Rev. Zach

  Love is the Way: Desmond Tutu, Dolly Parton, and You The Rev. Zachary S. Sasser 1 John 3:16-24; Psalm 43:5 Over the last two weeks, we’ve asked and answered questions about loving in the way that we have been loved. First, we asked, “How do I find the energy to keep loving when the world seems to be going the other way?” The answer we received was, to be honest about our history, to be guided by our traditions as we honor God, to recognize that we have been and are loved by God, and then respond to the world out of the love we have received. Hearing the call to love, we realized that loving as God loves requires us to give up some things. We give ourselves over to others – and we give up some measure of control – and so we asked, “Will loving everyone sacrificially make us all doormats?” The answer we received was, “No.”  As we looked into that further, we came to the realization that loving sacrificially helps us understand more fully who we were created to be in the first ...

Isaiah 6:1-8, Mark 12:28-31 Love the Lord your God with all that you have and all that you are, and love your neighbor as yourself – easier said than done sometimes, isn’t it? Still, that is the summary of the law offered by Jesus, and it is also, in a sense, his invitation into the Kingdom of God. At least, when the scribe agreed with Jesus, he then said to the scribe, “You are not far from the Kingdom of God.” Today I want to talk about God’s invitation to us to love and to be loved as we try to tell people how close they are to the Kingdom of God. I think the first thing we have to do is hear that for ourselves. Do you know how close you are to the Kingdom of God? It is as close as your next interaction, maybe even with yourself when you look in the mirror. In the end, that’s who you have to be true to, right? Isn’t that what Polonius told his son, Laertes, in the play, Hamlet? “To thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any ...

Jeremiah 18:1-11 This week has been a trying week on the souls of many in our nation. Indeed, many people around the world have found it difficult to watch and to understand the election process in these United States, and yet they are watching and they want to understand. They want to understand because they know something that we don’t. They know what it’s like to have a foreign power with influence over their lives. There are certainly foreign powers that attempt to influence our lives all the time, but there is so much more of the world that turns on the value of the U.S. Dollar than we have any notion of understanding. Even in our weakest moments, we have more power than most do in their strongest moments. That’s not to say that the economic power we hold on the world stage is shared equally – and we could argue all day about whether that is fair and just – but it does lead me to share one of my favorite election year memes. “Do not let your allegiance to the donkey or the elephan...