Welcome
We are so glad you’ve joined us for worship today. I’m Alan Lobaugh, one of the pastors here at Azle Christian Church. We’d love to know you are here, please comment below and say hi to everyone, share prayer concerns and participate in our worship by having communion elements handy, light a candle, and contribute to this ministry through any of the ways listed in the comments.
Today, at 12:30 drop off of Facebook and zoom in (see what I did there?) for our congregational meeting. We are voting on our leadership for next year as well as our budget for 2021. Come by and get your Advent Candle Wreath and Calendar. Come by and get your free golf tournament t shirt as well. Or if you can’t we will bring one to your porch, just call the office.
Book study continues tonight at 7 p.m. on zoom.
Just a quick word, we celebrated Wendal Hoover’s life yesterday, and the family wants ACC and the Azle community to know their gratitude for the outpouring of love, and they invite you to the date, sometime next summer when we can gather safely and celebrate together.
Let us prepare for worship.
As shepherds watched, as Inn Keepers … kept, as kings slept restlessly, … we wait. We wait with them in this season for a sign to remind us of your presence, O God. We watch for the moment when love becomes real, when joy fills our hearts and when we truly sing your praises. Today, let that process begin a new in our hearts.
Advent Wreath Lighting – Phillips Family
Pastoral Prayer
The Lord be with you. And also with you.
If you have concerns you would like shared with our prayer ministry, please reach out to us through Facebook or email.
Join me in prayer:
God of abounding patience, we pray each week for Your Kingdom to come here today, this day, and every day. We follow this plea with what an outline of what that might mean: Your will be done here, in our faces, in our homes, just as it is in the space where You dwell. It sounds magical and ethereal, like something we can’t see or touch. But then we start talking about bread. Because we’re hungry. Because we live in bodies that have rhythmic processes required for our survival.
But God found in the warm, crispy decadence of bread, apparently having something to eat, something to chew on, is what Your kingdom is like. And as our bellies fill up, our burdens get lighter, because in Your peaceable kingdom, debts are paid, not by scrimping and saving, not by going hungry, but rather by compassion and mercy, by making sure we don’t leave with empty hands and bellies.
Your prophets have been talking about this impractical kingdom for a long time, and many have not listened to them. They’ve talked about the predator and prey becoming friends in a world where competition and hierarchy are abolished. Wolves and lambs as friends, which seems more like something Mary might read in a children’s book to Jesus rather than a blueprint for changing the world.
Yet, O God who dreams of animal friends and rainbows and shimmering prophets, Advent teaches us each year that Your kingdom comes in surprising forms, in ways that require not our power, but rather our gentleness. In the reign of God that comes through one of the rhythmic processes required for survival, we are reminded that we are not people who operate out of cold calculation but rather out of the warmth of compassion and out of hunger for justice, praying for bread and flourishing life for all.
And so Holy One, we pray softly the prayer together that Jesus, our brother and redeemer gave us to hold onto:
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.
Children’s Moment
Scripture
Isaiah 11:1-12
A shoot shall come out from the stock of Jesse,
and a branch shall grow out of his roots.
The spirit of the Lord shall rest on him,
the spirit of wisdom and understanding,
the spirit of counsel and might,
the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord.
His delight shall be in the fear of the Lord.
He shall not judge by what his eyes see,
or decide by what his ears hear;
but with righteousness he shall judge the poor,
and decide with equity for the meek of the earth;
he shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth,
and with the breath of his lips he shall kill the wicked.
Righteousness shall be the belt around his waist,
and faithfulness the belt around his loins.
The wolf shall live with the lamb,
the leopard shall lie down with the kid,
the calf and the lion and the fatling together,
and a little child shall lead them.
The cow and the bear shall graze,
their young shall lie down together;
and the lion shall eat straw like the ox.
The nursing child shall play over the hole of the asp,
and the weaned child shall put its hand on the adder’s den.
They will not hurt or destroy
on all my holy mountain;
for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord
as the waters cover the sea
On that day the root of Jesse shall stand as a signal to the peoples; the nations shall inquire of him, and his dwelling shall be glorious.
On that day the Lord will extend his hand yet a second time to recover the remnant that is left of his people, from Assyria, from Egypt, from Pathros, from Ethiopia, from Elam, from Shinar, from Hamath, and from the coastlands of the sea.
He will raise a signal for the nations,
and will assemble the outcasts of Israel,
and gather the dispersed of Judah
from the four corners of the earth.
Sermon
To fully grasp the impact of our scripture today, you should read chapter ten.
Look, the Sovereign, the Lord of hosts,
will lop the boughs with terrifying power;
the tallest trees will be cut down,
and the lofty will be brought low.
He will hack down the thickets of the forest with an axe,
and Lebanon with its majestic trees will fall.
That’s harsh. In anger and frustration, it is the Lord who cuts down the tree, which represents the linage of Jesse. It is God who destroys the beautiful cedars of Lebanon.
Why would God do such a thing? It’s because of their unfaithfulness. They have forgotten who it was who brought them out of Egypt. They have turned their backs on the one who delivered them from Pharaoh’s army and fed them in the wilderness.
This passage speaks to the cyclical nature of our ancestors’ relationship with God. They cry out, God hears their distress, God delivers them in a miraculous way, they are grateful, they build an altar to show their gratitude, … then they grow complacent. “God, oh yeah, we’re thankful. But mostly, … you know, … we took care of it ourselves.”
Are we so different? We show our devotion at the birth of our children. We’re grateful for their lives and their health. We celebrate baptisms and weddings, but are less than enthusiastic the rest of the time. I’ve told you before about the Easter sermon where the minister spoke strongly about serving the Lord with the dedication of a loyal soldier. And when one of the members walked out after service, he said, “I’m with you all the way, preacher.” And the minister still feeling her energy and passion questioned, “Well, Joe, then how come we only see you at Christmas and Easter?” Joe leaned in and whispered, “I’m in the secret service!”
These two chapters of Isaiah show a God who has grown weary of the ways the people of Israel have taken the relationship for granted. But still, our God, calls them back. The three branches of faith who look to these prophesies, all agree that these words point to the coming Messiah.
My friend, Rabbi Ralph Mecklenberger, retired from serving the Temple Beth El congregation in Fort Worth, reminded me of a few things several years back. We talked about our similarities, that we both look forward to the time when the Messiah will rule in every heart. Our biggest difference is that, our Jewish brothers and sisters don’t think that event has happened yet. They point to this passage and others, that speak of peace, equity, and justice, being the visible signs that the Messiah has come, … and remind us, that these things are not true for every person. We can talk about living into this vision, that we, as followers of Jesus the Christ, have started working toward this goal. But we are not there yet.
Not there by a long shot. Literally, in the immortal words of Woody Allen, “The lamb may lie down with the wolf, but the lamb won’t get much sleep.”
Equity? How do we count this as the richest nation in the world, where the Dow Jones average tops 30,000 and yet the food lines in Azle stretch out the parking lots and on to the streets.
Peace? 2020 has seen double the number of murders due to Domestic Violence in Tarrant County than in previous years.
How can we claim to follow the Prince of Peace, the Wonderful Counselor, when we allow these atrocities to continue. And yes, I said, we allow it.
Sometimes I wish churches didn’t spend as much time on the committee meetings about the color of the carpet and the exact menu of the next gathering, and would spend more time addressing these inequities and these difficulties in our community.
Azle Christian Church, you are doing some amazing work on feeding the poor through the Food Hub, our Little Free Pantry and our Minister’s Benevolence Fund. Every week, several people come by for one of those services, but what are we doing about raising the standard of living for the poor, so there won’t need to be a food distribution line?
Several of us work with people who are victims of domestic violence. But what about the work on the front end that helps us develop people who do not become abusers?
“Yes,” you say, “But how?” It begins with a belief that God can do a new thing in, and among, us. It begins with the hope that all of the destruction and chaos that surrounds us, does not define us. It is a reorienting of our focus back to God. It begins with the hope we find at the beginning of this chapter. A shoot will grow from the stump of Jesse. Even after the destructive forces that cut it down, God will make something new out of what everyone else counted as dead.
What’s the quote from Jurassic Park? “Life finds a way.”
Consider the Toledo Christmas Weed. …it might not be what you think it is. 20 yr old Alyssa Emrick, driving with her family near downtown, spotted a two foot tall weed growing in the crack in the sidewalk. It reminded her of the tree from the Charlie Brown’s Christmas special. Her dad then suggested that they all pitch in to decorate it, They pulled over at a local convenience store to buy a few ornaments.
Alyssa was pleased when the “Christmas Weed” started showing up on her social media feed as people took photos of it. But then, people started adding ornaments, lights, even a “Linus” type blanket at the base. They cultivated hope, and it was contagious in their community.
As we prepare for Christmas, I am reminded of some of the most poetic, and beautiful words in scripture that describe this event. From the Gospel of John, chapter 1: “In the beginning was the Word, … The Word became flesh and dwelt among us … In him was life, and that life is the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness cannot put it out.”
Robert Fulghum is one of my favorite authors, you know him from “Everything I needed to know I learned in Kindergarten. He tells the story of attended a lecture once given by a Greek philosopher, and at the end of the lecture, Fulghum couldn’t help himself, so he asked, "Dr. Papaderos, what is the meaning of life?" Let me quote Fulghum’s words: "The usual laughter followed, and people started to go. Papaderos held up his hand and stilled the room and looked at me for a long time, asking with his eyes if I was serious, and seeing from my eyes that I was. 'I will answer your question,' he said.
Then taking his wallet out of his hip pocket, he fished into it and brought out a very small, round mirror, about the size of a quarter. Then he said, 'When I was a small child, during the war, we were very poor and we lived in a remote village. One day, on the road, I found several broken pieces of a mirror from a wrecked German motorcycle. I tried to find all the pieces and put them together, but it was not possible, so I kept only the largest piece. This one. And by scratching it on a stone, I made it round. I began to play with it as a toy and became fascinated by the fact that I could reflect light into dark places where the sun would not shine - in deep holes and crevices and dark closets.
It became a game for me to get light into the most inaccessible places I could find. I kept the little mirror, and as I went about my growing up, I would take it out in idle moments and continue the challenge of the game.
As I became a man, I grew to understand that this was not just a child's game but a metaphor for what I might do with my life. I came to understand that I am not the light or the source of the light. But light - truth, understanding, knowledge - is there, and it will only shine in many dark places if I reflect it.
I am a fragment of a mirror whose whole design and shape I do not know.
Nevertheless, with what I have, I can reflect light into the dark places of this world - into the black (dark) places in the hearts of men - and change some things in some people. Perhaps others may see and do likewise. This is what I am about. This is the meaning of my life.'” (from his book, “What On Earth Have I Done?”)
We have witnessed destructive forces in our world, both in relationships and in natural disasters. It would be easy to wring our hands in despair. But the Lord God, creator of the universe is still present with us and calls us to bring the news of the Messiah to the people we meet. We are called, just as Mary was called, to be light bearers, into the world
So, listen to this quote from Dr. Papadapolis one more time. Let it be your mantra, the phrase written on your heart this season:
I am a fragment of a mirror whose whole design and shape I do not know.
Nevertheless, with what I have, I can reflect light into the dark places of this world.
Communion
Sharing our Resources
One week left to donate to our sock drive, the socks are piling up faster than a dryer can lose them. Drive by this week and toss your socks into the bins. And truly, this has been a difficult year in many ways. Every week, you are making a difference in the lives of people in this community, heating their homes, feeding their children, clothing them, not just with sock but with dignity and hope. Through your gifts you make a difference. We would love to finish the year financially strong as we move into the next. So, please give, and if you have already pledged, thanks. If you haven’t please drop it in the mail, call the church office or fill out a card electronically on our website.
Benediction
Jesus said, “I am the light of the world.” John wrote, “In him was life, and that life was the light to all people.” Jesus said, “Let your light so shine before people, that they will give glory to God. And in the immortal words of the professor, “I am a fragment of a mirror, whose whole design and shape I do not know. Nevertheless, with what I have, I can shine the light into the dark places in this world.” May God shine brightly in and through you this season. Amen