Rev. Zach

John 1:1-18   This past Wednesday a small group of us met for prayer as we often do on Wednesdays at 11:30. You can join us by zoom if you would like. We often have a few that join that way. You can call the church and we’ll send you the link if you don’t have it already. Anyway, last week Susan Cormier, who is a church member and also our Administrative Assistant, realized that lately, we have not been starting off our prayer meetings by sharing our joys! Shame on us. Joy and thanksgiving should be the root of prayer! When we begin anything with joy and gratitude, then everything becomes a response to God’s grace, whether we know it or not, and even if we reject or deny it. That’s why – in the words of my old theology professor from seminary, Doug Ottati –  we begin worship with confession of sin and the proclamation of salvation, or rather, as he said in class one day, “The good news of salvation is baked into our liturgy.” Sometimes we need a reminder that salvation is not ...

Acts 4:32-35     Psalm 133:1-3     1 John 1:1-2:2     John 20:19-31 Today we have some of the most romantic passages in the lectionary.  I don’t mean that they are all lovey dovey.  I mean they are the stuff of dreams.  They are the kind of passages that draw many of us to think of ideal images of the church in harmony and Jesus returning to calm fears, answer doubts, and give power to those who follow him.  These are certainly good images to hold onto, but there may be more to it than that. For me, theses readings conjure up memories of singing around a campfire.  It usually began with a two-part harmony chorus.  The boys would often start – some faking a low voice until they could make one, or at least hide their awkward squeaks in the group. Walkin’, walkin’, walkin’ in the light  Walkin’, walkin’, walkin’ in the light  Then the girls would come in a little too high before settling into somethin...

Isaiah 13:1-13 Hebrews 12:18-29 John 3:22-30 As I began to write these words I became overwhelmed with a feeling of inadequacy. I was reminded of a recent comic strip that had a story inside a story. The first three pains were of a hero falling off a cliff saying to himself, “How do I get out of this? Think, think!” Then, just before impact he resigns to say, “Nope. I got nothin’.” The last frame shows someone looking over the shoulder of the author of the story and saying, “Wow. So that’s what writer’s block looks like?” Tragedy makes us feel powerless, and we do not like feeling powerless (note comment by Angele McCord following this article ). In the wake of reports from the senseless shooting of 20 innocent children and 6 courageous women, nothing seems to make sense. Social media sites exploded with reactions on every side of the issues this opened up. (Interestingly – I could not think of a non-violent term to describe the spontaneous spike in activity. Violence is s...