Welcome/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! I sure am glad to be back here with you all after a few weeks of vacation with my family. Thank you to everyone who stepped in to fill the gaps while I was gone.
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 reality 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.
Immediately following service, there will be a kitchen meeting for all those who serve in the church kitchen.
Just a reminder that this Wednesday is Cabinet Meeting at 7 pm on Zoom.
This Saturday is Food Hub! You can arrive at 8:30 to help get the bags filled and ready for distribution.
The Seekers Sunday School class invites you to game night on August 31 at 6:30 pm.
Sting Fling is just around the corner! On Saturday, September 10, we’ll host a booth to tell people about Azle Christian Church and what it means to us. If you’d like to volunteer for a two-hour shift, you can find a sign-up sheet on ___, sign-up genius, 2-hour shifts, hand out church lady fans and water bottles, man the Leave a Prayer, Take a Blessing station
To keep up with all the life we live together here at Azle Christian Church, make sure you follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok. Subscribe to our weekly e-blast and monthly newsletter on our website.
We conclude our worship series this morning—a tiny late summer series called One Thing to Tell You. Today, we will do a lectio divina practice together, focusing on the question, “What is the one thing God wants to tell me?”
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.
Litany of Faith
One: Bless the LORD, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless God’s holy name.
All: Bless the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all the benefits of the LORD,
One: Who forgives all your sins and heals all your infirmities;
All: Who redeems your life from the grave and crowns you with mercy and loving-kindness;
One: Who satisfies you with good things, and your youth is renewed like an eagle’s.
All: The LORD is full of compassion and mercy, slow to anger and of great kindness.
(From Psalm 103)
Pastoral Prayer
The Lord be with you.
Join me in prayer:
O Divine One, your name of Yahweh is more like a gasp for air than it is a moniker. Your self-title of “I am who I am” is more of a movement than it is an identifier. Scriptures says you are like a refiner’s fire or a cleaner’s soap. And it seems like if you could tell us who You are rather than what You are like, we could feel a bit more secure. If we could put some bones to You or look You straight in the eye, we might be able to relax.
But it seems as though we can’t look at You except for peripherally, and we can’t know You except for through metaphor. Even You—creator and energizer of the cosmos, we only know You through descriptions wrought by our ancestors in faith when they said you were “like a monarch, and a shepherd, and also a Lamb, and a parent, and a mother hen, but also a tabernacle, and a person, and a presence.”
Our language seems to be at once too much and not enough to describe You. And we can only get at You sideways, so to speak. We can only hover around like a moth to a flame when attempting to describe You, O Indescribable God, because You haunt us like a call in the middle of the night that we’re not quite sure we heard but we can’t get any sleep until we find out.
We’d like for you to sit still, but You are always on the move. You are Shepherd-Monarch-Parent God. But sometimes You are a Lamb-Servant-Baby God. And sometimes You are dead, while also being the God of the living, and no wonder Your Yahweh name is like a breath because sometimes it’s more like a gasp of exasperation.
Or perhaps, it is like getting to the end of our strength, our understanding, our grip, the far edges of our knowability, and it is like a gasp of surrender. That we have come to the end of ourselves. John of the Cross called you Nada for this reason—not that You are nil, but that You begin where everything we know and understand ends.
So Moving, Gasp of a God, help us language-oriented beings know You and be known by You as we enter this time of worship today. May our collective resolution be that we welcome the ways You come to us peripherally, the ways You reveal Yourself at a slant. May we heed this great call of discipleship, “to come and see.”
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
Read A Kid’s Book about God.
Ask kids and grownups to ask a question about God.
Pinky promise to keep talking about God and asking questions.
Okay, repeat after me:
“I pinky promise…to keep talking about God…and asking questions.”
As we prepare for our reading together—hearing from many voices, we are going to end in prayer in a different way. We are going to pray by singing and asking God to open our heart to God’s voice. And Nicole will lead us in song.
Sermon: Lectio Divina
Introduction: What is the one thing God is telling you?
This morning, we are doing something a little different for a sermon. We will be engaging in a contemplative practice similar to a lectio divina practice. We’ve done it together once before, but if you weren’t here or you don’t remember, no worries. I’ll explain how it goes.
Lectio Divina is a practice of reading scripture not for learning something practical or theological, but rather to allow the Living Spirit of Christ to speak to us through a word, a phrase, a pause. It lets the text be the text as it speaks to our own hearts.
We will begin by taking a moment of silence to invite the Holy Spirit into our encounter with the text. Then we will read the scripture in 3 different translations from different voices, pausing in between each one to sing in response to the word. For our fourth and final reading, we will do a responsive reading together and then conclude with song. Nicole, do you want to explain the music portion?
The scripture and its various translations are an insert in your bulletin. For our readings, you can follow along or close your eyes. To begin, we will take a moment of silence to invite the Spirit into our reading. Open your heart to what God might be saying to you today through the reading of this text. I will begin our first reading afterward, which is on the back of your bulletin.
Matthew 13:31-35; 44:50 (NRSVUE)—Me
31 He put before them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed that someone took and sowed in his field; 32 it is the smallest of all the seeds, but when it has grown it is the greatest of shrubs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches.”
33 He told them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed in with three measures of flour until all of it was leavened.”
34 Jesus told the crowds all these things in parables; without a parable he told them nothing. 35 This was to fulfill what had been spoken through the prophet:
“I will open my mouth to speak in parables;
I will proclaim what has been hidden since the foundation.”
44 “The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and reburied; then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.
45 “Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls; 46 on finding one pearl of great value, he went and sold all that he had and bought it.
47 “Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a net that was thrown into the sea and caught fish of every kind; 48 when it was full, they drew it ashore, sat down, and put the good into baskets but threw out the bad. 49 So it will be at the end of the age. The angels will come out and separate the evil from the righteous 50 and throw them into the furnace of fire, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
“Patient Kingdom” chorus
Matthew 13:31-35; 44-50 (CEB)—Jason
31 He told another parable to them: “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed that someone took and planted in his field. 32 It’s the smallest of all seeds. But when it’s grown, it’s the largest of all vegetable plants. It becomes a tree so that the birds in the sky come and nest in its branches.”
33 He told them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like yeast, which a woman took and hid in a bushel of wheat flour until the yeast had worked its way through all the dough.”
34 Jesus said all these things to the crowds in parables, and he spoke to them only in parables. 35 This was to fulfill what the prophet spoke:
I’ll speak in parables;
I’ll declare what has been hidden since the beginning of the world.
44 “The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure that somebody hid in a field, which someone else found and covered up. Full of joy, the finder sold everything and bought that field.
45 “Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls. 46 When he found one very precious pearl, he went and sold all that he owned and bought it.
47 “Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a net that people threw into the lake and gathered all kinds of fish. 48 When it was full, they pulled it to the shore, where they sat down and put the good fish together into containers. But the bad fish they threw away. 49 That’s the way it will be at the end of the present age. The angels will go out and separate the evil people from the righteous people, 50 and will throw the evil ones into a burning furnace. People there will be weeping and grinding their teeth.
Patient Kingdom” chorus
Matthew 13:32-35; 44-50 (MSG)—Rose
31-32 Another story. “God’s kingdom is like an acorn that a farmer plants. It is quite small as seeds go, but in the course of years it grows into a huge oak tree, and eagles build nests in it.”
33 Another story. “God’s kingdom is like yeast that a woman works into the dough for dozens of loaves of barley bread—and waits while the dough rises.”
34-35 All Jesus did that day was tell stories—a long storytelling afternoon. His storytelling fulfilled the prophecy:
I will open my mouth and tell stories;
I will bring out into the open
things hidden since the world’s first day.
44 “God’s kingdom is like a treasure hidden in a field for years and then accidentally found by a trespasser. The finder is ecstatic—what a find!—and proceeds to sell everything he owns to raise money and buy that field.
45-46 “Or, God’s kingdom is like a jewel merchant on the hunt for exquisite pearls. Finding one that is flawless, he immediately sells everything and buys it.
47-50 “Or, God’s kingdom is like a fishnet cast into the sea, catching all kinds of fish. When it is full, it is hauled onto the beach. The good fish are picked out and put in a tub; those unfit to eat are thrown away. That’s how it will be when the curtain comes down on history. The angels will come and cull the bad fish and throw them in the garbage. There will be a lot of desperate complaining, but it won’t do any good.”
“Patient Kingdom” chorus
Congregational reading
“Patient Kingdom” chorus
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.
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.
May the peace of Christ go with you
Wherever he may send you
May he guide you through the wilderness
And protect you from the storm
May He bring you home rejoicing
At the wonders he has shown you.
May he bring you home rejoicing
Once again into our doors.
Amen.