Bungee Cord 12-26-11

Hello,

     I’m spending Christmas in Denver, Colorado where my two older sons live.  Since I am not currently employed, we took this opportunity to celebrate Christmas on their turf, rather than mine.  A unique joy that comes with watching your kids grow up into adults.

     My youngest son flew in from New York City at 8:00 p.m. on Christmas Eve.  After picking him up from the airport, we regrouped in time to go to the 11:00 Christmas Eve worship at Bethany Lutheran Church in Denver.   We didn’t know if it would be a packed worship service, so we arrived about 15 minutes early, which turned out to be plenty early enough as the crowd was far from sardine-ish.  The people gathered quietly in the large sanctuary, and at about 5 minutes to eleven the organist began the prelude, a light but contemplative rendition of several Christmas carols.

     I think that the Pastor thought that the organist was going to play one more rendition because after a clearly unanticipated silence he got up from his seat and with a smile made his way to the center of the front of the church.  He welcomed us and informed us that we had made the right choice of services for the evening as several of the ones earlier in the evening were overflowing and a bit chaotic.  This smaller gathering would provide a great way, he said, to end the day in peaceful contemplation.

     Then he did  something that I had anticipated as I walked in from the parking lot.  He pulled out his cell phone and held it up, and I thought to myself that I was already one step ahead of him, having silenced my phone right after I passed through the outside doors.  Needless to say, I was caught a bit off guard when he said as he held up his phone, “Now, I don’t want you to turn your cell phone off.” 

     “What!” I thought to myself.

     “What I want you to do is to text someone with the message, “Joy to the World”.

     Mmmmmm.  Interesting thought.  Just think of the endless number of texts that we send that really leave little bearing on the world, but on this night there was a text to send that once sent would leave the world changed forever.  “Joy to the World”.

     So, I opened up my address book and looked at the names listed there, and fired off a text message, “Joy to the World”.  After sending it, I thought to myself, maybe I should not have followed the pastor’s direction, after all it would be after midnight that the text would be received.  Would it wake the receiver?  Would it seem like a silly thing to do? But as it goes with text messages, once the send button is hit….there is no taking it back.

     About half way through the service, I felt my phone vibrate in my pocket, and when I opened up the message, I discovered it was from the one whom I had texted, and the text back to me was, “And Joy to the World to you.”

     I wonder how God would have brought the news of the birth of his Son if Jesus would have been born in our day.  Who knows…..maybe he would still fill the sky of angels (“angel” literally means “messenger) singing their heavenly song of “Joy to the World”….. or maybe he would fill the airwaves with text-angels awakening hillside sleepers all over the world with a world changing message, “Joy to the World.”

     I know that the Bungee Cord is a bit longer than allowed in a text message, so let me boil this Bungee Cord down to the simple and short message that has come to you, a message that carries with it the power to change your world forever, a message about a God who is so entwined with his people – with you - that he would enter into their lives….. “Joy to the World!”

Have a great week.

God’s grace and peace,

Pastor Jerry Nuernberger

p.s. – why not pull your cell phone out of your pocket and fire off a short text to someone….or why not everyone in your address book….. “Joy to the World!”

Bungee Cord 12/12/11

Hello,

     In this season of Advent we hear John the Baptist and the prophet Isaiah tell us to in the wilderness, “Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.”

     Well, living in the Pennsylvania “wilderness” (the foothills of the Appalatians), I have come to a new appreciation of “prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.”

     Unlike where I have previously lived, rural Ohio and South Dakota, there are no straight roads in Pennsylvania.  Every road twists and turns around mountains and streams, making my travels slower than the straighter than arrow roads of Ohio and South Dakota, roads on which I have been accused of slightly exceeding the speed limit.  Five miles in South Dakota takes five minutes, or less to travel.  In Pennsylvania, travelling five miles in less than ten minutes is a rarely accomplished feat.  Winding roads slow a person down, even me.

     Also, I have discovered that the winding roads of Pennsylvania, roads that wiggle their way through mountain forests, can even be sometimes impassible.  Just a couple of weeks ago, as I rounded a bend while driving up a mountainside, I quickly had to slam on my breaks.  A line of cars and pick up trucks had formed.  The problem: a huge tree had fallen across the road.  Since it was the only road over the mountain, there was no use of turning around.  All we could do was wait for the volunteer fire department to come and cut the tree and move it off the road, a task that took the better part of an hour.

    Winding and tree blocked roads can slow up and even prohibit travel.  So, in this season of Advent, the season in which we await the Lord’s arrival – his remembered previous arrival in a manger, his promised present arrival every day in our lives, and his concluding arrival at the end of time – we are told to “Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.”  Make his way straight so that nothing slows him down, and unclutter them so that he can get through.

     But what if your life is a long and winding road, full of hairpin twists and turns of failure and self destruction?  What if your road is cluttered with sequoias of doubt and boulders of sin?  Will Jesus be late…will he not be there when you need him…will he not come to you at all?

     Well, not to dump any water on the good Advent practice of personal road upgrading – after all – why not make it easy for the Lord to reach us – I am confident that no matter how cluttered or winding the road of our life is, Jesus will arrive  just as he has promised.  After all, what are sequoias to the one who holds the power of the universe in his hands?  And what are boulders to the one who shattered death and rolled the Easter tomb’s boulder aside?  What are winding and narrow roads to the one who walked the path to the cross to die for our sins?  I am confident that Jesus, who arrived amid the doubts and fears of shepherds, who has called himself the Good Shepherd who will lay down his life for his sheep, and who even the heavens will not be able to hold back at the end of time….I am confident that this Jesus will certainly arrive, as he has promised, in our lives….no matter the clutter or winding road.

     So, this Advent, go ahead and roll out the red carpet for Jesus,  after all he is the King of kings and the Lord of lords….but if your life is so impoverished that you don’t have a red carpet, or if it so winding that no carpet would ever cover such a road…fear not, for God has shown that you are so treasured by him that no matter what your road may look like….Jesus will arrive…just as he did, just as he does, and just as he will!

God’s grace and peace,

Pastor Jerry Nuernberger

Bungee Cord - 12-11-11

Hello,

     As Christmas nears, the colors of the season, red and green blanket store windows, street lights, and dining room tables.  If you go to a liturgical church, the color you see adorning the worship space is white, the color of celebration, and therefore Christmas.  For centuries, red, green and white have been the colors of Christmas, but let me suggest that we turn a new corner on traditions and give Christmas a new color……BLAZE ORANGE.

     Deer hunting season began the Monday after Thanksgiving in western Pennsylvania sending armies of people trudging into the woods and deer scurrying out of them.  So, the other day  when I went to take my dog, Duncan, for a morning walk, my brother in law, at whose house we are staying and is nestled in the woods, caught me before I went out the door and said, “You had better put some orange on!”  Those of you who hunt know that the uniform of hunters is BLAZE ORANGE.  Hunters wear this bright, loud color so that other hunters can clearly see who they are….hunters, not huntees.

     As you and I trudge through life it isn’t always easy to see God at work.  Where is God when families are falling apart?  Where is God when you have dug a hole for yourself that seems bottomless?  Where is God when tragedy befalls a child? Where is God when no one comes to see you for weeks on end?  Where is God when nations rise up against nations in deadly conflict?  Sometimes it isn’t easy to see God at work, and sometimes it is just plain hard to see God at work.

     So, God did what my brother in law told me to do, he clothed himself in something that we might be able to clearly see who he is – human flesh.  He took his place amid a struggling family.  He jumped into the bottomless pits that people dug for themselves.  He went to the bedside of a dying child.  He visited a taxcollector who had no friends.  He opened his heart to enemy soldiers.   He died on a cross and bled to take away the stranglehold of our sins.  In Jesus, God clothed himself in such a way that even in the thickest forests of life, we can clearly see who God is and what God is up to.  God put on BLAZE ORANGE.

     It might be a good reminder to everyone of what Christmas is really all about if the swaddling clothes of the manger scene on the church lawn were BLAZE ORANGE…or if table cloth upon which the meal was set was BLAZE ORANGE….or if the decorations and lights that hung on the Christmas tree were BLAZE ORANGE….or if the stole that draped the pastor’s shoulders was BLAZE ORANGE….if the color of Christmas was BLAZE ORANGE, we would boldly be reminded of what Christmas is all about…..it is about God clothing himself in earthly flesh so that we clearly see who God is and what God is up to. 

     Green, red and white are wonderful colors for Christmas, but let me suggest that BLAZE ORANGE just might be better!

Have a great week. 

God’s grace and peace,

Pastor Jerry Nuernberger

I have put together my new Bungee Cord mailing list based upon your requests to continue receiving it.  Feel free to forward the Bungee Cord to as many others as you would like.  If it would work better for me to simply e-mail directly to them, ask them to reply back to me, and I’ll be glad to put them on my list.

Hello,

The Bungee Cord is back!

In June, I moved to Pennsylvania and gave the Bungee Cord a rest while I settled myself in my new locale.  I thought that I would restart the Bungee Cord when I got a new job, but as that has not happened yet, I decided that the first Sunday of the church year, Advent 1, would be an equally appropriate time to jump back into the cyber world with the Bungee Cord.

The Bungee Cord got its name from my hope that this weekly contact would be a tangible word to all who receive it that God’s grace has no breaking point, and that no matter where you are in life or faith, God will stretch out his arms in unconditional love to you and embrace you with a grip that you can count on.

Not having a job that swallows up most of my evenings,  as the ministry is apt to do, I have been able to take in a couple of the game shows that follow the evening news on TV.  “Family Feud”, a show that I remember watching years ago with Richard Dawson of “Hogan’s Hero’s” fame, has caught my eye.  Hosted now by someone else, I find it both brain relaxing and culturally interesting.  If  you have never seen it, the show sets families against one another in a game of trying to match how a certain group of people respond to all sorts of questions.

One night this question was asked, “100 people were surveyed, ‘How many of the 10 Commandments have you broken this month?’”  When I heard this question, I thought to myself, “This is easy.  There’s only one answer….ten.”  To my surprise, the answer the first contestant gave was “four”, and the host looked at her with a gaze of surprise as if to say, “Really, that many?”  Her answer matched many of the surveyed, but it was not the most popular response.  So, the other contestant was given the chance to guess, and she said, “One,” at which the host gave an approving nod.  Her answer was the most popular response.

I was amazed and dazed.  Hadn’t either of those contestants become angry with her brother or sister?  Hadn’t any of those contestants looked upon another’s deeds in less than the most favorable way?  Hadn’t any those contestants been less than a clear witness of God’s unconditional love and forgiveness to all people?  According to Jesus, to have done any of these things would have been a commandment breaker.  If I had been asked, “How many of the 10 Commandments have you broken this month?”, I know that my truthful answer would have been quick, and it would have been “ten”.

Many have complained that Christmas has become far too commercial, and maybe so.  But it seems to me that one of the reasons it has taken that direction is that we have become blind to see how broken our lives are.  If “Family Feud” is any indication of how we tend to see ourselves in the world, it is clear that we have so trimmed the scope of the 10 Commandments that we do not see the hurt that we spread.

Jesus reminded us that only the sick are in need of a physician.  So, is it any surprise that  Christmas, the event of God’s inoculation of grace, has been commercialized by a world that has become blind to how broken we continue to be….”only the sick need a physician,”….or a savior.

If Christmas has become a bit ho-hum for you, a time of burdensome gift buying and party-going, of frayed tempers and mandatory family get togethers, let me invite you to ask yourself under the crystal blue skies of Advent (blue is the color of Advent for the hope and the clarity of vision that blue skies provide) “How many of the 10 Commandments have I broken this month….or even today?”  And if you do, I am sure of this, Christmas will not spotlight Rudolph, or Frosty, or a flat screen TV.   The spotlight will fall upon Jesus: the incarnate word of God’s healing, the light which came into the darkness, and the darkness will never overcome it.   And you will say with renewed vigor to those around you and in your heart, “Merry …. Merry Christmas.”

Have a great week.

God’s grace and peace,

Pastor Jerry Nuernberger