Rev. Zach

Sermon Delivered September 23, 2012  Ecclesiastes 4:9-12 1 Corinthians 13:1-10;13 John 15:1-4 Sometimes a rope can be your best friend. This was made clear to me one starry night in Alpharetta, GA. I was house sitting over the Summer for a friend whose family owned a polo farm. In the early morning hours I was awakened by the sound of a large animal on the gravel driveway. Having grown up with livestock, I did what seemed the right thing to do. I went and got a halter and led the horse back into the corral. Suddenly I realized in my stupor that I was barefoot, and one misstep of a large herbivore could have been most unfortunate. At that moment I was glad for a threefold chord. Other times I have appreciated the value of a good rope have involved rock climbing. The type of climb determines the rope. A static rope will offer more strength and stability, but if it pulls tight with too much force it can snap. A dynamic rope has more give to it, though it cannot bear as much weigh...

Sermon Delivered 9/17/12 Psalm 116:1-9 James 3:1-12 Mark 8:27-38 “When I was a young man and went to seminary school,” [that’s a Doors reference I have always wanted to make] I found that all the cool kids had bumper stickers – much like the bumper sticker theology wall at C.U.P.S. They proudly brandished statements like Eve Was Framed, or Question Authority, or the truly rebellious, In case of rapture, can I have your car? So, naturally I set about to find a fitting statement – something that was not merely sarcastic, but truly reflective of my faith. And lo and behold, in a shop in Little Five Points in Atlanta, it came to me – Denial is not a river in Egypt . I placed it tenderly on the rear window of the cab of my small, beat up, yellow pick up truck – and everyone who knew me agreed that it seemed fitting. In the book of James, we have been hearing about the way in which our denial of healing relationships and restoration for others is actually a denial of healing relations...

Sermon Delivered on September 2, 2012 Psalm 146 James 2:1-10, 14-17 Mark 7:24-37 I met a guy the other day who is a computer programmer. He’s one of the parents on my son’s soccer team. When small talk led to the inevitable, “So, what do you do?”, he stated his occupation and followed it with a shrug, a smirk, and the moniker of pride and shame, “Geek.” What a transformation that term has gone through, thanks to Bill Gates and Steve Jobs – the patron Saints of technology. [Owen Rachal interrupts, “Excuse me, Zach? Technically speaking – St. Isidore of Seville is the patron saint of the Internet, computers, computer users and computer technicians. He is the patron saint of technology.”] Thanks, Owen. As I was saying, Geek used to be a term of derision and shame. Children’s songs were composed about the weak and pitiful creature known as the pencil-necked geek. But not anymore! Now they are our heroes and members of squadrons of deployable helpers for our technical needs. I must say...

Sermon delivered 9/2/12  Psalm 15 James 1:17-27 Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23 G.I.G.O. is a programmer’s acronym for Garbage In Garbage Out. It is used to describe sloppy program design that results in a computer program that functions less elegantly than it could or should. It also represents a certain knowledge of best practices – or at least the ability to see certain errors that are not obvious to the uninitiated – and, therefore it functions as a type of Pharisaic code. One could easily use the phrase Garbage In Garbage Out to describe the scriptures we have read today. Psalm 15 tells us that God only tolerates the blameless – those who speak no evil, do no evil, and will not hear of it done. These are the ones who will abide in the tent of the Lord. James comes across with the one-two punch to tell us that good only comes from God, and that if we hear about Jesus but do not love like Jesus then we are lost even to ourselves. We are pretenders going through the motions of fai...