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!
We realize that you did not arrive here this morning on accident. You made your way to this little church off Main Street, to historic chapel in the back of the parking lot.
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 podcast. Last week, we dropped our first installment of Music Monday, where we talk about our Homecoming series and the anthems we chose.
We recently started using an online giving system called Vanco. And through the Vanco app, we are able to assemble a church directory on the app so that we can have immediate access to contact information as well as send out reminders for events and alerts for changes of plan. You don’t have to use the online giving portion of Vanco in order to use the church directory and communication aspect of it, so if you give through Venmo or bank drafts or personal checks or something, keep doing that. Today after service, there will be a brief tutorial immediately for the Vanco app. We’ll help you get set up, answer any questions you have about using the app, and make sure you’re good to go before you leave the chapel.
On September 11, we will have a booth set up for Azle’s Sting Fling. If you’d like to volunteer to help pass out water bottles and be the face of ACC, of if you want to volunteer in a more behind the scenes mode of set up and tear down, please email see Nancy after service or email Andrea at secretary@azlechristianchurch.org.
On September 18, we will have our Cabinet Retreat here at the church and on Zoom. It will be our first official attempt at a hybrid meeting, which is the future of our meeting formats. More details are forthcoming, so stay tuned.
On September 26, the last Sunday of our worship series, we will have Dedication Sunday for our building as it will be completed.
If you’ve been volunteering with Food Hub on the fourth Saturday of every month for years or if you’ve never been but would like to try, there is a sign-up available to get you plugged in and make sure those mornings are fully staffed. It’s available on the eblast, will be posted on Facebook in the coming weeks, and Emily Harden will have a sign-up during service starting next week.
We continue our new series this morning: Homecoming: Stories of Return. Today, we tag along with Jesus as he returns home to Nazareth.
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: Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence?
All: If I climb up to heaven, you are there; if I make the grave my bed, you are there, too.
One: If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,
All: Even there your hand will lead me and your right hand hold me fast.
One: If I say, “Surely the darkness will cover me, and the light around me turn to night,”
All: Darkness is not dark to you; the night is as bright as the day; darkness and light to you are the same.
(Psalm 139:7-12)
Pastoral Prayer
The Lord be with you.
Today, we are praying for the start of the new school year as we prepare with school supplies and consider safety precautions and meet teachers. So a few people are going to help me pray today so I’m going to invite them up. Christi Cowan, a current teacher, Diane Weger, a retired teacher, and Alison Musick, a student. After our prayer, Nicole will sing a song of blessing for all of our congregants returning to school next week.
Let’s pray:
Ashley: Steady and Abiding God, with You, every transition and new start is a reminder of Your goodness, for You are always creating fresh, amazing things in us and through us. As we approach this school year with both apprehension and excitement, we give thanks for the opportunity to learn and grow.
Christi: God our teacher, who helps us to understand the world around us, thank you for the privilege of education. In a year of turmoil, disruption, and loss, we recognize the gift of learning and the gift of teaching in ways we may not have appreciated before. You have blessed our communities with teachers who take new skills and concepts and pass them along to each new class.
Diane: God who came as a child to show us how to be fully human, to show us how to be children of God, You have given our children minds that grow and develop in unique ways, at unique speeds, and we are astounded by that miracle. You speak to us through the words, actions, play, and feelings of children. You call us to listen to the Spirit speaking through our young siblings in Christ.
Alison: God of fresh starts, we bring ourselves, our big feelings, and our backpacks to you. You are our friend that is always with us.
Christi: We celebrate the beginning of this school year and ask for your blessings upon the children and all those who support them. We ask for your blessing on the educators and all those who support the school system. And we ask for this blessing in the midst of fear for a pandemic that will not end, frustration over the protection of those in schools, and exhaustion from a harrowing past year and a half. We ask for this blessing as Jacob asked for one—tenaciously, persistently, and audaciously.
Diane: In this celebration of education and learning, we do not forget there are children and families and teachers who do not have the resources they need. When systems are unjust, the outcomes are unacceptable. Today, we remember those who are beginning school this year: those who have what they need to learn and grow in safety, and those who lack supplies, teachers, safe buildings, and accommodations for all needs and abilities.
Alison: Be with us as we ride the bus. Be with us as we walk. Be with us as we buckle seat belts, zip up jackets, and tie our shoes. However we get there, and whatever we wear, bless this year into something new.
Ashley: Loving God, may this year be one when we experience the miracle of Your mercy and strength. Help us appreciate most of all the bedrock miracle of Your presence with us in every single, ordinary, sacred moment. May the changes in ourselves and our world through the pandemic brings layers of goodness. Lead us into this school year with life-giving rhythms of grace and light, where our regular routines become the framework for worship and blessing.
And we entrust ourselves to our brother and redeemer Jesus, who taught us 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.
“Song of Blessing”
Sermon
Luke 4:14-30
14 Then Jesus, filled with the power of the Spirit, returned to Galilee, and a report about him spread through all the surrounding country. 15 He began to teach in their synagogues and was praised by everyone.
16 When he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, he went to the synagogue on the sabbath day, as was his custom. He stood up to read, 17 and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written:
18 “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me
to bring good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives
and recovery of sight to the blind,
to let the oppressed go free,
19 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
20 And he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. 21 Then he began to say to them, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” 22 All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth. They said, “Is not this Joseph’s son?”
23 He said to them, “Doubtless you will quote to me this proverb, ‘Doctor, cure yourself!’ And you will say, ‘Do here also in your hometown the things that we have heard you did at Capernaum.’” 24 And he said, “Truly I tell you, no prophet is accepted in the prophet’s hometown. 25 But the truth is, there were many widows in Israel in the time of Elijah, when the heaven was shut up three years and six months, and there was a severe famine over all the land; 26 yet Elijah was sent to none of them except to a widow at Zarephath in Sidon. 27 There were also many lepers in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha, and none of them was cleansed except Naaman the Syrian.” 28 When they heard this, all in the synagogue were filled with rage. 29 They got up, drove him out of the town, and led him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built, so that they might hurl him off the cliff. 30 But he passed through the midst of them and went on his way.
This is the word of God for the people of God. Thanks be to God.
Last week after service, a bunch of us walked through our main building to see the progress on construction and to pray over the space together before we reenter as a community. We ooh-ed and ahh-ed over the new floors in the Fellowship Hall and the blue carpet in the offices. We also shook our heads at the disarray still in the sanctuary—pews upended, spikes sticking out of the floor, dust everywhere. I can’t speak for everyone on our walk, but I felt both excited and distressed.
On one hand, I’m inspired thinking of what will be in our revamped spaces. The vinyl floors in the Fellowship Hall make me think not only that fellowship dinners are in our future but also relay races, yoga classes, and dare I say it: dance parties.
And as someone who encountered a mouse in my office on my first day as Senior Minister, I am delighted to know that the mice have found another home and that I can have the new carpet all to myself. Thanks be to God.
And on the other hand, as we dream about what it will be like to return to the sanctuary, with its tech upgrade thanks to our many technological advancements during the pandemic, with our new worship minister and the collaboration of musicians, with the way our worship has evolved and morphed into what it is today, it felt jarring to peek into the sanctuary and see what felt like rubble. The ground beneath our feet was literally gone, contributing to our already disoriented sense of church. I didn’t even want to look long because it pained me so much. Our House for God, for God’s people, our place of worship and meaning-making, our Christ-centered imagination station—the first line of Lamentations came to mind: “How lonely sits the city that once was full of people.”
I know that part of my vocation as a pastor is to peddle hope like it’s going out of business, but it’s important to say also that a moment of despair and lament is sacred, too. Hope and despair are friends that walk a fine line together each day.
And I bet I am not the only one here who vacillates between the two.
I’m so tired of preaching in a pandemic that is holding on for dear life, preaching about the way the pandemic has affected our lives and our faith. Please don’t nod your head in agreement but I assume you are tired of hearing about it, too. Can you even remember when that word was not part of our everyday vocabulary?
I miss the before times. We were so innocent and naive. So cute and precious. I could just boop our noses.
And I want the after times to come quickly. Tomorrow. Today. Right this very moment. I just want to skip over what is right now to what will be.
But we are stuck in the now times, aren’t we? The new floors juxtaposed with the sanctuary in shambles. The new carpet side by side with the spikes sticking out of the floor. It feels about right for our moment, I suppose. Though I don’t like it at all. Just going on record, God, in case I haven’t said it today. I do not like this.
During our worship series over the next few weeks, we will be reading a lot of stories of return. Last week, we read a parable. This week we read a proclamatory text—a story that is meant to proclaim something about Jesus. We’ll read stories from the early church and ancient Israel. We’ll read some building instructions one week and poetry another. We had a long list of scriptures of return to wittle down because the longing for home is such a universal story: it’s embedded within us and within the Divine story.
And we see that in today’s text Jesus, human and divine, returning home to Nazareth to find that home is very different.
Jesus had earned for himself quite the reputation for healing and preaching. And he decides to go home to mom and dad, and visit the synagogue while he’s there. The book of Luke takes great pains to show us that all of what Jesus does is embedded in the bosom of Judaism. By his faithfulness to his religious tradition, he observes the Sabbath and the Scriptures. Jesus not only attends synagogue services regularly, but he also participates in them, as all adult males were permitted to do, by reading scripture and commenting on it like he does in today’s story.
And we cannot overstate how much the synagogue is home for Jesus. During this time, the synagogue was not only the assembly for worship, but it was also a school, a community center, and a place for administering justice. Jesus had spent a lot of time here growing up.
And everyone was so proud. They had heard of his great work—it was the talk of the town. So when he gets up to read the scroll and give commentary on it, I imagine some of the men there were remembering when Jesus was a little boy playing in the street with their sons. Perhaps some of them were making knowing eyes at Jesus’s family members—looks that said, “How much he’s grown! You must be so proud! How happy you look to have him home!”
And then Jesus reads the scroll from Isaiah: preach the good news, free the captives, give sight to the blind, proclaim the Lord’s favor. And he concludes, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled.” Today.
And all seems to be going well. One of the men says, “Isn’t that Joseph’s boy? The one with the iffy birth story? Who would’ve thought he would grow up to become a healer! A preacher! A star! We’re so lucky to call him ours.”
But then the tide turns abruptly. And Jesus seems to be picking up midway through a conversation. And he says basically the expectation that he was going to come and do all those miracles and preach all those sermons to his hometown, to his people, was misdirected. And he tells some stories that may not be familiar to you, but based on the emotional switch of the people, they probably knew well. He tells the story of two prophets of Israel—early, early prophets—whose miracles were not for the Israelites, but for outsiders. A widow in Zarepath and a Syrian man.
And what Jesus seems to be getting at with these particular stories is that he is not, in fact, theirs. He does not belong to them. He is not to be claimed or contained. These stories Jesus tells communicate the long history of God’s prioritizing the outsider, the stranger. Elijah was sent to care for the widow in Zarephath, not the widows in Israel. Elisha was instructed to heal Naaman the Syrian, not the other lepers of Israel. So that we are to understand that God has always been working at the margins, crossing borders, and doing new things in unlikely places. Far from home, far from the familiar and predictable, far from the centers of power and religion.
And these faithful religious men did not like that one bit.
And I want to pause for a second to say that in texts like these that happen in Jewish religious spaces or are about a particular Jewish law or story, there is sometimes a temptation to then make the Jewish people the bad guys. That Jewish people got it wrong, and Jesus the Christian gets it right.
But we know that Jesus was a devout Jewish man. Everything he does is in the bosom of Judaism. The early Christian movement was a sect of Judaism. So this is not and has never been a battle between the Christians and the Jews.
And what is relevant to us as 21st century Christians looking back at this story that needs a lot of context and filling in the gaps is that this argument happening in the story is between Judaism and its scriptures. It’s a matter of interpretation. And it’s not a simple intellectual disagreement, but rather there are real lives on the line for Jesus. And also their are lives on the line for this Jewish synagogue living under Roman occupation.
And while we don’t want to automatically assume that our church squabbles and denominational differences can draw a direct line to inter-Jewish squabbles and differences; we can however perhaps see ourselves in these conflicts. There’s enough similarity for us to see where the anger is coming from for Jesus and for the men in the synagogue. There’s enough similarity for us to see a bit of ourselves as the Big C Church, as our small faith community, even as individual Christians in this story.
So Jesus tells these familiar God-loves-the-outsider stories, and things escalate quickly. They attempt to kill him but he slips through their midst, and lives to see another day.
He eludes their grasp of ownership and he eludes their grasp of violence.
And Jesus is still eluding our grasp today.
Something we talked about on our prayer walk last week was how many different iterations of these buildings the church has worshiped in. How the chapel we’re in now has not always been in this location. How the Fellowship Hall and offices we walked through used to be in a different building. How it seems like every inch of our property has been used for worship not just this year, but in its long history. How even when the church started, there was not even a building. There was a brush arbor that Azle Christian Church gathered under to find relief from the elements for a little while so they could worship.
And it seems that Azle has always been on the move. Moving from building to building, changing its spaces and ways of life. So that this past year of movement and upheaval when we exercised our mobility muscles and worked on our flexibility is not a new thing—it’s actually a very old thing. This practice of change and adaptability is inherent within the DNA of this community. What is happening now may have never happened before to this particular group of people, but it has happened to Azle Christian Church before.
Dynamic movement is written in the blueprint of this community so that we’re not learning how to be flexible, rather, we’re remembering how to be. The collective consciousness of this community, what we like to call the cloud of witnesses, is reminding us that we know how to do this as a church.
And what we might see of ourselves in this story from Luke is that yes, we gather on this property to worship together, but we can trust that God’s own self is not contained here—God is on the move with each of us as we go our own way. Christ’s living Spirit that dwells within each of our own hearts is always saying, Today!
Today this scripture is fulfilled! Today is where you are. Today is where God is. See this new thing God is doing! Because today is the day of the Lord. God cannot be grasped by us trying to hold on to what we remember yesterday. And God cannot be propelled into the future of someday. God is moving today.
And as God continues to move, may we remember that we cannot hold on to Jesus. He eludes our grasp. He is speaking in places we don’t recognize as sacred. He is privileging voices we may not be interested in hearing. And he is saying things that will make our ears burn. Because God is not ours. Rather, we are God’s.
May we go with Christ into uncomfortable territory, into strange places, into the unknown, and may we remember that we have done so before. God is always doing a new thing, and that new thing is often a new iteration of an old thing. The prophets Elijah and Elisha were a very long time ago. And then Jesus came much much later, a very long time ago. And even now, much much later, God is still moving in and through us.
May we remember the movements of our faith forebears, of the Author and Perfecter of our faith, of the faithful people who have moved through this church over the last 138 years. And may we be attentive to God’s movement today.
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. Filling our Little Free Pantry. And of course, you can give through the sharing 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.
If you’ve been here the past few Sundays, we’ve been working out the kinks of our worship flow together in person, and we’ve tried a couple things and we think we’ve found what works. Who knows? God is always on the move. But after our benediction, we are going to sing our final song, and we will conclude the service with the doxology, which is printed in your bulletin.
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.
Receive this benediction:
May the God of hope in whom you place your trust,
Fill you with all joy and peace
So that you may overflow with hope;
Through the power of the Holy Spirit.
Amen.