Rev. Zach

Psalm 145:8-9,14-21 ; John 18:28-40 Some of you may be wondering if we’ve jumped the starting gun on Holy Week. We haven’t even gotten to Palm Sunday yet and we’re already seeing Jesus before Pilate! On that account you are right. We are going a little out of order but don’t worry; we’ll come back for the Palms in due time. The reason that we are doing it this way, as we walk with Jesus through John’s gospel during Lent, is that so often we have one week to focus on the experience of Jesus during his betrayal and arrest. So often we focus on his suffering and not on the reason for it – apart from a massive guilt trip – and that’s not what we are here to do today. Instead, I’d like us to look through this passage with an openness to what God has done, is doing, and will do through us as God’s people. Today’s reading picks up where we left off last week after Peter’s denial and the recognition that God can and will work in and through us, even in our darkest days. Before we get too far i...

Psalm 145:10-13 ; John 13:36-38 ; John 18:12-27 “When I was a young man and went to seminary school,” [that’s a Doors reference for the hippies and Xers out there] I found that all the cool kids had bumper stickers. They proudly brandished statements like “Eve Was Framed,” or “Question Authority,” or the truly rebellious, “In case of rapture, can I have your car?” 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 pickup truck – and everyone who knew me agreed that it seemed fitting. I won’t go into why, but the answer did seem to vary by the perspective of the individual. In some ways, this is also true of our story today but the fundamental question this story asks us is the same regardless of our perspective. If Pete...

Psalm 51:7-12 ; John 13:1-17 One of the many things that you learn as a parent is that you will learn as much or more from your children than they will from you. One of these unexpected revelations happened after the birth of our first child when my wife called me and excitedly told me that our child had found her feet. I didn’t realize it at the time, but that’s kind of a basic developmental event so it was pretty exciting to for her to see it happen! And so the joys continued with the first wobbly steps and now she is about to graduate high school and take off running in a new direction. Oh, the places she will go…and so it is with all of us as spiritual children. The more mobile we get, the more opportunity there is for both success and failure. That’s why the season of Lent is designed for the opportunity to stop and take stock of our lives. That’s why our liturgy has a time for confession every Sunday – whether we feel like we need it or not! As spiritual creatures, confession oft...

Glorified Psalm 104:24-30 ; John 11:1-46 One thing I have come to realize, reading through the Gospel of John as we have been, is that John’s Gospel assumes that we know some things about Jesus' story. It’s kind of like talking with your aunt when she’s telling you a story that includes details about a cousin you never met or just haven’t seen in years. You know, Martha – the one who anointed Jesus’ feet and wiped them with her hair, seemed a bit much to me – any way she and Mary are taking care of Lazerus and it just doesn’t look good. That’s kind of how it goes in vv 1-2, even though we won’t get the story of Mary anointing Jesus until chapter 12. The point here is not to say that the author of John’s Gospel was every bit as ADHD as I am, but it is to say that Jesus had a very close relationship with these people. Just how and why is not revealed in John’s Gospel, and it’s not even clear if this is the same Martha and Mary as in Luke’s Gospel. Again, what matters is that these pe...

Today’s reading is a good example of the way in which we are called to stop and look behind us and before us to know what is of God and what is not; what is generative and what is destructive; what is helpful for us as God’s people and what is hurtful. We are told to consider who is the thief, the hired hand, and even the wolf by looking to Jesus as the Good Shepherd. I’ll be the first to say that looking around the congregation to point out who the thieves and wolves might be is more than a little problematic, so I am glad that the emphasis here is on Jesus. In the same way that pointing one finger at someone else leaves several fingers pointing back at me, I would say that we can all be, at times, the thief and the wolf. That’s kind of why we are here, on Ash Wednesday, at the beginning of Lent – to focus on Jesus and reorder our lives around his love and mercy. It might be a little confusing to say in v7 that Jesus is the gate and then call him the good shepherd in v11, unless you k...

Psalm 27:1-4 ; John 9:1-41 And the prophet sang out… As I walk through this wicked world Searchin' for light in the darkness of insanity I ask myself, is all hope lost? Is there only pain and hatred, and misery? And each time I feel like this inside There's one thing I wanna know What's so funny 'bout peace, love, and understanding? Those are the words of Elvis Costello from the album, “Armed Forces' ' released in 1979. As tension boils into war in Ukraine and reports continue in the US about a rise in antisemitism, the ongoing impact of systemic racism, and conflicts over books that express the experiences and feelings of those in the LGBTQ+ community, I can’t help but wonder, what is so funny about peace, love, and understanding? This is probably the point when some of you are thinking, “Could we just hear some more jazz?” or maybe, “What does all that have to do with the scripture you just read? Can we get on with that?” Sure, but first I want to acknowledge ...