Rev. Zach

Exodus 20:1-17 ; Matthew 22:34-40 Be content with what you have. That may be a bit of an oversimplification of the commandment that we should not covet your neighbor’s dwelling or spouse or resources or possessions, but I believe that “be content with what you have” is also a pretty accurate summary of that commandment. It reminds me of the thing that so many of us tell our children – you get what you get and you don’t pitch a fit – and yet it stands in contrast to the way so many of us live our lives. It stands in contrast with the way that we placate our children with media and technology and teaches them by example that there is often a very fine line between needs and wants that is often determined by accessibility and nothing more. Whole industries revolve around not only anticipating and meeting our needs but also creating a feeling of need based solely on the things that some of us have and others do not. Years ago I remember a church member telling me that the business world w...

Exodus 20:12-16 ; Matthew 5:14-37 As we move forward in our reflection on the Ten Commandments, I’d like to briefly acknowledge where we have been and where we are going and maybe dig a little deeper into our history and tradition as followers of Jesus in the Reformed tradition. Having said that, I know there is not much more prosaic and sleep-inducing for most people than to say words like “history, tradition, and Reformed theology” when they have come looking for meaning and purpose and some sense that God is actually involved and that faith can help us find peace and meaning in an unstable world. If you stick with me, I’m going to try to do just that. I say “try” because “try” is all any of us can do. Regardless of what you have heard from certain movie franchises that seek to plumb the depths of reality while discerning the nature of good vs evil, a life of faith is not about “do or do not.” It is about a series of faithful attempts to approach what is real and true. Sometimes we g...

Exodus 20:1-11; Matthew 22:34-40  Today we have received what some call the first table of the laws that govern our relationship with God. It may sound odd to describe the Ten Commandments as “laws that govern our relationship with God,” but that is essentially what they are. As with many things, our culture prefers to individualize and relativize and moralize, and the Ten Commandments are no exception. In fact, we often use them as a baseline for individual moral behavior. I don’t mean to suggest that it is a bad thing, but I do mean to say that there is so much more to them than a personal ethic – even a personal ethic that we might agree upon.  It is true that these ten ordinances were influential in the formation of our legal system as a nation, but given the necessary separation of church and state in our constitution that really only applies to the second table of the laws that govern our relationship with God. It is the first set that we’ve been given to think about tod...

Exodus 19:1-6; 20:1-2 ; Mark 12:28-34 Today’s Old Testament passage brings all sorts of images to mind. First, we are presented with a new moon. It is the third one the Israelites have seen on their journey, which means that they have been traveling together for at least three months. Next, we are reminded of Egypt in all its splendor and hardship. Then we hear of the route they have taken, and we see people trudging through the wilderness and emerging at the base of Mount Sinai, living in camps as they go. Finally, we see (and hear) Moses being called out by God to ascend the mountain. We aren’t told whether it is a booming voice for all to hear, or if it is a still, small voice raised in the conscience of Moses, but this voice – and the images it offers – are all that we hear. The voice of God, however, we imagine it, instructs Moses to tell the people that they are to think of their flight from Israel as though it were as swift and strong as a bird of prey. The final image we are gi...

Psalm 8:1-9 , Romans 5:1-5 , John 16:7-15 You may or may not have noticed, but today is the day set apart in our calendar to celebrate the divine mystery of the Trinity! Now, I realize that I have to be careful about a statement like that because half of y’all are already thinking about cooking something nice with that trinity of flavors that makes Cajun cooking so good. If you aren’t from around here, I’m talking about onion, bell pepper, and celery. Of course, it’s a little hot for gumbo, but there are plenty of other things that start out that way. While it’s a little tongue in cheek to call them the “Holy Trinity of Cajun Cooking,” its actually not a bad way to talk about the divine mystery that is the Godhead – which is a fancy church word to talk about the One who is the Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer of all that is, was and shall be. We can also say, “Father, Son, and Holy Spirit” as Jesus did in Matthew 28, but I also like to recognize who God is by what God does. However you...

Genesis 11:1-9 ; Acts 2:1-21 As many of you know, Pentecost is one of my favorite church holy days. Those who may not be familiar with liturgical traditions that include special Sundays may not have a clue what this day is about or why it matters, and there is nothing wrong with that. In fact, I would suggest that our Old Testament lesson stands to remind us that anything that we set up as important might not be important to God. Having said that, it may also have struck you as odd that God acted in the way God did in this passage from Genesis. Am I not always preaching unity? Why would God want to keep us from working together? We’ll get to that in a minute, but first I want to acknowledge the movement of the Spirit of God in these two passages. Taken together, along with the contexts they are pulled from, what we see today is a movement from the problem of exclusion to the problem of inclusion. At first glance, it seems that God, in Genesis 11, is the one who created the problem of e...

Acts 9:1-19a ; John 21:1-19 Picture, if you will, a tale of 2 conversions: Peter converting after rejecting the Way of Jesus and Saul converting after persecuting the followers of the Way. Consider, for a moment, what it might be like to be confronted by Jesus as these two were, and what kind of conversion might be expected of you. OK, I realize that was a little more Twilight Zone (and a little more confrontational) than the questions you normally hear from this pulpit but stay with me because the passages we have received today are actually pretty confrontational. In John’s Gospel, we have Peter, whom we are probably more likely to identify with, and in Acts, we have Saul, the bad guy version of Paul, but also Ananias. Before we jump into these stories like Peter did when he swam to Jesus in John 7, let’s talk a little about the idea of conversion. Generally speaking, most of you are probably here (on some level) because we don’t normally talk about “converting” others or “saving sou...