Rev. Zach

First Presbyterian Church – Lafayette, Louisiana August 28, 2011 – Ordinary (22A) Exodus 3:1-15 Psalm 105:23-26 Matthew 16:21-28 Have you ever gotten a song stuck in your head? It’s not so bad if it’s a song you like. Somehow it seems to me that it is more likely to happen with a song I don’t like. I must admit that I take a certain pride in dropping a line or phrase from a song that will make another person continue to think about the song until it gets stuck in their head. Do you know what that’s called? Earworming. An earworm is a word or phrase intentionally planted in your mind in a way that compels your thoughts to center on a given topic. It works best when the bigger idea is simple and connected to experiences and emotions. Why, all I have do is say something like The Lord of the Dance  or AmazingGrace , and some of you will be off to the races! For me, one of the biggies is the hymn, Here I Am, Lord . I’ll admit that over the years I have had a lov...

First Presbyterian Church – Lafayette, Louisiana August 21, 2011 – Ordinary (21A) Exodus 1:8 - 2:10 Romans 12:1-8 Matthew 16:13-20 Aw-kward (said with high pitched first syllable) – that is the common vernacular for an uncomfortable moment. We’ve all had those moments where someone has said the wrong thing at the wrong time, stood too close to you, or just did not pick up on the social cues we all give off from time to time. You know – phrases like, “Thank you for coming by,” or “Let’s do that some time,” which of course mean, “You can go now,” and “That would be nice, but I have no intention of committing to it.” Somehow it has become commonplace within certain circles to name the elephant in the room, and the elephant’s name is – Awkward. Of course, a slightly subtler approach is to simply say, “Crickets,” indicating a silence so severely uncomfortable that you could hear crickets chirp. Then there are even those who are less subtle but more tech savvy that will play a soun...

First Presbyterian Church - Lafayette, Louisiana August 14, 2011 - Ordinary (20 A) Genesis 45:1-15 Romans 11:1-2a, 29-32 Matthew 15:(10-20), 21-28 Leftovers, lagniappe , crumbs - Oh my! Leftovers, lagniappe, and crumbs - these are a few of my favorite things. My children often give me the fried crumblings left in their chicken nugget boxes even before I request them. It’s not exactly heart healthy - I do confess - but sometimes the crumbs are the best part. I imagine that’s where things like cracklin’ came from. In just about every culture you find things like cracklin’ because someone has taken the leftover and made it into a main attraction. Of course, not all leftovers are created equal (see Robert Burns’ Address tae the Haggis ), and some crumbs are not pleasing to anyone. Why else would we refer to a bad day as being crumby? Maybe that’s not too common a term these days, but we all have days where the one thing we desire or feel called to is just out of reach. Sometimes I ca...

A while back I started a blog for youth at a church I served in Savannah, GA. God called me to move on before the blog had a chance to take root, but I kept it open for a while anyway. The posts were reflections on life, faith, and pop culture. Recently I closed the blog and imported those posts into this blog just to keep them. The name of the blog was I.C.O.N. and it was an acronym for: I need God. Christ died for me. Only God can save. New life starts now. In some ways it was a play on the American Idol concept. If anyone is interested, you can find them tagged as ICON Blog. Peace, 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...