Goodness Weekly 4.11.22
“Let no one ever come to you without leaving better and happier. Be the living expression of God's kindness: kindness in your face, kindness in your eyes, kindness in your smile.”
—Mother Teresa
What’s Good
From Byron Stone:
“For the past two months, our church has been praying for my good friend, Israel Lewis. This weekend, my college buddies and I got to visit him in the hospital. While he still has a long way to go, he has made great strides in the last few days. God has truly performed a miracle here! Israel has already beaten the odds thus far, and we are confident that God will continue to heal and comfort him and his family.”
From the Lowry’s:
“Our family is so grateful for the ways that this community showed up for us during our bout of Covid over the past couple of weeks. Each little expression of kindness was a reminder of God’s goodness.”
Message from Jess
In his show Curb Your Enthusiasm, main character Larry David gets busted with his signature move “the big goodbye.” Larry attends an event and avoids the people he doesn’t really want to talk to and then makes a big show of the ending interaction with the person just before he leaves.
This morning I was thinking about the way that Jesus walked into Jerusalem. While the crowds cheered, he wept over the city and its people and carried all of the complex human emotion with him right into the city center. He could have opted for “the big goodbye” but in his last human week, I wonder about all of the people and places who were changed just because he chose to be fully present.
As we talked about during worship on Sunday, this is our call to follow. What if we committed to leaving everything better than we found it? What does this mean for each person we meet? What does this mean for this beautiful earth we call our home?
This Holy Week, I challenge each of us to practice this simple shift: show up, be present, enter into the hard conversations, sit with the suffering friend even when you don’t know the right thing to say. Leave it all better than you found it.
Holy Week Practices:
In her book Sacred Ordinary Days, Jenn Giles Kemper gives some tools for embracing Holy Week with intention.
We invite you to choose a practice or two that resonate with you this week:
Wash the feet of another person
Pray for an hour with Jesus in the middle of the night on Maundy Thursday
Attend a Good Friday service
Walk the Stations of the Cross in front of our chapel
Practice solitude, stillness, and silence on Holy Saturday
Participate in a Tenebrae service
Upcoming Events
Sunday, April 10th - Sunday, April 17th Stations in the Street (located outside the Chapel)
Easter Sunday, April 17th
9:30am Brunch: Sign up to bring Breakfast Casserole, Bread/Pastry, Fruit, or Juice by emailing scarlin@sunsetridgechurch.org or calling the Sunset Ridge Church Office at (210) 824-4568
11:00am Easter Outdoor Worship
12:00pm Easter Egg Hunt
Morning:
Thank you for this Holy Week
As I enter into it, let me do so with great intention
That I may be present to your suffering, O Christ,
That I may be present to the suffering within me that you long to make whole
That I may be present to the suffering of those around me and have the courage to walk into the center of all of it
Ready to pull up a chair and say, “you are not alone”.
Thank you for never leaving me alone
I walk into this day and this week with you Lord.
Amen.
Evening:
My heart longs, O Lord, to leave the world a little better than I found it
I know there were moments today when that happened
And more moments where it did not
You know my humanity, and I know your strength
Help me to be a little better tomorrow
for the sake of love
And help me to rest tonight
knowing that today in its wholeness was good.
Amen.
