Rev. Zach

Isaiah 55:1-9      1 Corinthians 10:1-13      Luke 13:1-9 Welcome to the middle of Lent! This is the point where some people either feel really good about the fact that they have given something up or really bad because they tried and failed. Of course, the staunch Calvinists in the crowd are thinking (in a French Calvinist accent), “I feel nothing. Lent is no different than any other time. God is always calling us to repent.” So, here we are, all together in the in-between time of Lent. Welcome to the illusion of this present moment. I say that because of a piece on the TED Radio Hour on the illusion of time. Harvard Psychologist, Dan Gilbert, spoke about the way in which the past and the future are like the sand and the sea.  We like to think that there is a line in between the two, and yet there is only the sand on the beach and water that ebbs and flows against it, in it, and through it. His point is that the past is full of...

Isaiah 55:1-9       Psalm 63:1-8       Luke 13:1-9 Mind Blown [poof] – that’s what we sometimes say when we hear or see something that changes the way we understand the world around us. Marketing companies like to use this phrase to tell you that they have the answer that you’ve just never thought of, and it is available for low monthly installments and terrible interest rates.     Fangirls and fanboys – that’s a term for people who are relatively obsessed with something like a book series, a movie, or a brand – like to use “Mind. Blown.” when there is some new insight that changes the way they understand the thing they adore. For those of us who are fans of scripture, and even more so of God’s self-revelation through Jesus, I think that we have received some fairly mind blowing texts today! The passage from Isaiah reads like some socialist manifesto (How does one buy food without money, anyway?). And then we have this oddly ...