This annual service at COA serves as our journey with Jesus to death on the cross; through arrest, betrayal, denial and trial. This year, with Jewish Passover beginning on 4/5, we are focusing our service on Jesus’ final meal with His closest followers and friends. What does He choose to say to them and how will they remember this “Last Supper” once they have experienced His death? How do we remember important people and things in light of what unfolds in our lives? Come and sit in the seats of the disciples on that night and meditate with us on Jesus’ final days.
4/2/2023 (PALM SUNDAY): Good Enough WEEK 6: We are a Group Project
Today is the start of Holy Week. Every year, this week is full to the brim of tension, fear, suffering and somehow also beauty. And the start of it is this Palm Sunday procession. Jesus needs help from His disciples to organize His own parody of the Roman processional parade into Jerusalem. His followers celebrate and it is a parade of joy, but for Jesus, it is a parade of protest. Jesus knew that this cheering crowd would soon turn into a clamoring mob. And He needed His people to go to the rest of the way. He cannot do it alone. Even Jesus Himself needed other human beings in order to complete His journey. What does it mean for our “good enough” journeys that we need each other? That we are a group project?
Link to readable sermon PDF
3/26/2023: Good Enough WEEK 5: We are Fragile
This last Sunday before Holy Week is one where we focus our attention on a truth we often prefer to ignore: we are fragile. We have limits. We are mortal. We are all broken. We are not God. Being fragile can either be denied and avoided at all costs, or it can be embraced, and so enhance our humanity. This week, we explore how Jesus modelled His own fragility when He had to face the death of a dear friend. Even knowing that resurrection would come soon for this friend, Jesus weeps. What does that mean for us? How do we face our own pain and limitations? How can our own fragility and vulnerability guide us with courage into Jesus’ journey to the cross in the weeks to come?
3/19/2023: Good Enough WEEK 4: Are We the Problem?
Each week of this Lenten season, we are focusing on ways that we can practice a counter-cultural theology that emphasizes the beauty and grace of the reality of life-right-now, rather than waiting with increasing judgment to reach some vision of a perfected existence. Far too often, when life does not go as planned or as hoped, we feel shame. We think we should have been able to make it happen. Or maybe we desperately search for where to point the finger of blame for suffering in the world. It is easier to try to find a reason than to sit with the pain and live authentically in these imperfect times in-between Creation and Heaven. So we blame, and we keep trying harder and harder. Our ladder-climbing efforts sometimes end up taking us down a rung or two as things don’t work out just right. And so let us continue to turn ladders into gardens, nurturing our souls and embracing our holy, “good enough,” lives.
Join us on this journey! It’s not too late!
3/12/2023 GOOD ENOUGH: A Lot of Things Can Be Medicine
As we continue our “Good Enough” sermon series, and meditate on what it means to release oppressive expectations about perfection in our lives and in our faith, this week we turn to a harmful idea that the prescription for our fear of failure is to simply work harder. As the book Good Enough reminds us, “We might feel we are climbing an ‘endless staircase’ of achievement, for high grades or success…[in] caregiving, work, or social pressure.” This Lent, we are taking some time to stop climbing ladders and staircases, to tend our souls slowly and lovingly, tilling the soil and fertilizer, and embracing our holy, “good enough,” lives. We look at one of Jesus’ many healing stories with the Samaritan woman at the well, where He sees an invisible need and crosses barriers to meet it.
We affirm that God’s love and grace come without price and making ourselves sick with overwork is not the answer to what ails us. And yet, God does call us to work together to alleviate the suffering of others. Why? Not so we can buy the golden ticket to eternal life, but so that all might know a heaven of help right here on earth.
Join us in this restorative and transformative conversation! AND DON’T FORGET TO JOIN US IN THE BOOK STUDIES OF GOOD ENOUGH ON MONDAYS 3/20 (in person) AND 3/27 (on zoom) both at 7 PM.