Bungee cord
4-28-14

Dear Justin Bieber,

     An interesting thing happened last week when I Googled “Jesus” looking for an image of Jesus to use for a PowerPoint Bible study that I am doing for a group of mostly senior women.  As I scanned down the rows of pictures, there on the 4^th row was a picture of you wading out of the ocean.  Jokingly, I wondered if you were placed among the pictures of Jesus because you, like Jesus, walked on water.

     I discovered, when out of curiosity I clicked the picture, that you have a tattoo of Jesus on your calf, and that is why you popped up when I Googled “Jesus”.

     You’ve been in the news a lot recently, Justin, news that comes from being in the spotlight.  I cannot even imagine what it is like to live in the spotlight that you do, a spotlight that seems to set you up as one who does walk on water.  Unlike most of us who don’t find the trivial things, the troubling things, and the terrible things that we have done publically plastered, you do.  We know about the latest tattoo that you got inked.  We know about the hurtful things that you have done and said.  We know about the dangerous way you drive your car and the smoke of the drugs that have filled an airplane.  We know about you what most people don’t know about us….that your life, although probably in the main is noted with acts of kindness, is not very Jesus-like.

     Let me confess, publically, neither is mine.  I don’t walk on water.  As a matter of fact, I often sink.  So, in this world that seems to have an insatiable appetite to feast on people’s foibles, I am thankful that there is one to whom I can go who embraces me, sinker that I am: Jesus.  Sunday after Sunday when I go to church, we begin by everyone there putting the light on the truth that over the past week there has been much in our lives that has not been very Jesus-like.  Once that truth has been put out in the open, we are confronted by another truth.  The truth that the one whom death could not even bring down…the one who does walk on water…. that one reaches down as we sink and lifts us up with forgiveness and mercy, resuscitating us with his grace, putting his life in our lungs.  I find that transforming.  I find that hopeful.

     So, Justin, if you are ever in the Pittsburgh area (Greensburg is just about a half our east) let me invite you to the place that gives me life and hope to carry me into every day, First Lutheran Church of Greensburg, Pa.  When you come, you’ll find out, as I have found out, that no one will care how many tattoos you have.  No one will say you cannot sit by them because of how foolish you may have been or what drugs you have used.  No one will bar the door on you and not let you come in because of even the most painful things you have done….things that maybe even the press has not discovered.

     What you will find is that Jesus will invite you to his table and take hold of you with an embrace deeper than any human hug, pulling you up from sinking, and filling you with his life and forgiveness.  He who is the light of the world will not let the spotlight of the world melt you away.  He who is the bread of life will not let bread (a slang word for money when I was a kid) stave you.  He who is Good Shepherd will be a body guard who will push aside the crowds and lead you to still waters.

    Don’t know when you’re coming to Pittsburgh next, but when you do, I sure hope to see you….not on stage….but next to me at the Table of the Lord.

Have a great week.

God’s grace and peace, (ggap)

Pastor Jerry Nuernberger

Bungee Cord 4-21-14

Hello,

     In the Lutheran church, as in a whole bunch of churches, the Gospel reading for the Sunday after Easter is the story of “Doubting Thomas”.  The story begins with the disciples gathering in a locked room for fear that they, too, might wind up on a cross.  No wonder they were scared to death when they saw that someone had found them.  Their fears, however, faded when the man showed them nail wounds on his hands and a spear wound in his side, wounds which gave away his identity.  It was Jesus.

     When they found Thomas, who wasn’t with them in that room, Thomas possessed no greater doubts than they had held, and he asked for nothing greater than what over came their doubts: Jesus’ wounds that he had incurred upon the cross.

     I don’t know why those who pick the scripture lessons to be read each Sunday picked the “Doubting Thomas” story to be read the Sunday after Easter, but if I was to guess I would say it is because doubt tends to be the preliminary response to the story of Jesus’ resurrection: the women who looked into the tomb initially had fear (a cousin of doubt), the disciples who heard their story according to Luke thought it to be an “idle tale”, the disciple who gathered in that upper room in fear, and Thomas who was told the disciples’ story……all initially held doubt….and maybe you, too.

     There’s no denying that on the face of it, the story of Jesus’ resurrection carries with it great implausibility.  Such things simply do not seem to occur in the experience of our lives, and the painful things that we all experience do seem to occur with far too much regularity.  Did Jesus really rise from the dead?

     Far from chastising those who responded with doubt, Jesus invited them…he invited them to eat with him, he invited them to touch his wounds, and he invited them to see things differently….to see things not only through their eyes, but through divine eyes….eyes of such ultimate love and mercy that the implausible might be turned into the believable.

     Christians gather for worship on Sundays, re-marking every week the Sunday on which Jesus stepped out of that Easter tomb.  Every Sunday is meant to be a mini-Easter, a day that is not necessarily the gathering of the believers, but instead the gathering of the invited….those who are invited to hear the resurrection story and encounter the one thing that transforms plausible doubts into life changing faith: Jesus cross-born wounds.  Every Sunday when we come to the altar we receive a piece of bread and a sip of wine, given with the promise of Jesus, “This is my body, given for you.  This is my blood shed for you.”

     And who is the “you”?  It is the “you” who has been invited to his table…not because of what you find yourself believing, but the “you” whom God wants to empower you to believe in the unbelievable depth of God’s love and mercy for you.

     I am convinced that doubts do not exclude us from Jesus’ love and mercy, they never have.  Rather they are the very thing that draws Jesus to us with immeasurable love and mercy. 

     You are welcome….no….invited… every Sunday…doubting or doubtless to the place we call “church”…invited not be me per se, but by Jesus who with his cross-born wounds hopes to transform an implausible story into a dynamic, life changing faith.  Not for faith’s sake, the church’s sake, or even for Jesus sake….but for your sake.

     Fellow doubter….hope to see you at Jesus’ table on the next mini-Easter, this Sunday.

Have a great week.

God’s grace and peace, (ggap)

Pastor Jerry Nuernberger

Bungee Cord 4-14-14

Hello,

     I was talking to a couple of high school girls this Sunday about the music that they listen to, and I discovered that they listen to music differently than I do.  They, unlike me, listen to their music via their I Phones.  Through apps that they have downloaded, they plug in their favorite artists, and presto, music by that artist and other artists of that genre flow without interruption into their earphones.

     Old school and old man that I am, I listen to music through the radio, as I always have (that is when I am not listening to “vinyl”, tapes, cd’s and all the other outdated carriers of music).  As a teen travelling around in our car mowing lawns, we’d listen to WLS and WCFL, AM stations that played the same 15 songs over and over again.  In college, AM/FM radios became standard equipment in cars, and I felt I had really moved up in the music listening world when we could blast the sound of our favorite music in stereo.

     So, when I hop in my car and my radio isn’t tuned to National Public Radio, I listen to the music that my radio can access.  There’s an “oldies” station…oldies?...of the music that I grew up on, and there’s a current pop  music station that I listen to (never have been into country…and there’s plenty of those stations around here!).  If you have been listening to your current pop music station, you will have heard a song by The Passengers called, “Let Her Go”.  It’s a song sung by a guy with a rather high-pitched, nasally voice with a chorus with which that voice etches in your head,

But you only need the light when it's burning low


Only miss the sun when it starts to snow


Only know you love her when you let her go

Only know you've been high when you're feeling low


Only hate the road when you're missing home


Only know you love her when you let her go

First time I heard it I was struck at what a sad song this is.  The tune is melancholy, and the words are sad….sad not only in the words that are said, but also even sadder if they are true.  Isn’t it sad, if the song is true, that you only recognize the goodness that you have in your life when that goodness is gone.  Isn’t that sad?  Very sad, if you ask me.

     This Sunday, Easter Sunday, when I go to church, I know that I will hear a song, a song that I hear every Sunday, a song that was sung from a Golgatha cross and reverberated from a Sunday morning tomb.  It’s God’s song, and it is “I Won’t Let You Go”.  Of course, it is sung with different tunes and different words, but every week that I go to church I hear a variation of God’s song, “I Wont Let You Go.” The joy of Jesus Christ is that he knows how much he loves us….so much that he won’t let us go, a point that God makes absolutely clear in the cross and resurrection, so clear that the Apostle Paul in Romans 8 writes,

“For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

So, if you’re tired of hearing the dismal and hopeless songs that the world sings, like “Let Her Go”, come to church this Sunday and sing along.  Sing:

Jesus Christ is risen today, Alleluia!
 Our triumphant holy day, Alleluia!
 Who did once upon the cross, Alleluia!
 Suffer to redeem our loss. Alleluia!

Hymns of praise then let us sing, Alleluia!
 Unto Christ, our heavenly king, Alleluia!
 Who endured the cross and grave, Alleluia!
 Sinners to redeem and save. Alleluia!

But the pains which he endured, Alleluia! 
Our salvation have procured; Alleluia! 
Now above the sky he’s king, Alleluia!
 Where the angels ever sing. Alleluia!

Sing we to our God above, Alleluia!
 Praise eternal as his love; Alleluia!
 Praise him, all you heavenly host, Alleluia!
 Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Alleluia!

Have a great week…..see you Sunday!

God’s grace and peace, (ggap)

Pastor Jerry Nuernberger

The Bungee Cord 4-7-14

Hello,

     I have a new job….ESPN Commentator…..well, not really.

     Let me tell you what happened.  This morning, I was watching Mike and Mike on ESPN2 as I usually do when drinking my morning coffee.  They were talking to someone about potential changes in the game of baseball….my forte of my younger years….., and the guy said that he thought there should be a clock out in center field counting down the time between each pitch: 20 seconds.  “The game is too slow,” he said, “we need something to keep it moving.”  This clock, in his opinion, would cut down on the pitcher’s walking around the mound, the batter’s playing in the batter’s box sand, and of course the mandatory self-adjusting that pitchers and batters do.

     “What do you think,” said Mike Greenberg, “let us know on e-mail.”

     So, since I had a strong feeling about this topic, I picked up my computer and wrote this e-mail.

Terrible idea.  Only reinforces our clock- captive society….as they say in Africa, "You Americans have all the watches, we have all the time."

     As I was writing it, they went to commercial, and when the show returned, Mike Greenberg says, “I like what this e-mailer says.”

     Mike Gollick then says, “Jerry says, …..”, and he reads my e-mail.

     Excitement shot like lightening through me as I heard it being read and they went on to discuss it….basically saying that although they were drawn to my comment, baseball, after all, is entertainment, and by virtue of that it is shaped by our societies values…a society that values (trapped in….my words) the constraints of time.

     When their discussion was over, I jumped out of the couch, ran upstairs to tell my wife about my new found occupation, ESPN commentator.  She, too, was excited….just not as excited as me!

     As I consider this morning’s excitement, it seems very timely to me. During this impending time of Holy Week (Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Easter), the clock will clamp down on many and they will not find the time to worship.  With only so many hours in a day, and so many days in the week, many will be entrapped by time and will not find any time to worship…karate lessons, favorite shows, exhaustion from work, a family meal to prepare….all the teeth grabbing jaws of the trap of time, will clamp down, tight and secure, ravenously clenching, refusing to let go.

     The good news, however, is that the One who is eternal and completely free from time has stepped into time to pry open time’s trap.  Born into time, crucified at a particular time and place, stepped upon and crushed time transversing a once stone-closed tomb, and opening up all time ascending from a time constructed hill….Jesus, God incarnate, has opened the jaws of time’s trap and freed us to live, now in this time, and even when time is no more.

     So…freed from time’s clasp, let me invite you to take part in God’s time prison breakout.  Take your place this Sunday, Palm Sunday, in the shouts of Hosanna as Jesus humbly rides into your life.  Take your place around the table of God’s grace with the 12 disciples and hear Jesus say to you, “This is my body, given for you.  This is my blood, shed for you.”  Take your place at the foot of the cross and hear Jesus cry out in victory, “It is finished.”  And take your place inside the empty tomb and here the angels say, “You look for Jesus, but he is not here.  He has risen from the dead.”

     I am sure of this; it will be worth your time!  Worth your time every Sunday, in which we experience the power of God’s grace, the joy of Christ’s victory, the transforming divine forgiveness, and the rock solid hope of being held in the hand of the one who is not held by the hands of time.

     Have a great week.

God’s grace and peace, (ggap)

Pastor Jerry Nuernberger