Bungee Cord 9-24-12

Hello,

   Some months ago I told you of some new neighbors who moved in – actually they weren’t neighbors, they were squatters making their home in my yard: groundhogs.  We have been setting live traps for them , and having the traps out for the most of the summer, it seems as though we have emigrated them elsewhere.  We have left the traps out, just in case any of them, or their relatives, decided to take up home back in our yard, but we haven’t caught anything for the last month or so.  That is until yesterday.

   Yesterday, my wife was weedwacking and as she neared one of the traps she thought she saw something move in it, and sure enough, we had caught ourselves another varmint.  As she neared the trap, though, she discovered we had not caught a ground hog.  We had caught a skunk!  Not wanting to be sprayed, she quickly backed away, and came and told me of our catch.

     I said, “Well, we will have to talk to Ralph (our friendly neighbor who has helped us “relocate” the groundhogs) and see if he will help us.”  So, later in the day, Ralph happened by and I said to him, “If I gave you a beer, would you do me a favor?”

     With a glimmer of wonder as to what these greenhorn neighbors of his had gotten themselves into now, he said, “Well…..depends upon the favor.”

    “You know those traps that we’ve been setting for the groundhogs?”

   “Yup,” he said through his Yosemite Sam beard.

   “Well, one of the traps is full, and it’s not with a groundhog.”

   That’s all I needed to say, and he said, “You caught a skunk, didn’t you?”

   “Yup,” I said back.

   “Well, it may cost you more than one beer, but we’ll see what we can do to take care of it,”  and with that I invited him into our house for payment and briefing on how we were going to get this skunk out of our trap without becoming the recipient of its perfume.

     Those of us who have been dubbed the name Christian for a while have come to know that Jesus is quite adept at “relocating” the groundhog sins, the pesky and bothersome things that we do, from our lives….the things that we know other people will even forgive.  But when it comes to the skunk sins, the really stinky things, the things that for which the world dumps shame on us, the things that crash into our lives like a hurricane…the things so rancid that no one wants to be around us, and smell so bad that we don’t even like being around ourselves…..well, the one who knows how to deal with groundhog sins, also knows how to deal with the skunk ones, too.

   He says, “Bring them to me, and I’ll “relocate” them.  I’ll take them off of you, and place them on me, and I will exterminate them.  I’ll take them to death with me as I breathe my last on the cross, and they will be finished.  I am not just an exterminator of groundhog sins…..I died for the skunk ones, too.”

     And here’s good news to go with that: it doesn’t cost you a thing….not a beer, or even two beers….not a single cent, not an IOU, not a pledge or a promise.  Jesus took on the price himself, and so there is no price to pass on to us.

     So, if you have caught something in a trap….a groundhog sin or a skunk sin….come this Sunday to church and lay whatever it is at the feet of Jesus and hear the words of death and life from Jesus, “You are forgiven.”  Forgiven so that you can live with others.  Forgiven so that you can live with God….but most of all, forgiven so that you can live with yourself.

Have a great week.

God’s grace and peace, (ggap)

Pastor Jerry Nuernberger

The Bungee Cord   9-17-12

Hello,

     This past Sunday I was installed as the Senior Pastor of First Lutheran Church of Greensburg, Pennsylvania, a church at which I have been working since the first of June.  “Makes it sound like he’s a computer program,” said someone reacting to what happened to me on Sunday.  And given that I have been the Senior Pastor there for the last three months, it may seem a bit late to install me now, after all it feels to me like I have been doing what a pastor is supposed to do over this past summer.

     Maybe in the computer world in which we live, the word “install” creates a bit of confusion, for the installation of a pastor isn’t really meant to mark the day that a pastor begins to work, but it is the day that the pastor makes promises to the congregation as to what they can expect of his or her work, and the congregation likewise makes promises to the pastor of what she or he can expect from them in their shared mission.   So this past Sunday the congregation and I promised that we would pray for each other, support each other, draw upon God’s strength in our work, and sing the notes of God’s grace and mercy that Lutherans have sung for over 500 years.  “I will,” I said, “and I ask God to help me.”, and so said the congregation.  Installed.

     Interestingly enough, one of the Bible passages selected to be read in every Lutheran church in the world was Mark 8, where Jesus asked his disciple who people thought that he was.  The disciple told Jesus the variety of what people were thinking.  Then Jesus responded to their answers, “But who do you say that I am?”  Peter spoke boldly and rightly, “You are the Messiah.”  I say that I find it interesting and ironic that this passage should be appointed for the Sunday on which I was installed because it is probably the most important passage for a newly installed pastor and the receiving congregation to hear.  It is important because it makes something perfectly clear, and this is it: that no matter how skilled or talented or no matter how experienced or wise any pastor might be, no pastor is the Messiah.  Jesus is.

     As a pastor, it is far too easy to slip into placing far too much responsibility on my shoulders, and likewise it is also far to easy for a congregation to likewise place far too much responsibility on the shoulders of their pastor.  Sure, as a pastor, I need to do my best. God deserves no less.  I need to do my best in preaching, in teaching, in relating to people, in coordinating the ministry of the church, and everything else that a pastor does.  Yet all the while doing my best, it is essential for me and the congregation to remember, I am not the Messiah.  Jesus is.

     Pastors don’t save people.  Jesus does.  No matter how eloquent the speech, no pastor can take a broken heart and rise up new life in it….only Jesus can do that.  No matter how savvy a pastor is in the latest trends and fads, no pastor can pull people away from the empty things that take hold of their lives…only Jesus can do that.  And no matter how good and holy a pastor’s life might be, no pastor can unleash (by themselves) the chains of sin or break down the gates of death….only Jesus can do that.

     As I promise the congregation of First Lutheran Church how I will work among them, and they make promises to me, it is important to know…it is a relief to know…it is a blessing to know….that I am not the messiah….Jesus is.   And I hope and pray that Jesus will use me as a vessel of his grace and mercy to accomplish only what he, the Messiah, can do.

     I am now the officially installed Senior Pastor of First Lutheran Church of Greensburg, Pennsylvania.  Jesus is the Messiah!

Have a great week.

God’s grace and peace,

Pastor Jerry Nuernberger

Bungee Cord 9-11-12

Hello,

     The ancients looked up into the midnight sky and saw all sorts of things: bears, hunters, horses and chariots.  Me, when I look up into the ebony above, my imagination isn’t quite as lively.  I see the same dots as they did, but for the life of me, no matter how I connect them I don’t see any of the figures outlined in the sky that they saw, except for two: the big and little dippers.

     This past week it happened that I woke in the middle of the night and took a glance out the large picture windows that catch the view of the ridge to our west, Chestnut Ridge, of which I wrote last week.  Away from the city lights lots of stars pepper the sky making any dot to dot attempt an exercise in futility.  But on that night in my westward gaze for reasons unknown the Big Dipper stood out in spectacular clarity, suspended as low as I can remember over the valley leading to the ridge.

     The fact of it’s prominence and shallow pitch might have passed me as interesting, but not worthy of a Bungee Cord column, except that just shortly before dark we were dealt a cascading rain, a remnant from the hurricane dubbed Isaac.  As the sun was handing over its duties over to the moon, it hid itself from sight behind clouds that were almost as dark as the midnight sky, clouds out of which poured buckets of rain.  Raindrops as big as watermelons (ok…that is a slight exaggeration) pummeled earth, and with the wind that accompanied them tree limbs thicker than a football player’s thigh surrendered to their assault.

     And so at that late hour, surprised to see any stars at all given the storm that had not so long ago raged, it caught me as humorous irony to see the big dipper spotlighted in the sky, hanging there empty and my ears imagined God saying with a smirk, “Was that enough water for you?”

     Humor aside, there are parts of our world that would be quick to say, “Yes.  Enough already!” as flood waters sweep across fields and foundations.  Joining them in discordant stereo, farmers of the Midwest would with equal speed say of this summer, “Thanks God, but it was a little too much too late.”

     I have lived with farmers and have prayed with them to God for the blessing of rain, rain to yield a crop so bountiful so that no one on earth would go to bed with hunger in their belly.  And I have prayed,  “enough with the rain,”  as one trying to build a house last summer where the longest period without rain was one three day stretch.  I pray, all the while knowing, that there are many in the world who scoff at such prayers, saying they are the simple minded prayers of ancient star gazers.

     But I think that there is more than that to such prayers, and such prayers are deeper than that.  For me, such prayers do not disregard the scientific world that understands that climate is a delicate dance with pressure systems and moisture sources, a dance that seems to have at best a moderate predictability of where it will carry itself on the dance floor.  Rather such prayers concur with science that despite our grandest desires, we, humans, face each day dwarfed by forces that are far greater than we.  Forces of wind and pressure systems that care nothing about us. 

     But amid all the forces we face, there is a force, a force of power and love so great that even crushed death as if it were a mere ant,  and that force actually cares about us.  As we say in human terms, cares about us with his whole heart.  It is to that self-emptying force, the one whose love for us forced him to the cross, and the one whose resolve to fill us with that love forced open the Easter tomb….it is to that one that we lift our prayers in the face of drought or flood….not as simple minded star gazers, but as ones with the wisdom to place ourselves (and the world) in the hands of the one who has shown to be the one who will let no force (Rom. 8) wrest us from his care.

     This of which I speak is not a force as fictional as Star Wars, but it is as real as droughts and floods, tornados and hurricanes, gusts and gales…..as real as the cross and resurrection.

     Lord…..into your hands we commend our very selves.

Have a great week.

God’s grace and peace, (ggap)

Pastor Jerry Nuernberger

The Bungee Cord   9-3-12

Hello,

“The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.”  (Galatians 5:22,23)

I live in the promise that God is raising up in me the fruit of the Spirit.  Like an orchard tender, God is at work in me feeding me, pruning me, sheltering me, and watering me so that the fruit of which the fifth chapter of Galatians speaks is harvested in my life.

Last week I was going home from work.  My trek home is a 23 mile ride on a two lane road over a ridge, Chestnut Ridge, where the left and right turns and the rising of the road do not provide any place to pass a slow moving vehicle.  So it was last week that I got behind a semi-truck that was trying to make its way over my commuting route.  The operative word was “trying.”  I don’t know if the driver had traversed this route before.  If he had, I wasn’t quite sure why he was trying it again, and if he had not, I suspect that he wouldn’t try it again.  His apparently fully loaded semi struggled to make it up the steep inclines.  It consistently brushed against low hanging branches that were not accustomed to the trailer’s height. And it rode its brakes down, creating smoke and the smell of burning rubber.

I have a confession to make.  I did not feel sorry for the driver.  As I averaged something less than 10 miles per hour on most of my ride home, my sympathies did not lie in the driver’s struggles.  Rather my thoughts we at best slightly unkind.  I broke the 8^th Commandment many a time as we slowed down to a stop around corners and bends, not seeking to see the driver’s decision to take this route in the kindest manner.  “Did he not know that there would be cars behind him who actually needed to get somewhere?”  “Why didn’t he check with someone who knew the area before taking on this route?”  “Why isn’t there a telephone number on the back of his trailer asking me to call to let someone know what I thought of his driving?”  Simmer….Steam….BOIL!

Obviously, God is not finished working on me.  “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.”  So, I’ll be in church this Sunday so that God can tenderly tend me.  Dig around in the dirt in my life and loosen up my hard and self-focused heart.  Splash water around that flows from the forgiveness and mercy of Baptism.  Prune away the bug infested branches, branches infested with bugs with a voracious, life killing appetite.  And feed me with divine food, food that the world cannot give.

When I was in college I remember seeing a poster in one of my friend’s rooms that said, “Please be patient.  God isn’t finished working on me yet.”  Thank God that God doesn’t give up working on me.  Thank God that God’s patience with me is greater than my patience with others or myself.  Thank God that God’s love for me causes him to jump into the mud and pull me out, over and over again.  Thank God that God is a master orchard tender, a tender of the orchard in which you and I are divinely planted.

So, let me invite you to come to church this Sunday, and discover the tender tending of the master orchard tender…the one who is determined to harvest in your life love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control…the fruit of the Spirit.  Consider the wonder of what your life will be like when God produces a bumper crop in you and me, and until he does, God will not finish working on us.  Thanks be to God!

Have a great week.

God’s grace and peace,

Pastor Jerry Nuernberger