Welcome/Call to Worship
Good morning! I’m Pastor Ashley Dargai To those here in the sanctuary 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 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 visitor cards in the pew in front of you—if you arrived during the pandemic or later, of 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.
A couple of announcements before we begin:
We invite you to Sunday School at 10 AM every week. There’s classes that meet in the Seekers room and the Fellowship Hall. There is also a children and youth class that meets in the parlor.
On Wednesday, May 11, we’ll have our next Gospels and Groceries. Be sure to grab some nonperishables for our Little Free Pantry and a request for our hymn sing that night.
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 continue our worship series We Call Ourselves Disciples this morning.
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: The LORD is Sovereign; let the earth rejoice; let the many coastlands be glad!
All: Clouds and darkness are round about you, righteousness and justice are the foundations of your throne.
One: A fire goes before you and consumes your adversaries on every side.
All: Your lightnings light up the world; the earth sees and trembles.
One: The mountains melt like wax before the LORD, before the LORD of all the earth.
All: The heavens declare your righteousness, O LORD, and all the people see your glory.
(From Psalm 97)
Pastoral Prayer
The Lord be with you.
Since it is the first Sunday of the month, we will sing the Lord’s Prayer together. It’s #310 in your Chalice Hymnal and will also be on the screen.
Join me in prayer
Merciful Love of Justice,
We hear the wisdom of the psalmist:
The heavens proclaim your holy righteousness,
And all the peoples behold your glory.
You love those who hate evil,
You preserve the lives of the saints,
And deliver them from the hand of the wicked.
Light dawns for the righteousness, and joy for the upright in heart.
We celebrate your promise:
The light that shone in Christ is in the world today,
Calling us to a life of faithful witness and celebration.
There, O Holy One, we come to worship,
Rejoicing in you and giving thanks together
For we are gathered as part of the living Body of Christ.
Healing Maker of Easter,
We come because you call us to a covenant of care.
We come to share the mix of joy and sorrow
That is our life together.
We come with heavy hearts,
Burdened by a world that looks as though
Too many have forgotten
That their lives must rest in you for meaning.
Our dreams of peace
Are troubled by memories of war and hatred.
We know so many whose nights are haunted
by the agony of violence within their home, their family, their country.
Great Potter of us all,
We trust that you made each one of us unique
From elements that are so much alike.
You came among us in the human Jesus
To let us see what life can mean
When it is fully rooted in your love.
Help us lift the crosses lying in the streets.
Help us reach out in love across the tiny fissures
That seem to separate us from each other.
Help us be Christ to those to whom you send us.
Hear now our prayers for those in need,
For those we know,
And those whose stories pile high upon the fires of our compassion.
God of all creation, we lift our prayers to you,
Counting on the power of continuing creation
You showed us in the life of Jesus, who is for us, the Christ,
Who brings good news of reconciliation and forgiveness and peace.
We ask this is the name of our brother and redeemer Jesus, who taught us to pray…
Sermon
John 17:20-26
20 “I ask not only on behalf of these, but also on behalf of those who will believe in me through their word, 21 that they may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. 22 The glory that you have given me I have given them, so that they may be one, as we are one, 23 I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me. 24 Father, I desire that those also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory, which you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world.
25 “Righteous Father, the world does not know you, but I know you; and these know that you have sent me. 26 I made your name known to them, and I will make it known, so that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.”
This is the word of God for the people of God. Thanks be to God.
I’ve got a pop quiz for you birders out there.
What do you call a flock of crows? A murder.
What do you call a flock of cranes? A siege.
What do you call a flock of owls? A parliament.
What do you call a flock of ravens? A conspiracy.
What do you call a flock of starlings? A murmuration.
This stuff is poetry.
Now what do you call a flock of Christians?
I’m not gonna answer that just yet because it could get dicey depending on the punchline.
But it’s a worthy question.
It’s one that Jesus considers in John 17, our text for today. We read a portion of a prayer from Jesus recorded in John, and according to this testimony, Jesus prayed this prayer on the night before his death. John 17 is a long prayer for different groups of people. This particular prayer is not really so much for the current disciples but the future disciples. Those who would come to follow Jesus because of the way the current disciples lived their lives in love.
So this excerpt is sort of a final charge for followers of Jesus, but Jesus isn’t addressing them. He’s addressing God. He is entrusting the hope for the future of his followers to God in prayer after washing the disciples’ feet.
In his prayer, he prays for the oneness of his followers, that they be one as he is one with God. And this oneness, this unity of his followers, grows out of this love that Jesus shares with his Father.
And it is this oneness, this unity, that will be a witness to the love of God. Essentially, this oneness that Jesus prays for is part of the mission he is charging them with. To attend to the well-being of community and to nurture unity is a form of witness to the love of God in the world. No pressure, right?
We’re in a series about our Disciples identity. And last week, we considered our unofficial motto: “In essentials, unity; in non-essentials, liberty; in all things charity.” And we talked about what it means to ascribe to liberty of belief within our denomination. What does it really mean to interpret scripture in freedom within community? How do we hold different understandings while also holding to our covenant with one another, to be mindful of each other, to commit to walking this faith road together despite our disagreements? It’s tough.
Belonging in our cultural framework is often shaped by uniting with those who hate the same people we do. But here, in the context of our faith, something that infuses our whole lives, we’re called to reach across those lines and tend to the gaps and find Christ in the fractures. To be repairers of the breach, as the prophet Isaiah said.
And today, we consider unity. Our founders were troubled by the sectarianism and the division of 19th century American Christianity. They wanted us to be Christians first, above all. Above any other signifier. Methodist, Presbyterian, Baptist, Lutheran, Disciples—our founders thought those were fine adjectives but poor nouns. They wondered how to bring together those who proclaimed Christ. And wouldn’t you know it, 200 years later, we’re still working on it. It’s a question followers of Jesus have been wrestling with for millennia. How do we follow Christ according to our convictions and understandings while being a part of the diverse Body of Christ?
Have you ever watched a flock of birds fly in the air? Maybe you’ve seen a murmuration or a conspiracy or a siege make their way across the sky, forming shapes that ebb and flow. You’ve watched how the flocks forms their own dark clouds as they move toward the horizon at a breathtaking pace.
Physicists marvel at how an individual bird operates within a flock. A flight pattern is a delicately unified system always on the brink of chaos. The birds are intimately attuned to one another, sharing in near-instantaneous transformations like a well-choreographed dance.
Physicists are still not sure how they do it—one model says the birds don’t detect each other’s directions, but rather, the pay attention to any flinch of a turning movement. Another model says birds take turns being leaders, so that the ones calling the shots in the flight patterns changes for every flight. The birds are born knowing what to do.
I mean, flight itself is miraculous. Birds are dinosaurs, let’s remember, and they are still the masters of the air. But micro-synchronized flying done on a scale of thousands? We shouldn’t even try to comprehend it—we should just sit still and be astonished, jaws hanging open. In the words of the poet Rumi, “Sell your cleverness and buy bewilderment.”
I wonder if the flight patterns of birds have anything to say to us as Christians seeking unity. I think the line “always on the brink of chaos” goes without explanation. But being intimately attuned to one another, detecting the changes, taking turns, changing shapes as needed? There’s something there, right?
According to the gospel of John, the unity of Christians is not simply one item on our to-do list as a church—it is the heart of the gospel, that we may be one in Christ. Above all, this unity is our mission.
We are not called to uniformity. Jesus doesn’t call for doctrinal or political unity. We’re not called to be an organization of like-minded individuals who can avoid uncomfortable conversations.
You know, I don’t mind being united with people I like. But I don’t like seeking unity with people who don’t recognize my ordination as a woman. I don’t like seeking unity with churches who have very different understandings of the book of Genesis than I do. I bristle in situations like that because the unity Christ is talking about can be prickly.
But this unity calls me out beyond my preferences and my lines in the sand. It calls me to take a better look around the table of Christ to see who else is seated there.
Our unity is not something we can achieve by willpower or consensus. It’s a divine gift from God. It’s in our spiritual, evolutionary DNA.
Unity not what we do, you see; it’s who we are.
It’s the answered prayer of Jesus.
And I don’t know about you, but a call to live into the prayer of Jesus for us on his final night before his death calls me out beyond my own B.S.
And as a side note, I really tried to find a sayable synonym to B.S. But thesaurus.com yielded results like tomfoolery, poppycock, hogwash, malarkey, baloney. And while these words are hilarious, they don’t carry the same punch as the word I’m not saying.
Because it’s the rough edge that I’m talking about. The elbows out front, the defenses up, the weapons drawn—that’s what Jesus is praying against. That we would lay down our arms, our petty hatreds, and seething trivialities. That we could, in the name of Jesus for the good of the world God loves, deal with our tomfoolery, poppycock, hogwash, malarkey, and baloney so that we might be one.
So that we would be united in Christ to be a witness to the love of God manifest in Jesus Christ to the world, for the world.
That by living into this prayer of Jesus, we might realize the reign and promise of God in our world here and now, bubbling up and sprouting through sidewalks.
Because this unity that our founders ached for, that Christ prayed for is more than playing nice or agreeing to disagree.
It’s a deep earthy promise that we’re born into through our baptism. It is a coming home to who we are, who Christ calls us to be, a witness to the mind-blowing, earth-healing, defense-shattering love of God.
This unity says that we are Christ’s, and Christ is not divided.
We are one body, but many parts. A single house with many stones, a single vine with many branches.
One flock, many birds. Strange birds, loud birds, flashy birds, pecking birds, sure, but one flock.
So what do you call a flock of Christians? Perhaps, a unity.
Amen.
Sharing Our Resources
Our offering of our time, energy, and resources are not merely an individual commitment. Our generosity is for others. Our work of love through stewardship reminds us that we are all connected, partnering in the continued work of Jesus.
And as children of God, we are also in partnership with God. That’s why we call it a covenant—it’s a promise to each other, to the church at large, and to God, that all we have is God’s.
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.
Our benediction this morning comes from Paul’s letter to the Romans:
May the God of steadfastness and encouragement grant you to live in harmony with one another, in accordance with Christ Jesus, so that together you may with one voice glorify God.