This week in our sermon series, we build on our theme of “Good Enough” and consider the ways that we grasp for control over everything in our lives, and the ways that it makes us miserable because we were not meant to be God. We were meant to live lives of open-handed grace. How does Jesus model this for us as a fellow human being, and where in our lives can we unclench and let go? And see what God can do? Maybe it won’t be what we planned, but it will actually be good enough. And so will we.
2/26/2023: GOOD ENOUGH: “Ordinary Lives can be Holy”
We continue our Lenten Sermon Series “Good Enough”, begun on Ash Wednesday this past week. This series is based upon the newly released book by the author Kate Bowler of the same name, with 40 devotions helping to put language to humanity’s struggle that life is not as it should be, but still must be lived faithfully. Part of being human is wrestling with all of the things that are broken in our world and that cannot be fixed, yet also tending to the things that we can do something about. We are only human, but also made in the image of God. This Lent, can we let ‘good enough’ be good enough?
THIS WEEK: we find ourselves hungry for many things that we believe will bring us satisfaction. The devil lays a bet that Jesus will jump at the chance for glory, fame, and the quick fix. Who wouldn’t? But Jesus keeps up the pithy one-liners long enough that the Tempter just has to slink away. What are the temptations that catch your ear, singing out promises that your life should be more special than it is? What if ordinary life is already holy–as is?
2/22/2023: ASH WEDNESDAY—Perfection is Impossible. Transformation Isn’t.
This Ash Wednesday is the beginning of Lent and also the beginning of a new Lenten sermon series called “Good Enough”. This series is based upon the newly released book by the author Kate Bowler of the same name, with 40 devotions helping to put language to humanity’s struggle that life is not as it should be, but still must be lived faithfully. Part of being human is wrestling with all of the things that are broken in our world and that cannot be fixed, yet also tending to the things that we can do something about. We are only human, but also made in the image of God. This Lent, can we let ‘good enough’ be good enough?
Ash Wednesday kicks off this series by considering our culture’s (and our religion’s) drive towards perfection, and asks us to genuinely consider fasting from that; giving that up as a way to grow closer to God and to what God truly wants for us. Join us in this journey in the coming weeks.
2/19/2023: New Year, Same Promises FINAL WEEK (Wonder)
This final week of our Epiphany sermon series, we conclude in our focus on God’s enduring promises with one that perhaps ties all the others together: God’s promise of wonder. Wonder and awe and amazement is our response to being in the presence of something overwhelming; something that we cannot explain; something we did not make happen. I think of wonder as one of the first characteristics that are present in children, and so maybe it is no accident that Jesus tells us to have faith like a child. Perhaps only when we surrender to wonder in our lives will be nourished in our spirits enough to embrace all of God’s other promises: new life, faithfulness, ministry, blessing, guidance and freedom.
This is also Transfiguration Sunday; the ultimate Epiphany of who Jesus really is; the bridge between this season of Epiphany and the season of Lent. We read about God’s glorious reveal of luminous divinity, but it is bookended by the somber realization of the inevitability of the cross and of struggle. Can we hold the struggles of life in tension with the glories of life?
2/12/2023: New Year, Same Promises WEEK 6 (Freedom)
This week, we consider God’s promise of freedom. But does that look like the kind of freedom we talk about in our country? (“I’m proud to be an American, where at least I know I’m free”). Are we just free from all constraints? Free to do whatever we please? What exactly are we free FOR? And how does this promise tie in with God’s promise of guidance about how to live these lives of faith together in a way that honors God? Let’s keep asking ourselves these challenging questions together in community, and see where God may lead…