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!
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. For our young ones, there is a coloring page and crayons for children to participate in worship as well as a designated area with toys in the back for families of little ones who need to move around and play to worship God. We believe that every age offers a unique perspective of the image of God, and 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.
The church office will be closed tomorrow in observance of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day.
Food Hub is this Saturday, January 22. You can sign up to help online through our link on Facebook or by visiting our website.
Our Cabinet Retreat was rescheduled to January 29, from 9-12 on Zoom.
On February 6th, we will have Community Care Sunday. One of the unseen ministries of Azle Christian Church is caring for the transient neighbors who knock on our door. One simple way to care for them is through small care packages that contain toiletries and snacks. On Community Care Sunday, we will assemble these care packs immediately following service to be available for distribution as needed. We invite you to bring travel size toiletries in the coming weeks leading up to that Sunday. A collection point will be set-up by the sanctuary.
To keep up with all the life we live together here at Azle Christian Church, make sure you follow us on Facebook and subscribe to our weekly e-blast and monthly newsletter. To sign up for the eblast and newsletter, go to our website, azlechristianchurch.org, and subscribe. There is also a live calendar on our website where you can see what we have going on each month. You can also find us on Instagram and TikTok, both at @azlechristianchurch.
We continue our Epiphany series today: Holy, Wholly, Holey, as we look at Jesus’ first miracle together.
Due to illness in our staff and leadership, our service will be abbreviated, with Gini playing the hymns for us. I will note the hymn we will be singing together, and Gini will play the first verse through one time and then we will sing along as best we can.
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: Your steadfast love, O Lord, extends to the heavens, your faithfulness to the clouds.
All: Your righteousness is like the mighty mountains, your judgments are like the great deep; you save humans and animals alike, O Lord.
One: How precious is your steadfast love, O God! All people may take refuge in the shadow of your wings.
All: They feast on the abundance of your house, and you give them drink from the river of your delights.
One: For with you is the fountain of life; in your light we see light.
All: O continue your steadfast love to those who know you, and your salvation to the upright of heart!
(Psalm 36:5-10)
Pastoral Prayer
The Lord be with you.
We give thanks this morning as cousins in faith that all the hostages of Congregation Beth Israel Synagogue in Colleyville were released alive and unharmed last night. We add our prayers to many as they deal with the aftermath of this attack and continue to pray for the end of antisemitic violence.
Today’s prayer begins with a prayer from Martin Luther King, Jr., whom we will celebrate tomorrow. I will add my words after his, and we will conclude our prayer the way we always do, with the Lord’s Prayer.
Join me in prayer.
O thou Eternal God, out of whose absolute power and infinite intelligence the whole universe has come into being. We humbly confess that we have not loved thee with our hearts, souls and minds and we have not loved our neighbors as Christ loved us. We have all too often lived by our own selfish impulses rather than by the life of sacrificial love as revealed by Christ. We often give in order to receive, we love our friends and hate our enemies, we go the first mile but dare not travel the second, we forgive but dare not forget. And so as we look within ourselves we are confronted with the appalling fact that the history of our lives is the history of an eternal revolt against thee. But thou, O God, have mercy upon us. Forgive us for what we could have been but failed to be. Give us the intelligence to know thy will. Give us the courage to do thy will. Give us the devotion to love thy will.
Most Holy One, Eternal God, we add our prayers to Reverend Dr. King’s prayer. We give you thanks for his mark on Christianity, on our country, on all those who love freedom and equality and justice. In the shadow of his prayer, we ask that you give us the courage to pray such bold prayers, to ask of you such difficult things as a mirror for our own hearts.
We know the Psalmist prayed that you would search and know her anxious thoughts, that you would examine all her ways. It seems so simple, but it is frighteningly dangerous prayer, for what will you find? Can we bear it? Can we bear to know the truth about ourselves?
Help us to love truth, even when it is hard. Help us to love justice, even when it hurts. Help us to love mercy, even when we are unsure. Have mercy upon us, O God. Forgive us for what we could have been but failed to be. Give us the intelligence to know your will. Give us the courage to do your will. Give us the devotion to your will.
In the name of our brother and redeemer Jesus, we ask it and pray together…
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.
Sermon
John 2:1-12
On the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. 2 Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding. 3 When the wine gave out, the mother of Jesus said to him, “They have no wine.” 4 And Jesus said to her, “Woman, what concern is that to you and to me? My hour has not yet come.” 5 His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.” 6 Now standing there were six stone water jars for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons. 7 Jesus said to them, “Fill the jars with water.” And they filled them up to the brim. 8 He said to them, “Now draw some out, and take it to the chief steward.” So they took it. 9 When the steward tasted the water that had become wine, and did not know where it came from (though the servants who had drawn the water knew), the steward called the bridegroom 10 and said to him, “Everyone serves the good wine first, and then the inferior wine after the guests have become drunk. But you have kept the good wine until now.” 11 Jesus did this, the first of his signs, in Cana of Galilee, and revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him.
12 After this he went down to Capernaum with his mother, his brothers, and his disciples; and they remained there a few days.
This is the word of God for the people of God. Thanks be to God.
In the season of Epiphany, we are reading texts that reveal who Jesus is as the Most Human One and as God Incarnate. And in today’s text, we witness his first miracle: turning water into wine. It’s a funny miracle because his later miracles will include curing illnesses, exorcising demons, and raising the dead. He will feed thousands of people with a just a few loaves of bread. But the inaugural sign of his miraculous ability was to keep a party going.
Of course, we can look for the symbolism of the story: the party had been going on for three days—on the third day, he will be raised. He is making wine—what will eventually be one of two parts of holy communion. Water, baptism. Old jars, new wine. The bridegroom in the story, Jesus as our bridegroom. Wedding, messianic banquet. Each part of the story is its own little sermon about who Jesus is and what he is here for.
But I wonder about just the story itself. The fact that Jesus is likely on the dance floor doing the cha cha slide with his friends, enjoying the last bit of freedom he has before his mission begins. And his mom, not caring one bit about the vibe she’s about to ruin, tells him, “They have no wine.”
He responds to her, “What concern is that to you or to me? My time has not yet come.” And like any good mother, she ignores his, “I don’t wanna” and tells the servants to listen to Jesus and do what he says.
So Jesus tells them to grab some big empty jars—the kind that will keep a wedding party’s thirst quenched for a few hours more—and fill them with water. I wonder if as the servants were lugging the full jars back to the party if the water sloshed around, spilling over the brim, splashing their arms, and I wonder if as they looked down, they saw that it was not water droplets on their arms, but wine droplets.
And in their wonder at what sorcery had taken place, did they hold their breath as the steward tasted what was in the jar and exclaim the sensibility of the time: that people usually put the good wine out first and wait until everyone is intoxicated before bringing out the bad wine, but this bridegroom had done the reverse: he had saved the best for last.
Of course, in this time, water could carry diseases and cause illnesses, so people depended on wine for hydration. This act was not merely to extend celebration but it was also an act of sustaining life and health.
And I wonder if they realized that with that single gulp of wine, Jesus’ ministry would begin.
In 1967, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., went to Jamaica and completely isolated himself for a few weeks from the Civil Rights Movement. There he worked on the manuscript of his book, Where Do We Go from Here?
He was weary from the ongoing fight for justice and equality. The march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama had happened two years prior. He was regularly bombarded with death threats and burning crosses and attempts on his life. The FBI had a thick folder on him and taps on his phone. White moderate pastors shook his hand but stayed silent in the face of gross injustice, telling Dr. King that it wasn’t time for change, he was moving too fast, he was asking too much, he was being too controversial.
He wondered if he had underestimated the road ahead of him and overestimated the ability of people, white people in particular, to change their hearts and policies.
And he was unknowingly nearing the end of his time here on earth.
And during his time of rest, of being unplugged from his hard work in the Civil Rights Movement, he wrote this:
“All men are interdependent. Every nation is an heir of a vast treasury of ideas and labor to which both the living and the dead of all nations have contributed. Whether we realize it or not, each of us lives eternally, “in the red.” We are everlasting debtors to known and unknown men and women. When we arise in the morning, we go into the bathroom where we reach for a sponge which is provided for us by a Pacific Islander. We reach for soap that is created for us by a European. Then at the table we drink coffee which is provided for us by a South American, or tea by a Chinese or cocoa by a West African. Before we leave for our jobs we are already beholden to more than half of the world.
In a real sense, all life is interrelated. The agony of the poor impoverishes the rich; the betterment of the poor enriches the rich. We are inevitably our brother’s keeper because we are our brother’s brother. Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly.”
In his isolation, Dr. King observed how we are all woven together, affected by the other. While on an island, he noted that we are not islands, that our fates are indeed connected and bound up in each other.
In his discussion of poverty of materials and poverty of spirit, Dr. King said, “The large house in which we live demands that we transform this worldwide neighborhood into a worldwide brotherhood. Together we must learn to live as brothers or together we will be forced to perish as fools.
We must work passionately and indefatigably to bridge the gulf between our scientific progress and our moral progress. One of the great problems of mankind is that we suffer from a poverty of the spirit which stands in glaring contrast to our scientific and technological abundance. The richer we have become materially, the poorer we have become morally and spiritually.”
In Dr. King’s imagination, there is enough for everyone. Any kind of sense of progress that contradicts that understanding is not real progress. We are all sitting at the same table, sharing the same jar of wine, the same basket of bread.
In our time of radical social transformation, in the way the pandemic has upended our lives, it’s hard to not prioritize our own silos. We ask with Jesus, “What concern is that to me or you?”
During the winter storm last February, as I laid in a hotel room with rolling outages after having to abandon our home without power, I struggled to care about anyone else because I was so afraid my family was going to die. In my most desperate moments as a mom of a high-risk child under 5 years old who cannot be vaccinated yet, I struggle to care about anyone else because I am so afraid my daughter is going to get sick and end up in the hospital. I am terrified I am going to bring COVID home to her.
These times have brought to the surface a modus operandi of desperation that I had not know before. It has altered how I live and move in the world.
So isn’t it truly incredible that while Dr. King did not endure a pandemic or a life-threatening storm, he endured threats on his life and his family’s life and well-being over and over and over again until his own life was taken, and yet he continued to insist that we are all each other’s keepers because we are each others brothers and sisters and siblings? We are bound up together—those of us in the church service, all the churches in Azle, all the synagogues and mosques and temples in the metroplex—we are each other’s keepers.
He insisted on this, even as the white moderate pastors and churches that he wrote about in his Letter from a Birmingham Jail said it’s not time yet. You’re moving too fast. He kept calling out what was wrong. He kept naming the problem. He kept saying, no, it is time.
Even as people, his own government, said this is not the way. Let things lie. He insisted, no, there is another way. There is another way that we can relate to each other. There is another way for us to be in community.
Even when the economic system created huge gaps between the haves and have-nots, and many simply accepted that reality, Dr. King said, no, there is enough for everyone. We have a duty to make that true.
Even when all signs pointed to a community of scarcity and hoarding of resources and justice and freedom, he somehow saw through that and named the life of enoughness, of abundance that God gives us.
I wonder if Jesus’ first miracle, the genesis of his ministry, began with turning water into wine in order to be a sign that God’s reign is one of abundance, of enoughness.
The libations were restored for the wedding party because Mother Mary saw the problem and said something about it. She insisted that the one who could do something, Jesus, do something.
She instructed others to listen to Jesus and do what he says.
Jesus told the servants to gather the resources they did have—notice he didn’t say go and get more wine or somehow acquire things outside of their possession. He told them to grab the water jars in the pantry and fill them up with water. Use what you have and he will take care of the rest.
As we reflect on Dr. King’s legacy today and tomorrow and we continue to be live into our call as Disciples to be a movement for wholeness in a fragmented world, may we be paying attention to things that need to change, to jars that need to be filled, to needs that need to be met.
May we have the courage, even in our own slogging through the world, to name what we see.
And may we use what we have—the gifts God has given us, the resources we have in our possession, the connections we have with one another—to alleviate suffering, to come alongside in solidarity, to be extravagantly generous, even when it goes against the rationality of the day.
May we say yes to what is asked of us even if we’re not ready, even if we’re not sure it’s the right time.
And may we trust that we do not labor in vain or on our own. That Christ is taking our acts of obedience and turning them into abundance.
Amen.
Stewardship Moment
There are many ways to support and resource the ministries of Azle Christian Church: Venmo, giving online, or the offering plate. I also invite you to bring nonperishable items for our Little Free Pantry. The collection shelves for the pantry are in the Fellowship Hall right outside the kitchen.
The deacons are going to hand these plates over 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. You can drop your offering, an “I gave online card,” or an information card.
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 contact Pastor Ashley or talk to an elder.
Benediction:
Please rise in body or spirit for our benediction, the final song, and the Doxology.
Our benediction this morning comes from the hymn, “Lift Every Voice and Sing”:
God of our weary years
God of our silent tears
Thou who has brought us thus far on the way
Thou who has by Thy might Led us into the light
Keep us forever in the path, we pray
Lest our feet stray from the places, our God, where we met Thee
Amen.