Rev. Zach

First Presbyterian – Lafayette, Louisiana July 24, 2011 – Ordinary 17 A Psalm 139 Romans 8:24-28 Matthew 13:44-52 What is it that you treasure? What is it that you cherish? The first things that come to mind for many of us are immaterial things: friendship, love, family. A friend recently posted this statement on facebook, “What if you woke up tomorrow with only what you thanked God for today?” Fortunately for us God is not that transactional, but it does make you think about the value we place on things. Most of us end up with homes filled with things we rarely use or need. Having just moved I can tell you that I suffer from this issue as much or more than anyone. As a culture we place more value on what we have to own than on what we have to share. I don’t mean to say that we are not generous or that we do not share. I simply mean to say that I don’t believe generosity to be a primary motivator for our actions. Now, I want to be very clear that my intention is not to sc

First Presbyterian Church - Lafayette, Louisiana July 17, 2011 - Ordinary 16 A Genesis 28:10-19a Romans 8:12-25
 Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43 Who, or what, is God to you? This is a question I often start with in discussions of faith with groups ranging from confirmation classes to new classes of elders. It is a simple question with a seemingly obvious answer. Yet many of our descriptions of God are limited to particular actions that we claim to be God’s actions. That is why H. Richard Niebuhr once argued that Western culture is not, as we like to claim, monotheistic . Instead he claimed that we are polytheistic. For Niebuhr, God is a center of value - a place from which we determine the value of other things and by which we organize our priorities. That changes the question a little bit. The question, “Who is God?” then becomes, “Who or what is the center of value for your life?” Chances are that this question might have more than one answer depending on the topic. As a parent I a

First Presbyterian Church - Lafayette, Louisiana July 10, 2011 - Ordinary (15A) Genesis 25:19-34 Romans 7:13-25 Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23 Many of you know that I spent some time with my grandmother last weekend as she was, and still is, in hospice care. It was a holy time that I will cherish. During that time I experienced things that I knew to be possible and a few that I never expected to happen. Nothing particularly miraculous happened - unless you consider the miraculous quality of every moment of life. By that I mean the fact that we live and move and exist on this tiny spec of dust called earth that hangs in the vast expanse of the universe. It is a miracle to me that we are breathing, that actions taking place on a subatomic level all around us allow us to blissfully choose to be kind or rude, generous or selfish, grateful or unappreciative. We can even be all of these at once depending on the person or the situation. Tens of thousands of variables effect our deci

First Presbyterian - Lafayette, Louisiana June 26, 2011 - Ordinary (13A) Genesis 22:1-14 Romans 6:12-23 Matthew 10:40-42 I was out running some errands with a congregation member about a week ago, and we ran into one of those traffic jams that are caused by a very few people trying to go the same way to get to different places. In her frustration, she said something along the lines of, “Come on, now. Somebody do something - even if it isn’t right!” I wonder if anyone else has ever felt that way. Sometimes our fears can paralyze us. Sometimes our fears can motivate us - but I’m not sure that reacting to fear is always the best course. Trials can be so prevalent in this life that it is hard not to find ourselves reacting from a fight or flight position in multiple areas of our lives. Peter Steinke is a Lutheran Pastor and author who often talks about the church in terms of its health. He refers to the human tendency to react out of fear as making decisions from the most ba