Bungee Cord 1-26-14

Hello,

I’m back.  After two weeks of tromping up and down ancient tells, skating along original Roman streets, wandering through the extravagant tombs of civilizations dating back 2000 years, transversing city gates built 1500 BC, standing at certain and uncertain sites of Jesus’ life, slinking through cavernous water system tunnels, discovering the altars and temples of pagan gods, rubbing shoulders with people of unfamiliar cultures…..all in sunny 60 and 70 degrees weather in the middle of January….I am back!

What I learned and what I experienced could fill a year’s worth of Bungee Cords, but lest I bore you with an endless travel log, something happened to me early on in my travels that opened my eyes to something that I have always known, but never really took to heart.

I am not a fan of “touristy” things, so the idea of hopping on a forty-foot passenger boat and circle around the Sea of Galilee seemed a part of the trip that I might have easily foregone had it not been on the group itinerary. So, I, along with the other 42 members of our contingent and a group of people from India set sail out to sea (the Sea of Galilee is not really a sea…it is actually a small/medium size lake, small enough to look across it and see all the shoreline).  The sail started off with the raising of the American Flag accompanied by the playing of the National Anthem, and like wise the Indian Flag and anthem.  (A touch of touristry to me, but not all.)  As was all of our days, sunny and beautiful, we motored our way upon the Sea, feeling the waves and the wind upon our boat as Jesus might have.  (Actually our engine powered boat that was twice as long as Jesus’ boats, and much heavier and stable set us a bit apart from Jesus’ rides on the Sea of Galilee, but we were out on the lake, and I have to admit it was kind of cool.)

As it happened I was sitting in the front of the boat and three people whom I had never met made their way to the front, too.  Three natives of India, all in their 20’s, two women and a man.  One of the women had a camera, and she gave it to the man, asking him to take a picture of her and the other woman as they stood by the bow of the boat.  He raised the camera to his eye, snapped off a couple of pictures and handed it back to the woman, and as he did so, he asked them to take a picture of him. (Of course this was all happening in a language of which I had no understanding.)  So, the two women stepped back, and as they did, he took a seat next to me, and he put his arm around my shoulder.  Although this shoulder hug may have been of little surprise to people of his culture…it came as quite a surprise to me.  My smile may have shown a bit of shock to it, but nevertheless, the woman snapped the picture of the two of us.

The picture taken, the man took his arm from my shoulder and said in broken English, “Christian, yes?”

“Yes, I am a Christian,” I replied.  I tried with little success to find out more about him, but the language barrier was too great.

When I got off the boat, I knew that I would never again see this man whom I had never seen before….but his companionship would stay with me forever….a companionship whose only glue was our shared God-given name, “Christian.”

That encounter opened my eyes to the same unshatterable companionship that I so often overlook with those whom I regularly see and know who likewise bear the same God-given name, “Christian”.  Living in a world that is quick to point out differences in order to divide….sometimes I think it is to divide and conquer….to isolate and devastate….that man’s arm around my shoulder seemed like the arm of Jesus….after all, it was only Jesus that held us together.

As you walk into any church, you will note that in it is a rather rag-tag, conglomerate of people who are united with a glue that nothing in the world can dissolve: the blood of Jesus.  So, while the winds of the sea of Galilee still have tuffed my hair, let me invite you to church this weekend so that you, too, may feel the arm of Jesus resting upon your shoulder, uniting you with him and all who bear his name, “Christian”, in a solidarity of unity that no fear, no force, and no foe can sever.

“Christian, yes”.  “Yes!”

Have a great week,

God’s grace and peace,

Pastor Jerry Nuenberger

Bungee Cord 1-4-14



Hello,

      For those of you who want to know how the Christmas story ended…..here it is…..

     Christmas Eve morning not only ushered in Christmas, but it also ushered in a Christmas snow storm, the like of which had never been known in his new town.  Of course where he used to live, it was just one of those winter storms that you lived through, so he had no idea of the surprise that was coming before him. Playing video games all day as the snow kept on falling, he had a harder and harder time concentrating on the video game knowing that the time to go to church, to feel at home, was coming near.
     “We’re not going to church tonight,” said Billy’s mother.  “The weather is too bad, and the roads have not been plowed.  We’ll never get there, and if we do, we’ll never get home.”  When he heard it, his heart sank.  He had waited so long to go to Christmas worship and finally not feel quite so lost.   Besides it seemed like silliness not to go to church.  Where they used to live, no amount of snow kept anyone from coming to Christmas Eve services.  He was sure that if he didn’t go, everyone would laugh at him when he got to school saying, “Why weren’t you at Christmas Eve services?  Is everyone a wimp where you used to live?”
     So, when the evening came, Billy got dressed up for church just like he always used to.  He went into the T.V. room where the rest of the family was sitting, and he said, “I am going to church.”  There was a surprised look on everyone’s face, and so he said it again, “I am going to church.”
     “Well, I told you that we weren’t going to go tonight,”  said his mother.
     “I know,” he said, “but I want to go.”
     “How are you going to get there,” his father asked.
     “I’m going to walk”, he said, because it wasn’t really that far away.
     “Ok,” his dad said, snickering a bit, sure that as soon as his son started off in the storm he’d come back home.
     So, Billy got his coat on, put on his warmest hat, put a scarf around his neck and gloves on his hands and walked out the front door to go to church on Christmas eve.  There were a couple of times when he thought to himself that maybe he should go back home, but no…he was tired of feeling lost and alone…..he was going to go to church on Christmas eve and not just feel at home…but be at home.
     When he got close he could see the light pouring through the stained glass windows, like rubies and sapphires sparkling from a king’s crown.  But when he got to the church he noticed something strange….the parking lot was completely empty….not a single car.
     “Mmm,” he thought to himself, “Maybe everyone parked someplace else because they couldn’t get the lot plowed.”  But when he walked into the church he found out that he had been wrong….it wasn’t that they had parked some place else….their cars were all still at home, because there wasn’t a single person there.
     “Maybe they’re just running late,” he thought, after all he was a bit early.  But as the minutes went by, no one else came through the door.  Not only was he all alone in that church, he now really felt all alone….all alone on a dark, cold night…in a town that seemed to not even know he was there…no one who he could really call a friend…and not even his family beside him now.  The loneliness was as dark as a lightless cave.  And then all of the sudden, all the lights of the church went off….darkness added to darkness.  What was he to do?  Didn’t anyone even realize that he was there?  Should he leave…he couldn’t…..it was so dark in there he couldn’t even see the aisles.  So he sat there…in the dark….in a daze….in despair.
     When all of the sudden a spot light broke into the darkness and shone on the cross in the front of the church, and from the back of the church he heard the familiar voice of the pastor yelling, “‘Do not be afraid; for see—I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: to you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, who is the Messiah, the Lord.”
     When he heard those words, words that he had heard year after year, he heard them like he had never heard them before.  He knew that they were the words the angels spoke to the shepherds…but there in the darkness, there in the daze, feeling like a forgotten hillside shepherd….there where the only “you” was him…those words seemed to be aimed at him.  “I am bringing you,” …yes me….’”good news of great joy, for unto you,”  yes me….”is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord.”…..Do not be afraid!”  For the first time since he had moved he didn’t feel lonely and he didn’t feel alone.  Jesus had been born for him, Billy Johnson…for him!
     For the last 12 years Billy had heard those words, words that angels had spoken to Bethlehem shepherds….but this year heard them differently.  When Billy Johnson left that church that night, he left having heard those words spoken to him.
     Just the same, know this, tonight those words once spoken to shepherds were on this night spoken to you.  AMEN.
   
     The Bungee Cord will be taking a two week break as I will be wandering around in Israel  Looking forward to getting a lay of the Biblical land, get a feel for the way people lived in Jesus' day, and see the struggle that continues among the people who live there.

     Talk to you when I get back, but in the mean time, have a great week.

God's grace and peace, (ggap)
Pastor Jerry Nuernberger