Rev. Zach

Acts 2:1-21 ; 1 Corinthians 12:3b-13 ; John 20:19-23 I’m not sure if you know this, but you're on fire! That’s not meant to alarm you – especially after lighting up the baptismal font. "You're on fire!" is a phrase that comes from a restaurant I used to work in. Just like most restaurants, every server had a station of three or four tables that they were primarily responsible for, but every server was also responsible for every customer they walked by. You did not walk past a dirty dish without picking it up unless your hands were full. You did not walk by a table that had not been greeted without taking a drink order and seeing that it got to them. If two or more were gathered at the dish pit, I would say “Drop and go!” and take the responsibility of scraping dishes. The response was always, “What do you need?” If I needed anything for my tables they would get it, but not before taking clean dishes to the cooks before checking and checking for any hot food to go out ...

Acts 2:1-21 Today is Pentecost! While it is one of my favorite days in the seasons of the church calendar, it is also one of those weird words that we never use outside of the church. This means that, outside of the church, it probably has little to no meaning to most people. In fact, even those raised in the church may be hard-pressed to tell you what it means and where it comes from. Some of us just know it as “the day to wear red,” which also loses its meaning when you live in a college town that has red as a school color. Yet Pentecost is so much more than a day! Pentecost is the recognition of the gift of the Holy Spirit that formed the church. It connects us to our Jewish roots in that it comes 50 days after Easter, just as the Festival of Shavuot – the celebration of the gift of the law – happens 50 days after the Festival of the Passover. Why is that? Make no mistake in thinking that God intended to wipe one tradition out with another. No, what God intended was to make it cle...

Ezekiel 37:1-14      Acts 2:1-21     John 15:26-27, 16:4b-15 By now most of you know that I am of the genus and species known as the “Extravertus Maximus.” As was once noted by a member of my kind – who happen to be my General Presbyter when I began seminary – we think by speaking. For us, a conversation is much like working out a math problem on a black board with a group of people helping.  It is for this reason that there are few words that terrify me more than hearing someone say, “It’s like that time when you said…” because the good Lord may be the only one who knows what I truly said. Likewise, one of the most affirming experiences I’ve had in ministry was from a friend in Virginia who would occasionally respond to something I said in a discussion with, “Tell the truth!” Given that sometimes it is only God that knows  our hearts, and sometimes we only know that we have spoken truth when someone tells us that we did, I think we can all take...