March 31, 2024 • Rev. David Petty, Pastor Donnie Sturgill, Sanctuary Choir • Mark 16:1–8
Easter is tricky when it comes to faith. We come for the happy ending–the “and then they lived happily ever after.” The resurrection story proclaims hope over despair and life over death, yet we know that life continued, and continues for us, as a story of spiking heartbreak moments that are not forever fixed. The nature of being created for love is that we will always hunger for more, that there is never enough life and love to satisfy. And endings are often too soon. But perhaps a good enough faith is one that moves through the chronic nature of being incurably human with an eye for resurrection moments that assure us that this good enough life is worthy of our amazement. I invite you imagine in this silence the deep seed and shoot that is growing within you, yearning for light and life.
Good Friday
March 29, 2024 • Rev. David Petty • John 18:12—19:42
Some days are just lousy and that doesn’t even begin to cover it. The first recorded use of "guode friday” was in the South English Legendary, a text from 1290. Calling a day “good” was a way to denote a time of holy observance. What if even our lousiest days could be experienced as a holy observance of the reality that this IS life? Perhaps the “good news” in the midst of devastation is that God is buried with us in our deepest pain, wrapping us, holding us until we can move through that birth canal once again into renewed life.
We are Fragile
March 17, 2024 • Pastor Donnie Sturgill, Rev. David Petty, CLM Twinkle Gordon • John 12:1–8
The story of Jesus includes many moments around tables, as this was part of his ritual of relationship even to the last. In this fifth week of the Lent season, we will hear a story of love and devotion from the disciple Mary, directed at Jesus at the table. As we will see, Jesus tries to prepare his beloved companions for his death. Talk of death is like a gut-punch to many of us; we would rather believe we and our loved ones are invincible, are able to will ourselves into being strong. We all know that isn’t always how the story goes. We are fragile. Our lives, like the plants in the gardens we tend, are susceptible to elemental dangers and a life-cycle of letting go in order to live.
Palm Sunday
March 24, 2024 • Pastor Donnie Sturgill, Sanctuary Choir • Luke 4:1–13
We stand at the precipice of Lent and Holy Week. This day moves from shouting and praising to a time of crying and lament. The drama of the story of Jesus’ last week reads like the book of our lives. Feeling hopeful one moment, we plummet the next as we deal with disappointment, danger, and grief. God’s incarnation on earth was not immune from this roller-coaster we call life. One thing we know, when the going gets rough, the last thing on our minds is climbing the ladder of self-improvement. We just want to survive, to be comforted, to have our pain known and embraced. And so we turn from the isolation of perfection and turn toward deep love. It is never too late to nurture the garden of relationships, for we are all a group project.
We Often Believe We are the Problem
March 10, 2024 • Rev. David Petty, Sanctuary Choir, Jackie Fletcher • Luke 15:1–3, Luke 15:11–32
Judgment. Judgment. Judgment. Who among us doesn’t struggle with this… judging others, judging ourselves. And usually we are our own harshest critics. Some preachers have expressed a worry about how the phrase “good enough” might let people off the hook in striving for excellence. I actually think that the larger problem lies in the fear that the mistakes we inevitably make will be “fatal” in some way. So we stop being creative, we stop pushing boundaries and trying something new because the risk becomes too great. When this happens, we lose our agency for actually getting better because getting better necessarily means we WILL make mistakes until we learn. None of us will be even close to perfect right away at anything. But if we live in an environment where we know we will be loved anyway, we are more free to live fully and more hospitably ourselves.
Lots of Things can be Medicine
March 3, 2024 • Rev. David Petty, Exalt! • Luke 13:1–9
As we continue our look at 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.
So Much is Out of Our Control
February 25, 2024 • Rev. David Petty, Sanctuary Choir • Luke 13:31–35
We continue our movement through the Lent season this week with another kind of “letting go.” This week we lament that so much in life is out of our control. This is frustrating to us and so sometimes we have been tempted to believe the sayings that tell us if we just “think positively,” we can turn it all around. Yet our experience tells us that this doesn’t always work. Let us turn ladder-climbing toward the expectation of a perfect life into garden-tending, nurturing “what is” and embracing our holy, good enough, lives.
Odinary Lives can Be Holy
February 18, 2024 • Rev. David Petty, CLM Twinkle Gordon, Sanctuary Choir • Luke 4:1–13
The liturgical season of Lent developed over the centuries as a time of deepened reflection. Originally a period of preparation for baptisms on Easter Eve, it later became a time for all Christians to take stock of their lives and examine how the connection to their faith was progressing–or not–and to recommit to a life of goodness. This year we will indeed open up and take stock. But rather than feel guilty (a popular Lenten pastime) about what we haven’t accomplished in our lives and faith, we will spend some time questioning how our culture’s obsession with achievement and perfection actually keeps us from the true depths of life and faith. This Lent, we’ll take some time to turn ladder-climbing into garden-tending, nurturing our souls and embracing our holy, “good enough,” lives.
Ash Wednesday
February 14, 2024 • Pastor Donnie Sturgill, Rev. David Petty, CLM Twinkle Gordon • Matthew 6:1–6, Matthew 6:16–21
Ash Wednesday marks the beginning of the Lent season, a time when we aspire to make some room for deeper introspection and practices that will draw us into the love and assurance of faith. But sometimes faith can feel not as assured as we hoped for. We can feel “less than,” perceiving that others seem to be able to be “more faithful” in their practices and beliefs. This Lent, rather than change for “the best,” we’ll seek to gain momentum one day at a time, “to reach for a faith that is never perfect, but good enough.”
