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.
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