Bungee Cord 8-27-12

Hello,

     One of the “joys” of living in Pennsylvania is the requirement of an annual car inspection.  All in all, I don’t suppose that it is a bad idea in that it keeps the roads safer and the air cleaner, but this morning as I sit in a coffee shop….now for over four hours….the burden of the inspection is beginning to outweigh its benefits.

     I got up on my day off at 7:00 to take my car in for its appointment, which was to take less than an hour.  After I dropped my car off, I walked over to the local coffee shop for a bite to eat and a cup of coffee.  True to their promise, I got a call on my cell phone before an hour had passed.  The call, however, came with some bad news.  My car had failed!  One rear passenger tire was too worn.  Judged unworthy of travelling the roads of Pennsylvania, I needed to get the tire changed, and for that matter the other three were nearing the same judgment.  The advice: change them all.

      “What is that going to cost?” I said.

      “Let me do some checking and I’ll get back to you,” said the mechanic back to me, which soon he did. The news was a bit of a jolt to my pocketbook, but a blow my pocketbook had no choice but to suffer.

     Well, now it has been over 4 ½ hours since I dropped my car off, and the coffee shop has rotated through several rounds of customers and the afternoon staff has come in to work….and still I await my car.  If I would have known that it would have amounted to this, I certainly wouldn’t have so cheerfully gotten up on my day off, and if there would have been a way to avoid this inspection (but there is not), I certainly would have taken that option.

     When I talk to people who don’t attend worship on Sunday morning (and they usually bring up the topic when they discover that I am a pastor), they often say, “Well, I’ve been working so hard, and Sunday is my only day to sleep in.”

   To date, I haven’t really known how to respond.  But today, as I sit in this coffee shop, I think I may have come to a deeper understanding of those who offer me this common response for not coming to church.  Maybe they have experienced worship to be akin to this mandatory car inspection.  Scheduled on one’s day off.  Slicing into coveted sleeping time.  Eating into the day’s plans.  Nit-picking for faults, and pronouncing failure, and resulting in a wounded pocketbook.  If that is the experience that they have had with the church, as I continue to wait for my car in this coffee shop, I can understand their reticence to come to worship every week.

     For me, though, that is not my experience of worship, nor is it the experience that I hope to facilitate at the church where I am a pastor.  When I go to worship, I don’t go in response to a mandate for inspection for spiritual roadworthiness.  Instead, I go to worship at the invitation of the one who invites jalopies like me to come in and go for a spin on the track that he has laid down for me, a track where my worldly jalopy is transformed into a Nascar racer.  A Nascar racer where I can feel the power of a divine engine whirring and purring.  A Nascar racer where the tires grip the road going around corners as if they were suction cups, and the steering wheel responds with minute precision.  A Nascar racer that makes my heart pump a little faster and my smile a little wider.  The worship hour that I experience, and I hope to create, is a bunch of laps on a track that no track and no car in the world can possibly give.

     And when I am done with my time on the holy track and set myself back on the roads that brought me to church, the thrill of the worship ride lingers on.  The jalopy of my life seems to have a little bit more get up and go, and the curves don’t seem so harrowing.  The humm of the engine purrs with the transcendent melody of the tunes of worship, and when the world laughs at me for my car and my driving ability the roar of the angels cheering from the heavenly stands during my spin in worship drowns out the world’s jeers.

     Some Sunday’s worship is more thrilling than others, but every Sunday’s worship sets me in a car and on a track that the world cannot lay down.  So, even on the blandest of Sunday worship rides, I venture back into the world with a renewed vision and purpose.  Let me share Jesus’ invitation to you  to come to worship this Sunday….and every Sunday…..not for a judgmental inspection….but for the ride of your life…actually for the ride of eternal life!

Have a great week.

God’s grace and peace, (GGAP),

Pastor Jerry Nuernberger

p.s. – I finally picked up my car at 1:30, my wallet lightened by several hundreds of dollars!

Bungee Cord  8-21-12

Hello,

“I LOVE YOU”

Scrawled on the inside cover of a closed pizza box, a husband casually eating his pizza greets his wife who has just  conquered an arduous bike ride by flipping the box open and showing those three words.  “I LOVE YOU.”

It is a commercial that I have seen a couple of times over the past several weeks.  The commercial starts off with the husband encouraging his struggling wife at the beginning of the trek saying, “You alright?”  Moments later in the commercial, the husband has raced forward along the course in his car, and hoists another home made sign, “YOU’RE A MACHINE!”    One more stop of encouragement , and then the commercial end: the wife, crossing the finish line all by herself, spent by the journey, greeted by her husband’s sign, “I LOVE YOU.”

I have to admit that I feel a bit of guilt as this commercial for some un-rmemebered product plays in front of me.    The guilt that I feel comes from having a wife who is far more self-disciplined at keeping in shape than I, and is, like the wife in the commercial, always challenging herself with distance cycling.  She has pedaled her way across large sections of several states, around Lake Tahoe, and in a couple of weeks will be riding another single day 100 mile course in Gettysburg, Pa.  I, unlike the husband in the commercial have not nor will I be there at the start of the race to urge her on.  Nor have I or will I be there at checkpoints along the course cheering her along.  And neither have I nor will I be there at the end, eating Pizza ready to applaud her efforts with a sign saying, “I LOVE YOU.”  Therein lies my guilt.

I tell you of this commercial not to make this a viral confession, but rather to share with you the other feelings that register in my heart when I see it playing in front of me:  joy, gratitude, and wonder.  It may be a commercial for some product, but when I see it, I see it as a picture of the way God deals with me: intercepting me along the arduous journey of life, encouraging me , cheering me on, and in the end greeting me with the sign that has motivated him all along, “I LOVE YOU.”  In the waters of Baptism God showed his love for me at the beginning of the journey.  In many and various ways along the course of my life he has encouraged me and cheered me on, most prominently Sunday after Sunday when our paths collide at his table.  And although I haven’t gotten there yet, I won’t be surprised at the end of my journey to find God there, too, holding a sign that will be scrawled in God’s own handwriting, saying, “I LOVE YOU.”

Never once in the commercial does the husband’s encounter with his wife focus on techniques (“sit up straighter…use more of your left leg!”) or threats (“Do this right or there’s no pizza for you at the end.”).  And yet, if you ask a lot of people, they will tell you that they perceive Christianity to be focused on morals (how to ride a bike/be a Christian correctly) or a threat (“do this right or there’s no pizza/heaven for you at the end.”)  However, the Bible, as I see it,  depicts a Christ, and Christianity that is far more like the commercial and less like people’s perceptions of the Christian faith.

 Read it and see.  See that in Jesus’ world where people were preoccupied with technique, Jesus was preoccupied with forgiveness and encouragement.  In Jesus’ world that assured the wrath of God for wrong behavior (ex. healing on the Sabbath), Jesus got in trouble for responding in mercy and kindness.  Clearly, the Bible plays out a Christ and Christianity that cares about the struggle we face, encourages us on as we tire and fall, and in the end will welcome us, not with a Pizza box with words on it, but with outstretched arms and nail pierced hands that have the words written in blood, “I LOVE YOU,” upon them.

Joy!  Gratitude!  Wonder!

Have a great week.

God’s grace and peace (ggap),

Pastor Jerry Nuernberger

Bungee Cord 8-14-12

Hello,

“I can do that,” I said with tongue in cheek while watching teenage girls prance across a 4 inch beam, flipping frontwards and backwards adding twists and turns as they went.  Over and over again as I watched the Olympics I found myself amazed by the feats performed by the athletes, but no event quite as amazing as the balance beam in women’s gymnastics.  The tumbling that those young women do on that skinny beam is, to me, worthy of “ooo’s and ahhh’s” if done the floor.  The fact, though, that they do them on a narrow beam several feet above ground, well…. ”I can do that.” (Not!)

Maybe the balance beam is so captivating to me not only because of the stellar skill of the women who “walk” across it, but also because I see it as such a clear image of how I experience life.  Life is a rather precarious journey, where losing your balance is a pretty easy thing to do, especially if you find yourself being flipped frontwards and backwards as you go.  Although you can sometimes catch yourself before you fall, falling is something that we all do, no matter how practiced we are….and sometimes we do it to great pain, suffering, disappointment and shame.  The challenge is to get back on the beam of life and go forward with confidence and hope rather than fear and trepidation.

For me, that is part of what Sunday morning worship is all about: being picked up by God, set back on the beam, and with God’s steadying hand sturdying my wobbling knees hearing God say to me, “Ok.  Let’s try that again.”

The world when you fall is quick to respond.  Sometimes it laughs at you and tells you you have failed.  Sometimes it gasps in shock and fright and says you have no business walking on that beam.  Sometimes, like a marine drill sergeant , it barks at you, “Get up.  Now do it again!”

But we Christians have come to discover that our God knows quite a bit about the beam.  After all, he, in Jesus, was nailed to one and hung on one.  Teased and ridiculed by the world as it clung on to him, and when he fell from that beam it looked as though the beam had gotten the best of him.

But not so. Not even three days in a tomb could seal his fate, for God took a battering ram to death itself and Jesus walked out of the grave on to a balance beam of life that he would never fall from again.  More than an Olympic gymnast, Jesus is master of the beam.  Jesus is master of the beam.  Jesus is master of the beam (not a typo…but purposely repeated so that it might break through all of your pain, fear, hopelessness, disappointment, shame, and timidity that you have known from your falling.)  Jesus is master of the beam.

Every Sunday morning when we come to worship, Jesus greets us as only Jesus can do, picking us up off the ground, lifting us back onto the beam, steadying our wobbling knees with his studying hand and saying to us, “Ok. Let’s try that again.”

And that is what Jesus will do every week when we gather in worship, every week until, we, like him hear God’s battering ram break down the gates of death and we find ourselves on a brand new balance beam of life, a beam where we shall fall no more.

Jesus is master of the beam.

Have a great week.

God’s grace and peace,

Pastor Jerry Nuernberger

Bungee Cord 8-6-12

Hello,

     This week I stopped for a gourmet lunch at a national fast food “restaurant”.  My plan was to go through the drive through and take my lunch to a nearby park and enjoy the nice day.

     So, I drove up to the squawk box and was greeted with a remarkably understandable, “Welcome to *******, would you like to try ******?”

     “No, thank you,” I responded, “I just want a number 1 combo.”

     “Small, medium, or large?”

     “Small.”

     “Anything else?”

     “Could you put some.” I started to say in hopes of getting some ketchup.

     “That is $6.12.  Please pull around,” the box said, cutting me off.

     So, I obeyed and pulled around the building and sat behind someone who had obviously placed multiple orders and was holding up traffic.  After the exchange of six or seven bags, the brake lights of the car in front of me dimmed to off, and the person crept ahead.  Wondering if my hamburger had gone cold as I waited, I put my car in first gear (I drive a stick…real driving!), and rolled up to the window with my exact change that I had plenty of time to count out.  The bi-fold window opened up and a young woman said to me, without looking at me, “That is $6.12.”

     She stuck out her hand, still not looking at me, and I place my six dollar bills and my twelve pennies in her palm.  She turned around and grabbed the paper bag and the paper cup containing my drink, and handed them to me, catching me with a brief glance, making sure that I didn’t drop it.

     “Could you put,” I said as the windows shut, and she turned away to get the next person’s lunch.  Not thinking that my hope for ketchup was excessive, I started waving at the server who couldn’t see me because her back was turned to me.  But when she turned back to her window, there was this surprised look on her face, as if to say, “What are you still doing here?”

     She opened her window, and I offered my request, “Could I have some ketchup, please.”

     “Oh, yeah,” as she reached back, got a packet of ketchup, handed it to me as she looked at the car behind me.

     Needless to say, I did not feel as if I had been that fast food restaurant’s most important customer that day.

     In a world that has a way of turning a deaf ear to us, there is one whose ears anxiously await the sound of our voice, and the concerns that we bring.  Jesus.  Jesus tells a parable of a judge who finally listens to  the pleas of a woman who was wronged, and says, “If a callous judge will listen to a complaining woman just to get her off his back, consider how quickly God, who loves you with the life of his Son, will hear you. “(paraphrased)  When you pray, God listens with the attention given to the most important person in his heart….because you are.

     I have to admit that the church does not always listen with God’s ears, listening as if each and every person is of supreme importance. The church isn’t always good at listening to those who are on the fringe of society.  It isn’t always good at listening to those who are caught in the whirlwind of life.  It isn’t always good at listening to those who are wandering in life.  The church isn’t always good at listening to those who are young.   One young person went as far as to say, “I just want to be listened to as if I was actually there.”

     If you have found yourself feeling like I felt at that fast food restaurant when you have come to church, two things:  first, I hope you will forgive us for our cotton filled ears; second, I hope you will give us another try.  After all, we can’t listen if you’re not speaking.

     God’s ears are always perked open in complete, undistracted attention to us, no matter what the weight of the concern that we bring.  I know that the churches that I have served have worked, although imperfectly, to do the same.  So, let me offer two invitations.  First, I invite you to offer your prayers to God, no matter how big or little their scope.  Second, I invite you to come to church, leaving nothing at the door before you come in.  The truth is that God, and we, God’s church, really do want to listen to you for you are one for whom Jesus gave his life.

Have a great week.

God’s grace and peace, (ggap)

Pastor Jerry Nuernberger