The Bungee Cord  8-24-57

Hello,

     Well, I am back at my computer and in the United States after a 10 day trip to Europe to see some Martin Luther sights (2017 is the 500^th anniversary of the Reformation) and visit some friends.  Seeing where Martin Luther spent some of his childhood, one of the first Lutheran Churches, the place that Luther was hidden away when he had a price on his head, and the University where he taught and lived out his life all helped me understand the events of the day and how to extrapolate them into this day.

     But more than gathering an appreciation for events and history, I found myself  more profoundly appreciative of friendships in general, and the friendships we have with the folks we visited.

     In Amsterdam we stayed with a couple of which the woman was an exchange student at my wife’s house when they were both in high school.  In Germany, we spent our time travelling and staying at the house of the parents of a girl who was an exchange student at our house when we lived in Arlington, Ohio (about 13 years ago).

     Friendship really is an amazing thing.  Friendship has people open up their home and share their lives with another in intimate ways.  Friendship has a way of spanning the distance of time and space that makes neither seem that much of a distance.  Friendship has a way of welding together the cores of people’s lives whose peripheral parts are extremely different.  Friendship has a way of broadening one’s horizons and taking a look at one’s own life without feeling the need to become defensive or protective.

     Having come home from a time with friends in Europe, I find myself thankful for such friendships.  Could I live without them?  Of course.  But with them my life is fuller, deeper, and richer.  Thank you God for friends…European friends, and you, my friends.

     But most of all thank you God for God’s friendship to me, a friendship that many in Europe and around the world and in our country are saying they can live without.  In Germany, where people pay a “church tax” as a way of maintaining their place in the church, many are opting out, saying that there are things in life to which that money needs to go that to them puts the church (not necessarily Jesus, though) as something they can live without.  In Amsterdam there are many churches, most of them just cultural buildings, because for whatever reason, the things of the church have become something that a person can live without.

     The fact that many people live fine lives without being connected to the church is evidence that a person can live without it.  But having had a glimpse of the wonder of friendships, I am thankful for the friendship that I find week after week in the church where I am embraced by a God who so loved me that he sent his Son to live, die, and rise again to seal that friendship.  I am thankful for the friendship of a God who doesn’t want me to wonder if I have or have not fallen out of his thoughts and care as he spoke that care to me in the waters of Baptism and echoes it over and over again at his table.  I am thankful for the friendship of a God who wraps me in the arms of people who see the pain in my life, the shame in my life, and the sin in my life and say, “In this place those things have no voice.  Only God has a voice and his voice is of forgiveness and mercy.”  I am thankful for the friendship of God who is resilient to my fickleness and irrepressible in his faithfulness to me.

     It is true that God’s friendship with me exists outside of the confines and gathered community of the church….just as my friendship exists with my European friends when we are not with them face to face.  But I am thankful that I got to rub shoulders for a week with my European friends, and I am more thankful yet, that I get to be invited into the house of God every week to have my life deepened, widened and brightened by the transformational friendship of God.

     The song may be a bit smaltzy, but it’s true: What a friend we have in Jesus!

Have a great week.

God’s grace and peace, (ggap)

Pastor Jerry Nuernberger

Bungee Cord 8-10-15

Hello,

Yesterday, I learned how old I am.

I had a group of high schoolers from church up to my house for a summer’s end bash.  A cook out… hot tub…and a ruckus game of croquet.  Yes…a ruckus game of croquet.  I set up the croquet course on an area of my lawn where trees would have to be dodged, poison ivy avoided, rocky ground rumbled over, and hills ascended and descended.  No polite game of croquet….no….. croquet on steroids.

     So when the kids had arrived and I said to them, “Ok, let’s go out and play a ruckus game of croquet.”

     They looked back at me with that teenage look, “Are you kidding me?”

     I wasn’t quite sure how to read the look that I was getting.  Did they think that croquet would be too boring?  Did they wonder how you could make a game of croquet “ruckus”?  So, responding to their gaze, I said, “Come on.  It will be fun!”

     Which led one brave (or bold) teenager to say, “What’s croquet?”

    “You’ve never played croquet?”  I asked in surprise.

     “No,” each and every one of them said back to me.

     Yesterday, I learned that I am old enough to know what croquet is.  Before yesterday, I thought that everyone knew what croquet is.  After all, it seemed like everyone had a croquet set with which they played normal, not “ruckus”, croquet in their back yard.  But apparently not so for the younger generation.

     The look that I received from those teenagers, I have seen before when I have invited them to do something.  It is the look that I have received when I have enthusiastically said, “Ok, let’s go to church.”

     Previously, I have always interpreted that look to mean, “Are you kidding me?”, or “Do we have to?”, or “How can you be enthusiastic about going to church?”  But now I wonder….I wonder if the look that they have given me is really meant to ask the question, “What’s church?”

     Is church just a place where people go to hear a bunch of stuff that doesn’t mean anything to them, or connect with their daily lives?  Is church just a place where people gather in a mutual admiration society of being the good people?  Is church just a place where people keep up the tradition of public singing?  Is church just a place where older adults pass on their culture to younger folks?  Is it just a place in which people have given lots of money, and they need new and more people to keep the building in shape and the organization running?

     “What’s church?”

     That look in the eyes of young folks (and even a lot of older folks) tells me that somehow we Christians have not been very good at clearly providing a picture of “church” that catches the hearts and imaginations of lots of people.  

     Church?  It is the place where the presence of Jesus, God himself,  is magnified and intensified. 

     Magnified.  It is where we come face to face with his claiming embrace, speaking to us one by one in the waters of Baptism, “I died for YOU.  I love YOU.  I won’t let anything come between You and Me.”  It is the place where Jesus takes a hold of us with a hug from the inside as we come to his table and hear his promise, “This is my body, given for you.  This is my blood, shed for you.”

     Intensified.  It is where the  decaying voices of the world are sifted out, voices that give us words that time will erode….words as to what is important in life, what makes you or me important, what happens to winners, and what happens to losers….so that you and I hear only the gracious and merciful voice of God who speaks eternal words…”You are my child.  Can you do anything to make you more important than that?  I died for you. Can you do anything to make me love you any more or any less?”  It is where  all the shoulds of the world’s judgments are stopped at the door so that the graceful hand of the divine potter can shape and mold our lives.

     That is church.

     So, if you find yourself sporting a befuddled stare when invited to church, I hope that I have answered that stare and so I may reinvite you, “Let’s go to church.”

Have a great week.

God’s grace and peace, (ggap)

Pastor Jerry Nuernberger

p.s. – Sorry for being a bit verbose this week.  Maybe you can read this week’s Bungee Cord in chunks, as I will be away from my computer for the next two weeks.

The Bungee Cord  8-3-15

Hello,

I went to the Pittsburgh Steelers’ training camp on Friday.  A friend from Sioux Falls who grew up in this area had come to visit, and just by chance his visit coincided with the Steelers’ training camp that they conduct in Latrobe, a town just over the ridge from me.

It so happened that Friday was a unique day on their training camp schedule as the practice was to take place at night in the local high school stadium.  Usually the practices are held at the local college, St. Vincent’s, and usually they take place in the afternoon….in the blazing sun.  Not knowing how packed the house would be, we arrived shortly after the gates opened at 5:00, found ourselves prime seats where we could lean back against the stadium wall, and enjoy the nice evening weather, the country-rock band and Steeler drum line, and watch the variety of people fill the stands, almost all of them decked out in gold and black.

At about 6:45 a police car blazing its red and blue lights came into view, and behind it a line of busses resembling a circus line of elephants marching with trunks clasping tails.  The first bus was the Mr. Rogers Trolley (Mr. Rogers was born in Latrobe…as was Arnold Palmer…but he doesn’t have a trolley or  bus) and in it rode the coaching staff.  Following it were 6 yellow school busses carrying the players.  The crowd broke into cheers as the players entered the field carrying their shoulder pads through the tunnel of Latrobe High School Cheerleaders dressed in Steeler colors.  True Steeler fans were listing off the players as they watched them walk onto the field, but me….the only Steeler I know by face is Ben Roethlisberger….and apparently for dramatic flair he strode onto the field last.

Practice began with gentle warm ups and stretching, but soon it elevated into some serious hitting and thrashing as the time came to commence the challenge to make the team.  Over the next several weeks the hundred or so guys that were out there would be whittled down to less than 50.  So with lifelong dreams treasured in their hearts, these muscular monsters started to throw their weight around.  Crashing into one another trying to keep from being the one finding himself belly up on the ground.  Coaches yelling.  Shoulder pads crunching.  Muscles being pummeled and bruised.  Its hard work, and only the best will make it….everyone else gets cut.

It seems to me that the Christian life is often portrayed as akin to a football training camp.  Many speak of the Christian life as if it was meant to be years and years of being thrashed around, withstanding the ramrod of temptation, enduring the tirades of God’s anger, and hoping not to be the one found belly up and cut from the team.

I know that a lot of people say that that is what the Christian life is meant to be, but I don’t think so.  Sure the Christian life is full of bangs and bruises, hungry tempters, and the harsh voice of guilt and shame shouting at you from the world when you fail.  But it is not a training camp in which you are working to prove yourself worthy of making the team…why?....Because you are already on the team!  “See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called Children of God, and that is what we are.” (1 John 3:1) When Jesus stood toe to toe on the cross in a battle to the death with every evil that might try to claim us for its team, he slammed every one of them to the ground, leaving them breathless and belly up, and he gathered us onto his team….on his team not because of our strength and might to endure a training camp, but because of the strength and might of his love that will not let anything or anyone separate us from him. (Romans 8)

The Christian life, then, is a life that is shaped and molded by the one who has put us on his team.  Sharing with us his love so that we might love likewise.  Nourishing us with his grace so that we might grace-fully stride in the world.  Coming to us when we have been knocked down and picking us up, healing our bruises and saying, “Let’s try that one again.”

The Christian life is not a religious training camp where heaven’s jersey hangs in balance.  No, it is a life of living in the Kingdom of Heaven, clothed and gowned in grace and mercy of God where the game never ends and the victory has already been won.  The Christian life is not a training camp where one fights to get or keep their place on the team…..no, the Christian life is game day every day filled with the hope of the victory that has already been won and the thrill of carrying that victory into the world so the whole world may live in that unshakable hope.

Hut!  Hut! Hike!  That’s the Christian life.

Have a great week.

God’s grace and peace, (ggap)

Pastor Jerry Nuernberger