Rev. Zach

First Presbyterian – Lafayette, Louisiana July 24, 2011 – Ordinary 17 A Psalm 139 Romans 8:24-28 Matthew 13:44-52 What is it that you treasure? What is it that you cherish? The first things that come to mind for many of us are immaterial things: friendship, love, family. A friend recently posted this statement on facebook, “What if you woke up tomorrow with only what you thanked God for today?” Fortunately for us God is not that transactional, but it does make you think about the value we place on things. Most of us end up with homes filled with things we rarely use or need. Having just moved I can tell you that I suffer from this issue as much or more than anyone. As a culture we place more value on what we have to own than on what we have to share. I don’t mean to say that we are not generous or that we do not share. I simply mean to say that I don’t believe generosity to be a primary motivator for our actions. Now, I want to be very clear that my intention is not to sc...

First Presbyterian Church - Lafayette, Louisiana July 17, 2011 - Ordinary 16 A Genesis 28:10-19a Romans 8:12-25
 Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43 Who, or what, is God to you? This is a question I often start with in discussions of faith with groups ranging from confirmation classes to new classes of elders. It is a simple question with a seemingly obvious answer. Yet many of our descriptions of God are limited to particular actions that we claim to be God’s actions. That is why H. Richard Niebuhr once argued that Western culture is not, as we like to claim, monotheistic . Instead he claimed that we are polytheistic. For Niebuhr, God is a center of value - a place from which we determine the value of other things and by which we organize our priorities. That changes the question a little bit. The question, “Who is God?” then becomes, “Who or what is the center of value for your life?” Chances are that this question might have more than one answer depending on the topic. As a parent I a...

First Presbyterian Church - Lafayette, Louisiana July 10, 2011 - Ordinary (15A) Genesis 25:19-34 Romans 7:13-25 Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23 Many of you know that I spent some time with my grandmother last weekend as she was, and still is, in hospice care. It was a holy time that I will cherish. During that time I experienced things that I knew to be possible and a few that I never expected to happen. Nothing particularly miraculous happened - unless you consider the miraculous quality of every moment of life. By that I mean the fact that we live and move and exist on this tiny spec of dust called earth that hangs in the vast expanse of the universe. It is a miracle to me that we are breathing, that actions taking place on a subatomic level all around us allow us to blissfully choose to be kind or rude, generous or selfish, grateful or unappreciative. We can even be all of these at once depending on the person or the situation. Tens of thousands of variables effect our deci...

First Presbyterian - Lafayette, Louisiana June 26, 2011 - Ordinary (13A) Genesis 22:1-14 Romans 6:12-23 Matthew 10:40-42 I was out running some errands with a congregation member about a week ago, and we ran into one of those traffic jams that are caused by a very few people trying to go the same way to get to different places. In her frustration, she said something along the lines of, “Come on, now. Somebody do something - even if it isn’t right!” I wonder if anyone else has ever felt that way. Sometimes our fears can paralyze us. Sometimes our fears can motivate us - but I’m not sure that reacting to fear is always the best course. Trials can be so prevalent in this life that it is hard not to find ourselves reacting from a fight or flight position in multiple areas of our lives. Peter Steinke is a Lutheran Pastor and author who often talks about the church in terms of its health. He refers to the human tendency to react out of fear as making decisions from the most ba...

First Presbyterian – Lafayette, Louisiana June 19, 2011 – Trinity Sunday (Year A) – Father's Day Genesis 1:1 - 2:4a Psalm 8 (sung with cantor) 2 Corinthians 13:11-13 Matthew 28:16-20 "You know about The Trinity, right?" That was the first truly doctrinal question that was asked of me as I moved from Georgia to Louisiana. It was not so much of a question of what I knew as much as it was an attempt to be sure I understood where I was. The Trinity stands as a means of describing completeness.  It is a word used religiously and culturally to describe something that can only be understood as the sum of its parts.  By the same token, the concept of a triune God has offered as much confusion as it has clarity for centuries.  Yet here in south Louisiana, the Trinity is simply a part of who we are and what we do. Everywhere you look you will see the Fluer de Lis. Interpretations of this symbol vary widely, and I think it is fair to say that it is more of a cultural sym...

First Presbyterian Church – Lafayette, Louisiana Day of Pentecost, Year A June 5, 2011 Scripture: Ezekiel 37:1-14 Acts 2:1-42 (Performed as a readers theater - written by The Rev. Eric Beene and used with permission.) "You're on fire!" is a phrase that I use every now and then. It comes from a restaurant I used to work in.  Every server (which is what I did there, I was a waiter) had a station of three or four tables that he or she was 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, one of them would take the responsibility of scraping dishes so that the other could wash their hands and take clean dishes to the cooks before checking to see if there was food to go...

First Presbyterian Church – Lafayette, Louisiana May 29, 2011 – Easter (6A) Acts 17:22-32 Psalm 66:8-20 1 Peter 3:13-17 John 14:15-21 How many of you have a word that bothers you – a word that makes the hair on the back of your neck stand up and your gut clench a little bit?  Anyone care to share his or her word?  I have a good friend who feels that way about the word 'pumice', and I don't know why.  My word is 'irregardless'.  It's a double negation.  Though there are those that would defend its usage as satire, I've never heard it used in jest.  I've only heard it used to say "without regard," which would simply be regardless. A word that makes some people a little uncomfortable, especially in church, is intimacy.  Consider what images come to mind when I mention the word intimacy.  The topic of intimacy or the thought of becoming intimate with someone seems not to apply to church, at least not in our culture – but that is exactly w...