Hello,
I’m going back to work this Friday. A couple of weeks ago I received the call to be a pastor to
the people of 1st Lutheran Church, Greensburg, Pennsylvania. Greensburg is town of around 15,000
people, but it feels much bigger as it is the county seat and hub of
Westmoreland County, the county just east of Pittsburgh. I’ll be living in the home that my wife
and I built just outside of Stahlstown, which is a 25 minute drive over the
ridge from Greensburg. The church
is located in downtown Greensburg, and is ripe for a vibrant and challenging
ministry to the varied population in which it stands. I am excited about what may lie ahead.
To say, however, that I am going back to work is a bit of a
mis-statement. For the fact of the
matter is that although it will be exactly a year since I left South Dakota and
the people that I served there, I really have been working all along
nonetheless; working at my vocation (not vacation, but vocation or calling) of being
a child of God. Just like Prince
William and Prince Henry of England have discovered, whatever else I may do, I,
who was so made in the waters of Baptism, do it as a child of the King of
kings. There is not a day that
goes by that I do not bring the power and authority of God into whatever I may
do: being a spouse, being a father, being a neighbor, being a customer building
a house. And as John 3:17 says,
that power and authority is one of saving forgiveness and mercy (“‘Indeed,
God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that
the world might be saved through him.”). Like King Midas of storied fame who transformed
everything he touched into gold, I have the power to transform everything that
I touch into something far more valuable than gold, life: life anew and life
forever.
I was once in a board meeting of an organization that was an outreach
owned by of one of the churches that I previously served, and at that meeting,
one of the board members, a member of another owner church said, “Pastor, when
you step out of the church and into the world, you just have to turn the switch
off.” The switch of which he was
speaking was the way of thinking, speaking, and acting that went on while in
church. I wanted to ask him, “And
where is this switch?” Where
is the switch that a butterfly can flip to live like a caterpillar again? Where is the switch that can enable a
goose to live in the protection of its eggshell again? Where is the switch that can turn off
the claiming power of God who has said in the waters of Baptism, “You are my
child. My beloved, in whom I am
well pleased.”
The truth is that there is no switch that this world can flip that can
cut us off from the love of God in Christ Jesus (Romans 8:38,39). There is no switch. Not on me, and not on you. Every day, no matter what we are doing,
we do it as children of the King of kings. Every day you and I step out into the world of foreboding
shadows as beacons aflame with the Light of the world. Every day you and I step out into the
world suffering from a famine of love as platters serving up the Bread of
life. Every day you and I step out
into a world of storms and wolves carrying the staff of the Good Shepherd who
leads to still waters and green pastures.
Every day you and I step out into the world that tethers people with
their failures and losses with the slashing sword of divine forgiveness and
mercy.
Although I have been away from being a pastor for the past year, I have
not missed a day of work in my vocation as a child of God…..and likewise, so it
is with you. So, the next time you
read the Bungee Cord, it will come from the pen (or keyboard) of a new pastor
of 1st Lutheran Church, Greensburg, Pa., but it will also come from
the pen (or keyboard) of one who has long been a child of God….one who begins
every day with this personal mission statement, “Ever changed by Christ’s
claiming call, TODAY, I join God in the divine adventure of making all things
new”…..and so do you!
Have a great week of work.
God’s grace and peace,
Pstor Jerry Nuernberger
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