Rev. Zach

First Presbyterian – Lafayette, Louisiana February 26, 2012 – Lent (1B) Genesis 9:8-17 Psalm 25:1-10 Mark 1:9-15 In July of 1999 I was leading a group of campers from Camp Glenkirk on a canoe trip down the Shenandoah River. It was about the middle of the summer, and I had taken enough groups downriver to feel slightly cocky about my abilities. The river was low, creating a maze out of its naturally lazy curves and the diagonal formations of shale jutting out from the mountain like the skeletal frame of some ancient beast. The word “portage” (the practice of carrying your canoe from one navigable body of water to another) became as important to our vocabulary as the concepts of grace and mercy. On this particular run of the river it began to rain, and we were overjoyed- for a little while. Then it kept on raining, and raining, and raining. Three things very quickly became apparent to us. The first is that the river was the only place in the valley consistently devoid of ...

First Presbyterian – Lafayette, Louisiana February 19, 2012 – Transfiguration (B) Baptism of Hayden Elizabeth Albarado 2 Kings 2:1-14 1 Peter 3:18-22 Mark 9:10-20 Today is an amazing day! It is a day of celebrating covenants - a day celebrating new beginnings and restoration. Today we have baptized one of God’s beloved daughters! Today we have blown the dust off of the baptismal font, poured sacred water, and spoken words of hope in a world of doubt. Today, we have made a bold statement that shines like light in a darkened room. Now some have asked why we baptize infants, and why we don’t immerse. I have actually done a baptism by immersion, so it is not as if we don’t allow it. We just don’t require it. Some time ago, I remember hearing a comedy routine from the Rev. Grady Nutt about an old country baptism in a stream. There was a young preacher who accidentally immersed someone downstream. That man got a chunk of moss up his nose and commenced to form a new church ...

First Presbyterian Church - Lafayette, Louisiana February 12, 2012 - Epiphany (6B) 2 Kings 5:1-14 1 Corinthians 9:24-27 Mark 1:40-45 One of my favorite scenes from the movie The Jungle Book is the one with the Buzzards sitting on the tree trying to figure out what to do. They ask each other, “Hey! What do you want to do?” “I don’t know. What do you want to do?” over and over because no one wants to make a decision. In the corporate world this is called paralysis by analysis. In the book Blink, by Malcolm Gladwell, he describes a situation in which our military staged war games in the Persian Gulf in 2002 - just prior to invading Iraq. Paul Van Riper, a retired Lieutenant General and a Marine with experience in Vietnam, was asked to play the part of a rouge dictator bent on destabilizing the Gulf and threatening US interests. He was given limited resources and challenged by the full weight of the United States military - and he won. Why? Well, according to Gladwell, it was because ...

First Presbyterian – Lafayette, Louisiana February 5, 2012 – Epiphany (5B) Isaiah 40:21-31 1 Corinthians 9:16-23 Mark 1:29-39 The ending of the Isaiah passage we read today reminds me of a game that I have played with old and young alike. It's what some call an "ice breaker", because it gets people to say something about themselves that reveals a little about their character without forcing them to become truly vulnerable. Specifically - verse 31 reminds me of the ice breaker we did in our recent Session retreat. I asked our Ruling Elders to answer one of two “what if” questions. The first was, what if you were an animal? What kind of animal would you be and why? The second option was, what if you had a super power? What would it be, and why? I will not disclose the individuals and their answers, but there was one answer that attempted to encompass both questions. This person said, “You people are thinking small. I would be an eagle that could fly superson...

Speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ. ( Ephesians 4:15 ). Communication is an essential aspect of any society. In everything we do, we communicate something of ourselves with someone else. Even during times when we feel isolated - or when we choose to be - we are still interacting with goods and services that have the imprint of someone else's soul upon them. So, whether we are intentionally communicating or not, we are always interacting with others through the expression of our character. Some time ago I can recall psychologists making a big deal about nonverbal communication, or body language. Recent studies have shown there to be over ten thousand visibly differing facial expressions! Very few of us are aware of the subtle cues we give off that belie our true feelings. Gamblers call this a tell. A tell gives you away when you are bluffing. A tell is an expression of anxiety - a twitch of the ...

First Presbyterian Church - Lafayette, Louisiana January 22, 2012 - Epiphany (3B) Jonah 3:1-5, 10 1 Corinthians 7:29-31 Mark 1:14-20 I would imagine that most of you have had - at some point in your life - a pet. Not everyone enjoys the burdens and blessings brought on by taking one of God’s creatures into their care. Those who do are either really good at faking it or truly appreciative of the love they receive from an animal. Owning a pet is somewhat of a luxury, of course. There are many nations and cultures that think we are nuts for treating animals as family members. Americans spent around 50 billion on their pets last year - a figure that has continued to climb regardless of the economy. Pets, in our culture, fall somewhere between a connection with God’s creation and a hubristic expression of vanity - and sometimes it is a little bit of both. I say this as a new pet owner, having recently acquired/rescued a “designer dog” from ARF-LA. Being a rescued dog, Emma Jane is a...

First Presbyterian Church - Lafayette, Louisiana January 8, 2012 - Baptism of the Lord  Psalm 29 Acts 19:1-7 Mark 1:4-11 Knock, knock! The congregation responds with, “Whose there?” Water. Water, who? Water you waiting for? Open the door already! That’s how a lot of conversations start in my house these days. Knock, knock jokes show up in lunch box notes, times of silence, or just randomly at dinner time. I have to admit that there are times when I feel a bit stretched to come up with something new. We all have times in our lives when we feel that way - like even the familiar things are hard to make happen because we are just tapped out. Thirst is probably the best metaphor we can come up with for times like these. Hunger works pretty well, but that seems to be about a more particular need. Perhaps that is because our bodies are mostly water. Some say that our bodies are as much as 60-70% water. In fact, you can live for weeks without food - as long as you have water. Wi...