Welcome/Call to Worship
Good morning! I’m Pastor Ashley Dargai. To those here in the chapel 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 as much or as little in our prepared liturgy as your spirit is willing.
A couple of announcements before we begin:
If you missed a Sunday and want to catch up on the worship series, you can listen to our church’s podcast wherever you get your podcasts.
This Saturday is Sting Fling, and we’ve got a booth! If you’d like to volunteer to help pass out water bottles and fans, please email Andrea at secretary@azlechristianchurch.org or get in touch with Nancy. We’ll send information out to our volunteers this week.
September 18 is our Cabinet Retreat—on Zoom and in-person. We’ll begin with a short breakfast and devotional outside, and then we’ll move in to the Fellowship Hall for our meeting.
The next day, September 19, will be our first Sunday back in the sanctuary! As we have been doing here, we will continue to serve individual communion cups and masks will be required in all parts of the building. The sanctuary doors will open at 10:50, ten minutes before worship begins, and they will close 10 minutes after service ends to minimize risk. Sunday School classes, children’s programming, and the nursery are still suspended for the time being as this will be a slow open. The Pandemic Response Committee continues to monitor the situation in our area to determine how to safely resume more activities and they continue to encourage getting fully vaccinated and wearing a mask in public places. So September 19! Mark your calendars.
The follow Sunday, September 26, the last Sunday of our worship series, we will have Dedication Sunday for our building.
September 29 is our first Gospels and Groceries even. We’ll host an outdoors hymn sing and collect food for our Little Free pantry.
We continue our new series this morning: Homecoming: Stories of Return. Today, we travel with Ruth and Naomi as they journey home after a devastating loss.
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.
Let us prepare our hearts for worship.
Litany of Faith
One: I rejoiced with those who said to me, “Let’s go to the Lord’s house!”
All: Now our feet are standing in your gates, Jerusalem!
One: Jerusalem is built like a city joined together in unity.That is where the tribes go up—the Lord’s tribes!
All: It is the law for Israel to give thanks there to the Lord’s name,
One: Because the thrones of justice are there—
All: The thrones of the house of David!
(From Psalm 122)
Pastoral Prayer
The Lord be with you.
Since it’s the first Sunday of the month, we will be singing the Lord’s Prayer, #310 in your hymnal.
Join me in prayer.
(From Calling on God)
Holy Wisdom, holy Breath,
You call us to love you
With all our heart and all our soul and all our mind,
To love our neighbors as we love our very selves.
Just as Ruth followed Naomi into a strange land,
We follow your call to be your people,
Not knowing where we will go
Or how we will live along the way.
Holy Wisdom, holy Breath,
The earth is yours and all that is in it,
The world, and those who live in it;
Oceans and rivers,
Mountains and valleys,
City and forest
All belong to You.
We give you thanks for stories of loyalty and love,
Of trust and hope and caring,
Of strangers who became family members,
Of the family of faith.
We give thanks for all the love that surrounds us,
For all that we know and all that we hope for,
Aloud and in the silence of our hearts.
Holy Wisdom, holy Breath,
We love you with all our heart and soul and mind,
We give you thanks for all the moments of our days,
For the earth and the sea and all that is in them.
And still we long for more.
We long for you to bring justice to those who are oppressed,
To give food to those who hunger,
To set the prisoners free,
And open the eyes of those who refuse to see.
We pray that you will lift up
Those who are bowed down with pain,
Watch over travelers who feel lost and alone,
Take care of widows and orphans
All who have no help but you.
We pray for loved ones and for strangers,
For our own needs,
And our own prayers.
And we entrust ourselves to our brother and redeemer Jesus, as we sing the prayer he taught us to pray…
Sermon
Ruth 1
In the days when the judges ruled, there was a famine in the land, and a certain man of Bethlehem in Judah went to live in the country of Moab, he and his wife and two sons. 2 The name of the man was Elimelech and the name of his wife Naomi, and the names of his two sons were Mahlon and Chilion; they were Ephrathites from Bethlehem in Judah. They went into the country of Moab and remained there. 3 But Elimelech, the husband of Naomi, died, and she was left with her two sons. 4 These took Moabite wives; the name of the one was Orpah and the name of the other Ruth. When they had lived there about ten years, 5 both Mahlon and Chilion also died, so that the woman was left without her two sons and her husband.
6 Then she started to return with her daughters-in-law from the country of Moab, for she had heard in the country of Moab that the Lord had considered his people and given them food. 7 So she set out from the place where she had been living, she and her two daughters-in-law, and they went on their way to go back to the land of Judah. 8 But Naomi said to her two daughters-in-law, “Go back each of you to your mother’s house. May the Lord deal kindly with you, as you have dealt with the dead and with me. 9 The Lord grant that you may find security, each of you in the house of your husband.” Then she kissed them, and they wept aloud. 10 They said to her, “No, we will return with you to your people.”
11 But Naomi said, “Turn back, my daughters, why will you go with me? Do I still have sons in my womb that they may become your husbands? 12 Turn back, my daughters, go your way, for I am too old to have a husband. Even if I thought there was hope for me, even if I should have a husband tonight and bear sons, 13 would you then wait until they were grown? Would you then refrain from marrying? No, my daughters, it has been far more bitter for me than for you, because the hand of the Lord has turned against me.” 14 Then they wept aloud again. Orpah kissed her mother-in-law, but Ruth clung to her.
15 So she said, “See, your sister-in-law has gone back to her people and to her gods; return after your sister-in-law.” 16 But Ruth said,
“Do not press me to leave you
or to turn back from following you!
Where you go, I will go;
where you lodge, I will lodge;
your people shall be my people,
and your God my God.
17 Where you die, I will die—
there will I be buried.
May the Lord do thus and so to me,
and more as well,
if even death parts me from you!”
18 When Naomi saw that she was determined to go with her, she said no more to her.
19 So the two of them went on until they came to Bethlehem. When they came to Bethlehem, the whole town was stirred because of them; and the women said, “Is this Naomi?” 20 She said to them,
“Call me no longer Naomi,
call me Mara,
for the Almighty has dealt bitterly with me.
21 I went away full,
but the Lord has brought me back empty;
why call me Naomi
when the Lord has dealt harshly with me,
and the Almighty has brought calamity upon me?”
22 So Naomi returned together with Ruth the Moabite, her daughter-in-law, who came back with her from the country of Moab. They came to Bethlehem at the beginning of the barley harvest.
This is the word of God for the people of God. Thanks be to God.
Growing up, when I visited my grandparents’ home, I used to peruse the shelves of knick knacks and thrift store finds that were scattered across the house. There were vintage Morton Salt coasters. Birdhouses. Pictures of Elvis and John Wayne. Dime novels and rusty lockets.
But my favorite things to pick up were the kaleidoscopes. I’d put my eye up to the lens and spin the wheels around, feeling like I was in the middle of a disco. I’d point it at a window as if I were an explorer, and only I could see the way to where we were going. I’d take us across the ocean and discover a deserted island with a secret, shouting, “Ahoy, matey!” at any passerby.
And then I’d point it at the floor to see light refracted across the colors as if I were a microbiologist, examining the vibrant dancing cells beneath my microscope. I’d diagnose disease and discover new cells and crack the code of humanity.
I think part of me loved kaleidoscopes so much because it reminded me of stained glass and I’ve always been a church nerd. But instead of a fixed picture, the colors were always moving, changing hues and shapes with each new twist and turn, letting the mirrors inside create endless possibilities. It was a reminder that a whirlwind of change could make something beautiful.
We read the first chapter of Ruth today. Her name is on the book, and her eventual marriage is the top of the narrative arc, and she ultimately appears as 1 of just 3 women in the lineage of Jesus in Matthew, but this book is not about Ruth. At least not primarily.
You see, the Hebrew Bible is about the Hebrew people. Specifically, the work of God in what would become the nation and people of Israel.
And Ruth is a Moabite woman who married into an immigrant family in her hometown in Moab. Moabites were kind of a distant, distant relative descending from Lot with whom Israel wars and says, “At least we’re not like them.” And almost immediately after becoming a wife, she becomes a widow. And just like her Moabite sister-in-law in the same boat, she was encouraged by her mother-in-law to return to her people—decidedly not the Hebrew people, but the Moabites.
Widows in that time were dependent on the families of their husband in these deeply patriarchal cultures. They could not simply live single lives and earn a living and reside quietly down the street. No, if their husband died, Plan A was that they would marry a brother so that they could bear a child and be taken care of in their old age. Either a son, who would receive an inheritance, or a daughter who would marry into a family who might take in her family, too.
But Naomi had no more sons. She makes the point to say, “Look, even if I were to get pregnant right now, which lol because that ship has sailed, would you really want to wait until that kid was an adult?” So Ruth and Orpah’s only option in Naomi’s family would be to married off to a distant relative in a faraway land they have never known: Judah. Which is a risky option anyway because they are Moabites, and there’s this whole thing about intermarriage in the Torah being forbidden.
So Naomi gives them an out—go back to your family. Hope to marry again. Be with your parents and siblings and people. Stay in the only home you’ve ever known. It’s unlikely you’ll be accepted in Judah anyway because our people have lots of laws about not marrying foreigners and that’s what my sons did. So return to your family of origin and start over. Go with God.
Orpah decides to do just that, which makes all the sense in the world, and is a kindness afforded to her by her mother-in-law.
But Ruth doesn’t return home with Orpah. She instead attaches herself to Naomi. Somewhere between Moab and Judah, the story slows down and the women converse. And they give voice to what is at stake for each of them as they each decide where home even is, what home means.
I cannot stress enough that these two woman don’t technically owe each other anything because of the patriarchal realities of their lives. No one would blame them for parting ways. It makes more sense for them to do so.
But in Ruth’s beautiful declaration of loyalty, she rejects that way of thinking and forges ahead, believing the future could be something they build together. And it would be.
As we see later in Scripture, Ruth’s progeny would include Israel’s beloved yet troubling king, David, and further down the line, her Moabite origins would result in the birth of Jesus.
But like I said before, this story is not about Ruth. I know it feels that way at the moment, but the story begins with Naomi’s family. Her Hebrew family in a testament about the Hebrew people. And when Ruth responds to Naomi’s kind offer to return to her Moabite home, the story shifts its focus back to Naomi.
At the beginning of the story, she left with an abundant life in a time of famine in her homeland. And now she returns empty in a time of abundance—the barley harvest. Naomi is at the mercy of the family and people she left behind. This book is only 88 verses long, but the word “turn” or another form, “return,” occurs 15 times, 12 times in this chapter.
So it seems for Naomi, turning and returning are the themes of her life, and in this story that disguises itself as a story about Ruth, it is Naomi who is the object of redemption. She is the one who returns. Ruth’s faithfulness is only the instrument God uses to accomplish this redemption.
She’s an unlikely instrument, to be sure. In so many of our homecoming stories, we see intersecting the message of return that the one we think of an outsider is the one who gets it, who gets what God is doing.
In the grand story of God, whose tales of redemption are told over and over again and are recapitulated throughout scripture, the unlikely is where the Divine dwells. The unexpected somehow brings us home. In the enslaved people of Egypt, in a burning bush on the outskirts of the desert, in the strange bread that appears like dew each morning, in the relationship formed between two women from opposing people groups—God seems to be popping up and surprising the people whom God loves.
And doesn’t it seem that ultimately, this story of the extraordinary faithfulness of one woman to another, is about the extraordinary faithfulness of God?
The parable-like nature of this story encourages us to be like Ruth, but it also highlights that we are very much like Naomi. Especially after this year. We are bereft, having lost so much—our jobs, our routines, our beloved ministries, people we love, and perhaps most troubling, time.
No one would bat an eye at us saying—“No, no. Don’t call me Naomi anymore. Just call me Mara for my life is bitter. It is a shell of what it was when I first set off on an adventure all those years ago, so sure of our futures and so happy with our decisions and so full of dreams and hope. But those things have lost their sweetness.”
Whether our lives reflect Naomi’s or Ruth’s more in this moment, the good news for the people of God is that God is always weaving redemption, showing up in the unlikely, sustaining even in the times of our greatest sorrow.
This is not to say that everything happens for a reason or that these are blessings in disguise. God is far too nuanced for those hot takes—see all the stories that follow the book of Ruth trying to make sense of exactly how God works.
But it is to say that in Ruth’s promise to Naomi is a promise for us: “Where you go, I will go. Where you stay, I will stay.”
Ruth rejects the way of thinking that they didn’t owe each other anything, and forges ahead, instead believing that the future was something they could build together.
And perhaps that is what we’re doing here today.
We are people of this faithfulness and redemption. These are our faith forebears.
And even when our culture says that we don’t technically owe one another anything, we forge ahead, believing that the reign of God is something we can only do together.
And even when we are encouraged to prioritize our own rights, we are a people who instead ask, “What are my obligations as a person of God?”
Even when we are tempted to turn inward and away from one another each in our own grief, we are a people who cling to one another, who take each other by the freshly sanitized hand, and put one foot in front of the other together. Because we understand that our fates are a single garment—we inextricably connected to one another in a network of mutuality.
Naomi returned home to Judah a different person than when she left. She makes that clear by changing her name. But she did not return alone. And neither do we.
Like Naomi and Ruth, we are making home a place we build together, helping each other let go of dreams and what-ifs and nostalgia, and instead pick up what is and make something beautiful together.
This is the work of redemption, after all. Not that everything remains the same, but that God sustains us through the changes, giving us each other so that we can dream and build together.
And perhaps our life with God is less like the stained glass and more like a kaleidoscope. The color always changing, the world always spinning, but in all the twists and turns, we continue to mirror the faithfulness of God to each other.
Amen.
Sharing Our Resources
There are many ways to support and resource the ministries of Azle Christian Church. Volunteering at things like Food Hub or Sting Fling or golf mailings. Filling our Little Free Pantry. And the sharing of your financial resources. There are many ways to do this: Venmo, giving online, giving box, offering plate.
I’m going to pass these plates 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.
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 to me after service or sometime this week.
Benediction
Please rise in body or spirit for our benediction, the final song, and the Doxology.
Our benediction this morning comes from Micah 6:8, the Inclusive Translation:
“Listen here, mortal:
God has already made abundantly clear
What “good” is, and what YHWH needs from you:
Simply do justice,
Love kindness,
And humbly walk with your God.”
May it be so. Amen.