Hello
Chicken Update:
Those of you who are weekly readers of the Bungee Cord will remember that a couple of months ago my wife brought four baby chicks into our lives and constructed a coop (the Taj ma Coop) for their habitation. A couple of months have since passed, and I am glad to report that all four of the chicks have made their way into the second month of their lives, grown to near adult size, and have comfortably made their home in their classy coop.
All this, however, has not been without peril, peril at the hands (or paws) of my dog, Duncan. When they were small chicks living in our basement furnace room, Duncan would hear their peeping, and whine in hopes to be let in. When we would let him in, he would take his place outside of their cage in an instinctual catatonic trance awaiting them to venture out and become his dinner. Now that they have made their home outdoors in the Taj ma Coop, when we open the door of our house to let him out he scurries over to their penthouse and sleeks his way right up to the screened-in pen (porch) where they are scratching about.
Like a New Orleans street artist who stands motionless wearing the attire of the Statue of Liberty, Duncan freezes in hunting pose, his nose pressed against the chicken wire. The chickens walk unafraid around their pen, and sometimes come right up to where his nose is and give it a peck, but Duncan doesn’t move…ready to pounce….ready to clamp down….ready to eat. But all for not. So close that he can smell them. So close that he can taste them. So close that the saliva forms in his jowls. So close….but so far away. His frustration building like underground lava.
When a man came up to Jesus and asked, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?”, and answered back to Jesus out of what he had been taught… “love the Lord your God with all of your heart, and mind, and strength and soul, and love your neighbor as yourself,” I can see this man taking on the pose of Duncan at the chicken’s screened-in pen. Being a good man, a man who sought to do what was right, a man who hoped to justify (be right with God) himself by clarifying who his neighbor might be…being so close that he could smell heaven…so close that he could taste it…so close, but so far away. Could he, or would he ever be able to love the Lord with all of his heart, mind, soul and strength….no. Could he, or would he ever be able to love his neighbor as himself…no. Like chicken wire, the commandments create a barrier between us and God, a barrier that is beyond our abilities to break through. Like Duncan, we can get close…..close but so far away.
But here’s the great news: we who could never justify ourselves, God justifies. God, in Jesus, steps out from behind the chicken wire of commandments, and justifies us (makes us right with him)…not by what we could or would do….but by what God can and does do. God transforms us by the claiming power of his love. Stretching out his arms on the cross he silenced any other power that might claim a lien on our lives so that we might be wholly and holy God’s. And when Jesus walked sure footed out of the Good Friday tomb God tore down the walls of both time and space so that we might be with him, now and forever.
I wonder if that man who asked Jesus what he must do to inherit eternal life is still frozen in place at the chicken wire of heaven….so close and yet so far away. Or has he come to life, eternal life, as heaven has broken into this world by the grace of God in Jesus, jolted out of his catatonic pose and following Jesus in a magnetically gathering parade of peace, hope, love and joy that marches on forever?
Feeling a bit stuck yourself? Jesus says, “Come to church this Sunday so that I might transform your life…..there’s a lot better things for you to do with your life than stand like a statue gazing into a chicken coop pen.”
Have a great week.
God’s grace and peace, (ggap)
Pastor Jerry Nuernberger
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