Rev. Zach

Luke 18:31–19:10 Well, friends, we are deep into the 40 days of Lent! In fact, next Sunday is Palm Sunday. For those that have given something up for the season of Lent, I hope that you are enjoying the freedom of knowing that whatever you gave up is something that you probably don’t need after all! If you did not give anything up, don’t feel bad about it, any day is a good day to let go of things that get in the way of your relationship with God, and the invitation is always there. There are, of course, those that have taken on a new discipline, such as a devotional practice or acts of kindness. I can tell you that Jessica Trahan, our campus minister over at the Wesley Campus Ministries, was overjoyed by the boxes of food that some of you have given as a part of your Lenten journey in support of the Campus Cupboard! We made a nice little video of it on Facebook for those that are interested. For those who are new to the idea of “Lent” as a church thing, it is part of our preparation f...

Luke 16:19-31 “...between you and us a great chasm has been fixed so that those who might want to pass from here to you cannot do so, and no one can cross from there to us.” Doesn’t it feel that way in so many scenarios these days? Lines are being drawn everywhere. There are political divides and personal conflicts. There are educational divides and disagreements over funding and resourcing. There are conflicts over the means of participating in free and fair elections. Even the opportunity to worship has people angry depending on how they feel about the availability of the vaccine, or the probability of spreading COVID 19 through gatherings in closed spaces, or just the fact that some congregations are or are not meeting in-person or at all. Let’s not forget that we still have a broken immigration system; and that congregations who don’t declare themselves to be welcoming to LGBTQIA people are assumed not to be; and the fact that Sunday morning is still the most segregated hour in our...

Luke 15:1-32 Today we’ve been presented with three stories about being lost, being sought after, and being found. While I imagine that we all can relate in some way to feeling lost and perhaps even the joy of being found, I doubt that many of us like to think too much about being sought after. The thing is, we live pretty public lives, so we don’t usually talk about being “pursued” unless it’s some kind of stalker situation, or a horror film, or maybe a traffic violation. However you frame it, we don’t often talk about being pursued in a good way. Today we’re going to talk about being pursued in a good way. We’re also going to talk about the fact that the only thing worse than being lost is believing that you are not lost and yet feeling like you may as well be. Beyond all of that, we’re going to talk about what it means to be found. First, I want to talk a little about Mr. York. If that name doesn’t ring a bell, I’ll give it some context – Lewis, Clark, Sacagawea, and York. A bust of...

Luke 13:1-9; 31-35 The cell phone video opens on a beautiful evening in an open air pavilion at a resort. There’s an older couple sitting on the edge of a sculptured fountain enjoying the night air, and a young woman with long blonde hair – wearing what must be her “smart black dress” – asks them to move. Our videographer is shocked and keeps filming as the young woman takes command of the fountain as her personal stage for the perfect vacation selfie. Her photographer appears to be her boyfriend, who endures her constant dissatisfaction as she directs him – up until the moment when she slips and falls into the fountain to her embarrassment and to the joy of the small crowd that has been watching the show from tables nearby. Our scene ends with the videographer looking in the camera and observing, “Now, that’s karma! Apart from the ethical issues of taking videos of people and posting them online without their permission, I have to say that it’s kind of hard to disagree with her assess...

Luke 9:51-62 We shared part of this reading last Wednesday in our Ash Wednesday service, so I want to give a little recap from that service for the first section (verses 51-56). To begin with, it’s important to remember that this followed the Transfiguration of Jesus when he took Peter, James, and John up Mt Tabor to pray and encountered Moses and Elijah and Jesus’ clothes went sort of ‘supernova.’ After that the disciples were struggling to heal a boy, but Jesus did it with barely a thought – except to call them all faithless and perverse (literally turned away from God). What we know from all of that is that Jesus is the embodiment of the law and the prophets, and he knew at this point that he was headed toward Jerusalem and the cross in order to accomplish what God had in mind on a cosmic level instead of what the people all around him wanted on an individual level. On the way to do that, he still had some teaching and healing to do, if for no other reason than to demonstrate that t...

Luke 9:28-45 We’re going to start with a little game today. I’m going to give you categories of people, and I want you to think about them. I want you to think about how they look. Think about, without judgment, what ethnicity or gender you assign to them. Think about how you feel, or would feel, if you were having a conversation with this person. You may think of someone you know that could be described by one of these words, and that’s fine. Don’t go too deep. Just react. If it interests you, you can think more about them later and give this person a story (I like to do that with strangers when I’m waiting on a flight). OK, here we go: Doctor, Nurse, Person in the Service Industry (Restaurant/Retail, etc), Person Experiencing Homelessness, Immigrant, Politician, Sanitation Worker I have to admit I was a little tempted to do the Sesame Street song, “These Are The People In Your Neighborhood,” but I didn’t give Jake time to warm up on that one. The thing is, these are the people in ou...

Luke 7:1-14 Today we have received two stories of miraculous healing, and this time it wasn’t just a “withered hand.” Both of the people Jesus healed were near death or at least perceived as already dead. For those of us raised with these stories of faith, sometimes these stories become all too easy to read and to hear without question, but I have to say that they are hard for me to hear today. I don’t know about you, but I find the healing stories of the Bible some of the most difficult to reconcile with our ever-expanding understanding of the complexity of the created order, and that is particularly true when it comes to death. Before going any further, I’d like to say to those who may have lost a loved one due to COVID–19 that this passage is not intended to trivialize your loss. Death is, unfortunately, a part of life, and when the scale of loss is as high as it is today we need to be clear in stating that every loss is still significant – not just to you and to me, but also to Go...