Welcome
Good morning, church, and Happy Baptism of Our Lord Sunday! I’m Reverend Ashley Dargai.
A couple of announcements before we begin:
Kid Zone is this Wednesday at 3:45 pm. If you missed Little Church this morning, we’ll be doing it each week at 10:45 on Facebook Live before service. It’s a short and sweet service tailor made for our youngest congregants.
Next week is Board Meeting on Zoom—all are welcome to attend. And our Cabinet Retreat is January 30 on Zoom from 9-12. Even if you are not on cabinet, you are invited to be a part of thinking about church life for 2021.
This morning is the mark of a beginning in the life of our church. I will be installed as your senior minister, a call that I am humbled and honored to answer. But this morning is not about me, it’s about you. It’s about us—the beginning of our journey together to continue the ministry of Jesus and fulfill the mission of the church as a small pop-up of the reign of God in Azle. We join together this morning in covenant. And the foundational element that connects us together is our baptism on this Sunday of the Baptism of Our Lord. Thanks be to God.
Let us prepare our hearts for worship.
Installation of Reverend Ashley Dargai
Call
Regional Representative: There are different gifts,
Congregation: But it is the same spirit who gives them.
Regional Representative: There are different ways of serving God.
Congregation: But it is the same God who is served.
Regional Representative: Each one is given gifts by the one Spirit,
Congregation: To use for the common good.
Regional Representative: Together we are the body of Christ,
Congregation: And individually members with one another.
Ministerial Covenant
Within our common ministry some members are chosen for particular work as ministers of Word and Sacrament. They are called to a representative ministry and charged:
• To lead in transmitting the Christian tradition from one generation to another;
• To interpret the scriptures and proclaim the gospel of Christ;
• To administer the sacraments, serving to maintain a company of Christians in continuity with the life and faith of the apostles;
• To serve God’s people with pastoral care and to share in the strengthening of the church in its life and mission;
• And to act as pioneers and leaders in the Church’s reconciling work in the world.
We now come to this moment in which Rev. Ashley Dargai, having been called with due seriousness to minister within this congregation, is to be officially received into this office.
Minister will stand. Ashley Dargai, as the minister called to provide spiritual leadership and pastoral care for this congregation, do you reaffirm your profession of faith in Jesus Christ?
I reaffirm my baptism and confession of faith that Jesus is the Christ, and give myself in full commitment to be Christ’s disciple.
Do you promise faithfully to fulfill your ministry among this people through preaching and teaching the word of God?
I do solemnly promise.
Do you promise faithfully to administer the sacraments of the church?
I do solemnly promise.
Do you promise to faithfully minister to those who are sick and troubled?
I do solemnly promise.
Do you promise faithfully to share in leadership to strengthen the church’s life?
I do solemnly promise.
Do you promise faithfully to represent in a worthy manner what it means to live in faithful response to God’s abiding grace?
I do solemnly promise.
Charge to the Congregation
To the Elders: Regional Minister, as Elders and Spiritual Leaders within Azle Christian Church do you commit yourselves to supporting Rev. Ashley Dargai as a co-laborer and fellow shepherd within this congregation?
Chair of Elders: On behalf of the Elders, I pledge our support for Rev. Dargai’s ministry among us.
To the Deacons: Regional Minister: As the deacons of Azle Christian Church do you commit yourselves to supporting Rev. Ashley Dargai as co-laborer and fellow leader within this congregation?
Chair of Elders: On behalf of the Deacons, I pledge our support for Rev. Dargai’s ministry among us.
Regional Minister: Will you who witness this new beginning support and uphold Rev. Dargai, praying daily for her life and ministry among you?
Congregation: We will
Regional Minister: Having called Rev. Dargai to be your minister, do you renew your baptismal vows and commit yourself to supporting her with your prayers and shared responsibilities?
Congregation: We reaffirm our baptism and our commitment to Jesus the Christ and our loyalty to Christ’s church. We covenant to uphold our pastor with our prayers; to share her joys and sorrows; to attend to her preaching and teaching of God’s word; to welcome her pastoral care; and honor her leadership.
Minister: Standing with you, I promise to be your pastor; and in the strengthen and grace of Jesus Chris I covenant to serve this congregation in all faithfulness for the Glory of God.
Affirmation of Faith
As members of the Christian Church,
We confess that Jesus is the Christ,
the Son of the living God,
and proclaim him Lord and Savior of the world.
In Christ’s name and by his grace
we accept our mission of witness
and service to all people.
We rejoice in God,
maker of heaven and earth,
and in God’s covenant of love
which binds us to God and to one another.
Through baptism into Christ
we enter into newness of life
and are made one with the whole people of God.
In the communion of the Holy Spirit
we are joined together in discipleship
and in obedience to Christ.
At the Table of the Lord
we celebrate with thanksgiving
the saving acts and presence of Christ.
Within the universal church
we receive the gift of ministry
and the light of scripture.
In the bonds of Christian faith
we yield ourselves to God
that we may serve the One
whose kingdom has no end.
Blessing, glory, and honor
be to God forever. Amen.
Prayer
Almighty God, give us the grace to do the work to which you have called us in Jesus Christ. Fill this community of faith by your spirit, that it may work together as one people to be the body of Christ in his reconciling ministry. Blend together the variety of gifts manifested within this congregation to strengthen its fellowship for service to the world. In solidarity with all your people of every time and place, we pray that your will may be done here on earth through our worship, witness, and work. We ask this in the spirit of Jesus Christ, who gave his life that others may live. Amen
Declaration
In the name of Jesus Christ, the head of the church, we celebrate the covenant formed between Rev. Ashley Dargai and Azle Christian Church; and we commend you to the grace of God in the discharge of all your duties as minister of the Gospel. May God count you worthy of your calling, and bring to fulfillment in you every good purpose and every act inspired by faith.
Scripture and Sermon
Our scripture for today is from Mark 1:4-11.
“And so John the Baptizer appeared in the desert, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. The whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem went out to John and were baptized by him in the Jordan River as they confessed their sins. John was clothed in camel’s hair and wore a leather belt around his waist, and he ate nothing but grasshoppers and wild honey. In the course of his preaching, John said, ‘One more powerful than I is to come after me. I am not fit to stoop and untie his sandal straps. I have baptized you in water, but the One to come will baptize you in the Holy Spirit.’ It was then that Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee and was baptized in the Jordan River by John. Immediately upon coming out of the water, Jesus saw the heavens opening and the Spirit descending on him like a dove. Then a voice came from the heavens: ‘You are my Beloved, my Own. On you my favor rests.’”
Mark 1:4-11, The Inclusive Translation
This is the word of God for the people of God. Thanks be to God.
You know, I had some really good stuff on John the Baptizer for today. A funny anecdote, some well-timed jokes, thoughtful parallels to modern-day prophets. I was going to talk about baptism and the church’s mission. It was a very nice sermon. I had a whole thing that I had nearly finished writing by Wednesday morning.
And then Wednesday afternoon happened.
And I found myself asking what in the world baptism had to do with a white nationalist insurrection? And who the heck cares about John the Baptizer when domestic terrorists descend upon the Capitol to interrupt democratic processes with violence and intimidation, fueled by rhetoric and conspiracy theories from some of our elected leaders?
I typically preach from the lectionary—a gift from Christian forebears of pre-selected scriptures for our church calendar that many mainline churches use. And while it can be challenging sometimes to preach a text someone else picked out, I have never found scripture to be stale or irrelevant. At its best it is like God speaking to us in such a time as this, a comfort, an encouragement, a gentle challenge. Even at its trickiest or most frustrating, the text is at the very least an interesting conversation partner.
But the text for today, the Baptism of Jesus, just feels…tone-deaf maybe? I mean, we’re in month 10 of a deadly global pandemic that gets deadlier every day, our country feels like it’s ripping apart, brother against brother, the news plays like the beginning of a dystopian novel….and here we are talking about doves and grasshoppers? Like read the room, lectionary.
And I don’t mean to be a doomsdayer, but there is plenty of precedent for it in the Bible, including John himself. For example, our text today features a proclamation, or perhaps a warning, that someone more powerful than him was coming. Dun dun dun.
And honestly, if I think about it, we could do worse than John the Baptizer after a week like this. We could be reading about Noah who built himself what was essentially a floating bunker for what he perceived as the end of the world. Or Jonah who ran away from his problems until they caught up with him and then he spent the next few days trying not to be digested. Or we could be reading about the Annunciation, and don’t get me wrong—huge fan of Mary. But don’t you think if God were to come today and say, “Mary, I’m planning to come to earth. What do you think?” She’d be like, “Nah, better not.”
At least John the Baptizer in all of his eccentricity is like, “Listen up everybody, things are about to get weird.” And then they did! I mean, I appreciate the predictability of the story at this point. The bar is low these days, I know, but still.
Our text today begins with the words, “And so, John the Baptizer appeared.” The first few verses of Mark remix the prophets Isaiah and Malachi and paste together a kind of prologue for who John is. The scriptures say that a messenger was being sent to prepare the way. The messenger was a voice shouting in the wilderness—is he calling for help or warning of danger? Is the voice like a canary in a coal mine? It’s unclear at this point. But the voice is saying, “Prepare the way for the Lord. Make the path straight.” In other words, clear out the debris and roadblocks so that God can get to the people. Because God is coming.
And so, John the Baptizer appeared.
And lots of people from all over came to be baptized, which frankly, I find baffling. Because he was preaching not something like prosperity, but repentance. And people confessed their sins at their baptism. So that repentance and baptism seem to be inextricably linked.
And then John the Baptizer made it very clear that his baptism was not the end, but rather it was just the beginning. This powerful moment in the river was not the be-all, end-all of faith expression, but rather paving the way for Jesus to come and transform through the Holy Spirit.
And I wonder as we are meant to contemplate our own baptisms this Sunday each year on the Baptism of our Lord Sunday, if perhaps the repentance and confession part is the key to what John the Baptizer has to do with any of this.
I know there have been many Christians in the U.S. this week that have called for forgiveness and unity and reconciliation. Our text today tells us that there is no forgiveness without confession, there is no unity without truth-telling, there is no reconciliation without first repair. This truth is ingrained in our baptism, sewn into our DNA at the beginning of our lives as Christians.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, an anti-Nazi activist and pastor during Nazi Germany, who eventually died at the hands of the Third Reich government because of his speaking out against nationalism and white supremacy manifested in Aryanism, and who was influenced by his work with black churches in Harlem, wrote about this inclination we have to skip over the reckoning to get to the hugging and quasi peace.
He wrote, “Cheap grace is the grace we bestow on ourselves. Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, Communion without confession, absolution without personal confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate.”
We read of the Baptism of our Lord this morning, who paid the ultimate price, who was a victim of the violence of the state and of those who co-opted religion for power. And our baptism is a means of grace, but it is not a means of cheap grace. Cheap grace protects the status quo and monopolies of power, but real grace requires truth and justice. It requires repentance and confession. It requires acknowledgement of participation in harm and wrongdoing, and accountability by making amends and repairing what was broken, before we move to the final step of unity and reconciliation.
As Disciples, we are “a movement for wholeness in a fragmented world.” If we are to be people for wholeness, we need to tend to the fragmentation. We need to stop the bleeding by applying pressure, we need to bandage up wounds, apply balm, root out infection, set the bone, book some rehab, and put our energy and focus on dealing with the fragmentation so that wholeness is one day possible.
Our baptism, you see, is just the beginning.
We a baptized people, a small pop-up of the reign of God in Azle, Texas, are called to live into the covenant of our baptism and condemn actions and systems that clutter the way for people to experience God. Like John, we are meant to be way-preparers, breach-repairers, and that means reckoning with how we and people we love and people who look like us have participated in blocking the way and creating the breach.
Our baptism calls us to be as bold as John the Baptizer, crying out in the wilderness, to rebuke systems and movements constructed by xenophobia, homophobia, white supremacy, and nationalism, that has somehow convinced some that they have the right to self-preserve at all costs. And we must be honest and name the reality that our current systems of law and order have two different standards of justice as we have seen this week—one for those who look like the majority of the people who occupied the Capitol, and one for people of color. And perhaps the most difficult, we have to reckon with the dangerous theology that abides these movements.
I watched in horror at the images of Wednesday afternoon of a noose being hung juxtaposed with a cross being erected nearby. Alongside a man whose sweatshirt read, “Camp Auschwitz,” signs saying, “Jesus Saves” appeared.
I’ve been to Auschwitz.
I’ve been in the basement where Nazis conducted experiments on Polish residents who resisted.
I’ve walked the railroad line that led trains of prisoners into the death camp.
I’ve looked at the thousands of confiscated shoes and photographs.
I’ve stood in the gas chamber.
I’ve also stood at the ruins of the oven where the Nazis burned the prisoners alive, and then when word came that the camp was to be liberated, the Nazis destroyed most of the oven in an attempt to cover up what had happened there, but the foundation remained.
That man’s “Camp Auschwitz” shirt is not funny in any way. It’s not a joke or just some fringe weirdo that we can dismiss. I’ve been troubled all week because there is a reason these violent, hate-filled images were joined with Christian symbols and language.
What are we to do with that as baptized people who share the same symbols?
Our baptism compels us to be truth-tellers, to confess not only what we have done, but what we have left undone, as our prayer of confession goes. And, in regard to the blasphemy we saw in the images from Wednesday, to confess what is and is not of God. To recognize that there are those who proclaim the name of Jesus while they participate in enmity and violence, in intimidation and conspiracy, and co-opt Christ for these dangerous manifestations of fear and hate.
So if our baptism does not matter this week, gosh, then when does it?
Bonhoeffer wrote that bit about cheap grace as a rebuke to the German Church that had been co-opted by Nazism, that had allowed for nationalist and racist and anti-semitic notions to fester inside of the church until it was controlled by them. He saw from the beginning that unless hate and bigotry are rebuked clearly and loudly, that they will insidiously spread and appropriate the gospel like a slow-moving coup, unstoppable by the time everyone recognizes what has happened. He saw the danger and kept speaking out.
And John the Baptizer would eventually be murdered for telling the truth. And then so would Jesus. Their answer to violence was not more violence and it was not cheap grace and quick calls to peace and unity. It was to submit to that violence even unto death, to tell the truth until the very end, no matter how many friends they lost or how many people said, “I never knew him.”
Despite all of this, I am encouraged by the work and faithfulness of Bonhoeffer as he saw his beloved church being co-opted by those hungry for power and control. And I’m haunted by the words of MLK, who revered Bonhoeffer and learned from him, that he was “gravely disappointed with the white moderate church” for being silent in the face of evil, for nodding their approval of justice but looking disapprovingly at talks and methods of enacting justice. I don’t want to make that mistake again.
As you can imagine, this is not exactly what I imagined my installation sermon would be in my Wednesday morning naivete.
Maybe I’ll tell my John the Baptizer jokes another day.
O, that we would be loud in our condemnation and confession, like a voice crying out in the wilderness. O, that we would be relentless in our way-clearing for God to get to those whom God loves.
May the ripples of our baptism go out into the world, preaching repentance and repair and justice as vital manifestations of God’s love here on earth, in this time. May it be so. Amen.
Sharing Our Resources
You time, money, and prayers help resources the ministries of Azle Christian Church, and even in the midst of the pandemic, you generosity and faithfulness has helped feed many families regularly, has helped keep our staff, has funded the improvement of our live streaming significantly, among other things.
Stewardship is an act of faithfulness in God and the universal church, and we are grateful for your continued faithfulness.
There are several ways for you to give—your time, your gifts, and human power, and financially, online, Venmo, text-to-give, or by check. See the comments on this video for details.
Finally, if you or someone you know is in need of help during this time, please contact our church office or get in touch with us through Facebook or email.
Benediction
May the ripples of our baptism go out into the world, preaching repentance and repair and justice as vital manifestations of God’s love here on earth, in this time. May it be so. Amen.