Rev. Zach

Job 42:1-6, 10-17     1 Corinthians 3:1-10     Mark 10:46-52 Words are important. That may sound like a silly thing to say, but words matter. Words help us understand and interpret our world in ways that no other creature can interpret. When words are foreign or unfamiliar they trip our tongues and leave us feeling embarrassed or unsure if we have even communicated what we intended. This happens in restaurants across the land every day. I ’ ll never forget the night when I learned what steak tar-tar was, right in front of my date for prom. Sometimes we even remake words to fit our own objectives. Although there are plenty of examples of public gaffs in the news, my favorite is a personal experience. Several years ago my father (pronounced in southernese as “ fah-thah ” ) was writing down my itinerary for an international flight. I told him we would be flying into Accra. He asked me how to spell it. I told him. He repeated, “ You ’ ll be flyin...

First Presbyterian Church - Lafayette, Louisiana October 2, 2011 - Ordinary (27A) Exodus 20:1-4, 7-9, 12-20 Philippians 3:4b-14 Matthew 21:33-46 The passages we have received today are the kind that many Presbyterians like. Indeed many who claim the name of Christian like these kinds of passages. The words we have received today are very comforting to many of us - which is nice since there are so many passages that confront us. We have the Ten Commandments, Paul’s encouragement of what lies ahead in eternity, and Jesus telling stories that discredit the Pharisees. These passages are orderly. They make sense. They offer the rules we follow, the promise for success, and a warning for failure. Not only that, they offer us the chance to point a finger at those nasty Pharisees. What more could we need? The Pharisees were not all bad though. They were the rule keepers - even the rule makers at times. Had it not been for them the Jewish people may have been consumed, as other occu...