a time to mend;
a time to keep silent and a time to speak;
8 a time to love and a time to hate;
a time for war and a time for peace.
9 What gain have the workers from their toil? 10 I have seen the business that God has given to everyone to be busy with. 11 God has made everything suitable for its time; moreover, the Almighty has put a sense of past and future into their minds, yet they cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end. 12 I know that there is nothing better for them than to be happy and enjoy themselves as long as they live; 13 moreover, it is God’s gift that all should eat and drink and take pleasure in all their toil. 14 I know that whatever God does endures forever; nothing can be added to it nor anything taken from it; God has done this to keep reverence for the sacred alive in us. 15 That which is, has already been; that which is to be, already is; and God seeks out what has gone by.
This is the word of God for the people of God. Thanks be to God.
It is the last Sunday of Ordinary Time. Another year in our church calendar comes to a close today, and we begin a new one next week with Advent.
In a way, this is our New Year’s Eve party. We’re looking back at the year just past, and we’re already getting ready for the next year. Plans have been made for the sanctuary to be transformed this week while we are eating turkey and pumpkin pie. So look around, remember what this space looks like right now. It will look very different for the next 6 months.
And if this is our New Year’s Eve party, we should consider all the elements of our party. We have dry crackers that are begging to lathered with soft cheese. We have grape juice that tastes fermented, so we almost have wine.
You all are dressed nicer than you might dress for a day at the house. We’ve got candles and music to set the mood. We may not be making New Year’s resolutions, but we are setting intentions, aren’t we? How much we intend to give in 2023, if we will really use the Advent devotionals sent home, perhaps how this Christmas season will be different.
All we’re missing is our New Year’s song: “Auld Lang Syne.”
You know how it goes, “For auld lang syne, my Jo, for auld lang syne / We’ll take a cup of kindness yet for auld lang syne.”
For a song that is sung around the English-speaking world, it’s not an easy one to decipher. The language is old Scottish English and most of us probably mumble the words when it plays, singing heartily the one phrase we do know. So let’s break it down, shall we?
Jo is not a person, but a Scots word that means, “dear,” which is easy enough. But “auld lang syne” is a little trickier to translate. It literally means “old long since,” which we might think of as “the old times.” We have a phrase in English that complements “for auld lang syne,”: for old time’s sake.
One more cup of kindness, my dear. For old time’s sake.
The poet Robert Burns is the attributed author of the song, but the first verse dates much further back than Burns. “Should auld acquaintance be forgot / and never brought to mind? / Should auld acquaintance be forgot / and auld lang syne.”
This song is so hard to date in part because what it talks about is so generic. Drinking together, remembering the old times—these themes could have been sung about 100 years ago, 300 years ago, 3000 years ago.
Isn’t it interesting that in a time when we are looking forward to the new, we always sing this ambiguously old song? It doesn’t look forward, it looks back. It is wistful and nostalgic, but not in a way that romanticizes the longing for things past. But rather, it acknowledges that each new year, each new moment is a product of all the old ones.
That which is, has already been; that which is to be, already is.
We have spent approximately six months in Ordinary Time—the stretch of time between Pentecost and Advent where there are no high holy days. We walk leisurely through our rituals and practices together, and we inhabit a slower pace of encountering God. Ordinary Time follows the Holy Seasons, so it is the second half of our church year, which is appropriate because it is supposed to be a time of exhalation and rest.
The calendar of the church is like a pendulum swinging back and forth, or a pair of lungs breathing in and out. We have been letting out a long exhale since June. And we are about to take in our first gulp of fresh air.
As we begin the new church year, our rituals and practices will intensify. We will take big inhales of Advent and Christmastide, and then Lent and Eastertide, rehearsing the key moments of Christ’s movement in the world, the very moments that define who we are as Christians.
The Holy Seasons are familiar in that we sing the same songs each year and read the same stories, yet each time they are sung and read, they are new. For we are not who we were the last time we encountered them. The world, too, has changed.
So as we move through familiar choreography in the coming weeks, we may find that we have changed. That the word of God falls fresh on us. We may raise a glass for old time’s sake, but we must remember that the only moment we have now is this one.
As we prepare to begin our long inhale, it may seem funny to read from the book of Ecclesiastes. Aside from the obvious seasonal poem in the first half of our reading, the second half of the text seems nihilist. Indeed, the whole of the book of Ecclesiastes seems to say that everything is meaningless. It’s a vapor, here today and gone tomorrow.
But I think Ecclesiastes is an excellent book to conclude Ordinary Time with and I’ll tell you why by, beginning with a fun fact.
In verse 9: the Teacher, who is the speaker in Ecclesiastes, asks, “What gain have the workers from their toil?”
We might think of toil as honest work. The goal-oriented labor that we might now describe as a work ethic. What do you gain from an honest day’s work? That’s easy, some generations might say. A sense of pride, accomplishment, an honest wage.
But that’s not how the word toil is used in the rest of the Hebrew Bible. Because actually, this word “toil” almost always has negative connotations. The word toil conveys ideas such as trouble, weariness, sorrow, mischief, and even oppression. And for the Teacher, toil and life are practically identical.
So the question being asked is not so much about an honest day’s work, but rather: What gain have the workers from all this trouble? From this oppression? From life itself?
Maybe that fun fact isn’t all that fun.
But what he’s asking changes if our understanding of toil changes. That’s crucial not only to the second, nihilist half of the text, but also the first half that we know so well.
If he’s not asking, “What is the point of a good work ethic?” but rather, “What is the point of life that is so filled with suffering?” the stakes are different.
It becomes less of a lecture and more of a middle of the night existential crisis.
Because truly, this question is an invitation to rethink our priorities.
God has made everything suitable for its time, and God has put a sense of past and future in our hearts. We don’t get all the answers and reasons, if there are any, but we can feel it the passing of time. We can sense something weightier happening than just the ticking of a clock.
And the Teacher’s advice for dealing with this mysterious passing of time is to be happy. To enjoy one’s self. To eat and drink. To find pleasure in one’s toil. In life and all of its trouble.
Because all of it is sacred. Ordinary and holy. Mundane and miraculous. Humdrum and hallowed.
Should old acquaintance be forgot? No. We can raise a glass to the old times, for old time’s sake.
But let us also raise a glass to the moment we’re in. Let’s find the gift of right now in who is with us today, in the food we share today, and the toil that is ours.
This last day of Ordinary Time, this last Sunday of the church year, just like New Year’s Eve, feels momentous. It is a thin space that highlights the precipice we are always on.
Because we are forever caught in the turn of a calendar page. That’s not unique to this day. And our call, according to the Teacher, is to create meaning right here.
Those first lines of Ecclesiastes 3 feel fateful, don’t they? “For everything there is a season and a time for every matter under heaven: a time to be born and a time to die.” We know those times acutely because those two times are clearly out of our hands.
But the rest of the list is within our control to some extent, isn’t it? It is our task to discern when it is time to plant and time to harvest, time to hold close and a time to hold back, time to keep silent and time to speak.
The turning of the seasons in church time is out of our control. It is inevitable It was set a long time ago by people who knew what they were doing.
But what we do with that time, with the season we are entering, is up to us. And our task is to see clearly where we are now, and to find the joy right now. To eat the food we have now. To see who is here with us now.
It is said that the word “liturgy,” the name for what we do in worship, comes from the word “leitourgia,” which roughly translates to “the work of the people.”
So that what we do here on Sundays is our work. It is what gives meaning shape and form in our lives.
And truly, what gain have we from this work? What pleasure do we take from it?
Engaging “the toil” in this way is how we keep life from being meaningless. It’s how we push back against futility, against doing the same thing over and over again.
The late Amy Krouse Rosenthal, a prolific American author, wrote a multiple choice question in one of her memoirs that goes like this:
“In the alley, there is a bright pink flower peeking out through the asphalt. Circle the one that most applies:
A. It looks like futility.
B. It looks like hope.”
So what will we do in the New Year? What will the extra oxygen from the big inhale of holy time give to our bodies and our minds? What will we discern in the coming months about auld lang syne, the old times, and what will we do with the now times?
Amen.
After Sermon: When You Do This, Remember Me - 400
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. Don’t forget to drop your notification survey in the plate.
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 grace of the Lord Jesus Christ
And the love of God
And the fellowship of the Holy Spirit
Be with us all
Until we meet again.
Amen.
Benediction Hymn: Now Thank We All Our God - 715 v 1 & 3
Doxology