Bungee Cord 10-26-15

Hello,

Everyone who begins their ministry after their seminary education discovers that there are many things that they don’t teach you in seminary that you wish they would have.  This week, I discovered one of those things: migratory birds.

I was listening to National Public Radio on my way home from work and they were interviewing an ornithologist, a studier of birds.  As I wound my way home through the canopy of fall beauty, I was learning about bird sounds, what those sounds mean, nesting habits, territorialism, and migration.  I was listening with moderate interest to the discussion, but when they started talking about migration, my ears perked up. 

     Migratory birds, said the ornithologist, don’t know where they are going.  The flocks are not led by those who have been where they are going.  For many species of birds, the entire flock is venturing off to someplace they have never been to before, have no idea of how to get there, and are completely unaware of what it will be like when they arrive.  Although it may seem obvious, this came as quite a surprise to me.

I wish they would have taught us this in seminary.

On several occasions Jesus turns his listeners attention to the birds around them.  Maybe he was an amateur ornithologist.  “Look at the birds,” Jesus said, “and see how God takes care of them.”  God feeds them.  God gives them safe places to nest.  Not even one sparrow falls to the ground outside of God’s attention.  “If God so cares for the birds,” Jesus says, “You can rest assured that God will take care of you.”

As comforting as all of the things that Jesus tells us to see in God’s care for the birds, I find that what I learned from my radio ornithologist is even a greater sign of God’s grace.  Scientists have tried to figure out how migratory birds know how to go somewhere they have never been before.  Are their magnetic chips in their brains that are preprogrammed?  Maybe.  Maybe not.  It still remains one of those mysteries that inquiring minds want to know.

From a theological perspective (that is what we learned well in seminary: theology), this mystery of nature speaks to me.  “If God so takes care of the birds of the air, to lead them where they have never been, on a path they have never flown, to a place where they will find good repose, won’t God so likewise do for you,” Jesus might say to you and me.

In truth, every day is a wing flap on an unknown flight for you and me.  Often times I find myself ill at ease to soar into it.  I fool myself into thinking that I have some idea of where I am going, but in truth I do not.  I try to tell myself that I have some idea of what I will meet in each day ahead, but in truth I do not.  I try to comfort myself by thinking that I have control over the flight that I take, but in truth I do not.  In truth, I am like a migratory bird, flapping into the future on a virgin journey.

I suspect that someday science will tell us how God has provided for birds to fly confidently and faithfully as they migrate.  But for me, I already know what gives me the confidence and the faith to wing my way into the future: Jesus’ beckoning call.  That is what the event of which we call the ascension of Jesus is all about.  The Bible tells us that after Jesus rose from the dead, he gathered his disciples and ascended into heaven.

     It is a rather difficult image for us modern thinkers to comprehend this ascension, and so some have asked, “Where did he go?”  I find Martin Luther’s answer very insightful and helpful, “Jesus went into the future.”  That is to say that when Jesus ascended into heaven, he left behind the constraints of time and space, constraints that bind us and hold us.  So although the future may be beyond our immediate experience, for Jesus, he is already there, and that is what I mean when I say that it is Jesus’ beckoning call that gives me the faith and the courage to take flight into it.  In truth, I don’t know anything about the future, except this one thing: Jesus is there.  And as the one who has so loved me in the past and in the present, I find myself drawn, almost magnetically, to his flock leading call, “Follow me.”

Thank you, Mr. Ornithologist, for now I have seen even a greater vision of God’s steadfast care of me when I look to the birds of the air.

Have a great week.

God’s grace and peace, (ggap)

Pastor Jerry Nuernberger

The Bungee Cord  10-19-15

Hello,

Signs of autumn: monochromatic green hillsides become patchwork quilts of brilliant color; warm short-sleeved evenings on the deck require a sweatshirt to stay warm; the morning alarm that had gone off with the brightness of the sun now rings in the pitch black of night…….and, Friday night high school football.

The church where I am the pastor pulls in people from about 5 or 6 school districts most of whom are having struggling seasons. This morning I was talking to one of the high school students who is a cheerleader at one such floundering football school. “How’d the game go Friday night?”, I asked her as she was leaving worship.

“We got crushed!”, she said, and her mother joined in the conversation adding that they hadn’t yet won a game, and it the next several gives did not look very promising.

“Well, then,” I said, “sounds like they need you to cheer even louder for them to keep their spirits up!” She smiled.

When it comes to football teams….and life in general….its no fun to be a cellar dweller. (I should know…I root for the University of Illinois!) Stumble once or twice and people will hang around you, but fall flat on your face over and over again…well, people have a way of giving up on you, avoiding you, and naming you “Loser”. And pretty soon, it is easy to start believing what they say. And when that happens, the losing isn’t the worst of it, the sting of being a failure burns far more severe. Losing football players lose the desire to play and wonder why they are suiting up for another game – after all they are losers. Recipients of report cards loaded with “F’s” can become so disheartened that they wonder why they even go to class at all – after all they are losers. People whose relationships fall apart begin to believe that they are unlovable – after all they are losers. The mantra of “Loser” is an everplaying scratched record, and it is played at a mind numbing decibel.

Fact of the matter is, that football teams that are winning don’t really need cheer leaders….the crowd has a way of cheering un-led. Likewise, people that are “winners” don’t really need cheerleaders to get people to cheer them on, they, too seem to be spontaneously acclaimed. The ones who really need the cheerleaders are the ones who keep on losing. They need to hear voices of encouragement that eat away at the humiliation they feel. They need to hear the voices of hope that make their way through the darkness of their despair and fear. They need to hear the voices of forgiveness and mercy that blanket them from the chilling winds of guilt. It might be fun to be a cheerleader when your team is winning, but it is far more important to be a cheerleader when you or your team is not.

I am a cheerleader. Sunday after Sunday I, as a pastor, lead cheers: “A mighty fortress is our God”, “This is the feast of victory for our God”, “Our hope is built on nothing less than Jesus blood and righteousness”, “Chief of sinners though I be, Jesus shed his blood for me”, “Love divine all loves excelling”, “Jesus Christ is risen today! Alleluia!” It is fun to lead these cheers when things are going well and there is much to celebrate….actually, I don’t feel like I need to lead at all, the cheering of joy and thanks seems to spontaneously erupt from the crowd.

But when times are tough…when the voices outside are deafening with their pronouncement of loser…when grief is suffocating….when fear is debilitating…when shame is crushing…that is when, although it may be hard, I am there to lead the cheer, the cheer that blasted from the cross and the grave with victorious power. I lead that cheer because that cheer is the very thing that Jesus died and rose for. That cross-born cheer pulses with divine strength that crushes darkness and ignites light, that silences doom and magnifies hope, and disintegrates death and explodes with life.

So, if you find yourself on the winning side of things on any given Sunday morning, come to church where your cheers will find their power in thankfulness to God. And if you find yourself on the losing side of things on any given Sunday morning, come to church where God himself will cheer you on, and so will I….and of this I am certain, when you leave church you will be empowered to once again step onto the field with new courage and new hope!

Have a great week.

God’s grace and peace, (ggap)

Pastor Jerry Nuernberger

Bungee Cord  10-12-15

Hello,

     Every Friday I treat myself to fine dining at lunch.  I go to the Food Court at the local mall….well, not exactly five star.  I call my Friday ventures “Food Court Fridays”.  Truthfully, I don’t go there for the food (duh), but I go there to make myself available to folks to visit with them.  Sometimes a handful of people show up, and sometimes no one shows up.  But I am there every Friday, usually eating Chinese fare, looking forward to sharing some time with the folk.

     This past Friday as I was awaiting prospective diners, my ears caught the sound of a strange conversation going on at the table behind me.  Now lest you think that I was eavesdropping, let me quickly state that the conversation was a bit on the loud side….at least by one of the participants.  Not only was it a bit loud, it was a bit difficult to understand, at least for me.  The two other people at the table seemed to be holding down an ongoing conversation with the person whose voice caught my ears, and although I wasn’t able to detect the gist of their conversation, their words that made it through the filter of the mall noise were recognizable to my non-eavesdropping ears.   The longer I sat there and the more my ears took in the loud voice that first caught them, it became clear to me that the voice that I heard had a speech impediment that appeared to be the result of a hearing deficiency. 

     Now…once again….not that I was trying to eavesdrop, no matter how hard I strained my ears, I, unlike the two women at the table with the woman I first heard, could not understand what she was saying.  It soon occurred to me as to why this was: they had obviously heard her speech quite a bit before enabling their understanding of it, and I was not at their table to hear them well.

     Although I hadn’t thought about it in this way before, my Food Court Friday “eavesdropping” (no I wasn’t) pointed out to me why it benefits me to go to church every Sunday: to regularly hear God’s speech, and to be at God’s table so that I might hear God well.  Truth is, God’s speech does seem to have a bit of an impediment (maybe the impediment is actually our ears?).  God’s words of forgiveness and mercy don’t have the same ring as the world’s words of judgment and vengeance.  God’s words of unconditional love don’t have the same tonality as the world’s fickle and “what have you done for me lately” love.  And God’s declaration that our worth and value has its foundation in what God has done, that he has sent his Son to stake his claim on us, and it is not based upon the great things or the terrible things that we have done has a divine drawl that is often misunderstood.  I need to hear God’s speech quite a bit so I can understand it better.

     It is true that God is not silent outside the walls of the church, but there’s an awful lot of “mall” noise out there, and besides that, the Lord’s table is in the church.  Sunday after Sunday the Lord invites me to dine with him and to converse directly with me saying, “this is my body, given for you… this is my blood, shed for you”.  I know that his words may seem to be impediment-like when eavesdropped upon outside of his table, but I also know this; when they are spoken to me at his table they ring with a clarity that changes my life, that gives me hope, and empowers me to live in the world with divine mercy.

     If you’re in the Westmoreland Mall area of Greensburg on Fridays from noon ‘til one, let me invite you to come to “Food Court Friday” and visit with me – it will be fun to get to know each other better spending meal time around a table.   And no matter where you are on Sunday morning, let me extend the Lord’s invitation to “Food Court Sunday” and visit with him.  I am certain it will be more than fun.  It will be a joy for God….and for you….to spend some meal time together.

Have a great week.

God’s grace and peace, (ggap)

Pastor Jerry Nuernberger

Bungee Cord   10-5-15

Hello,

      I just got back from attending my 40^th high school reunion (Wow! I am getting old!).  I grew up in suburban Chicago with a graduating class of around 600 kids, almost all of whom I haven’t seen since we tossed our mortarboards in the air in 1975.

     I wasn’t sure what the reunion would bring.  Would I be recognized and remembered?  Would I recognize and remember others?  Would my reception be warm or cold?  Would the memories that came back bring a smile to my face or pain to my heart?

     Turns out that to say it was wonderful is an understatement.  People that I knew well in high school welcomed me with homecoming warmth, and people whom I hardly knew at all 40 years ago were equally open armed.  For some, they were easily recognizable, as they didn’t look very different from the graduation picture that we each wore on our nametags.  Other’s of us had “transformed” a bit and it was a bit harder to decipher our identity, but once deciphered the universal reply was, “Oh, yeah!”

     I found myself remembering class times and team times with many of the folks, as many likewise remembered me.  Of the things for which I was remembered was my time on the baseball mound as a pitcher. Two of the guys who were our catchers were at the reunion as well as a couple of others who ran around the diamond with me all those years ago.  My pitching forte was not a blazing fastball, but a down-breaking curve ball that many found difficult to hit. 

     Curve balls are hard to hit, not just on a baseball field, but also in life.  They knock you off balance and they make your brain go through trigonometric calculations in order to hit them.  Although not many of the reunion conversations revolved around the curve balls that have been thrown at us over the years, if others’ lives have been like mine (and I am certain that they have), we have all seen our fair share of them….hitting some and whiffing at others.

     In 1975 the Lutheran Church put together a new hymnal, “The Green One”, and in it is a prayer that I have often said when I have stepped up to the plate of life.

“Lord God you have called your servants to ventures of which we cannot see the ending, by paths as yet untrodden, through perils unknown.  Give us faith to go out with good courage, not knowing where we go, but only that you hand is leading us and your love supporting us; through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.”

     As I think about the collections of lives and stories at our reunion – ventures of which we could not see the ending, on paths we had never trod, and into perils which we would not imagine – I find myself thankful for the grace of God that has taken a hold of me (and I believe all my classmates) lo these 40 years, giving courage, strength, and hope to persevere…stepping up to the plate day after day to attack what has been thrown our way….fastball, curve, or change up….sometimes getting a hit….sometimes striking out…but  never sent  in defeat to the bench forever!

     A couple of years ago, the Lutheran church put together another new hymnal, “The Cranberry One”, and when I first opened it, I went searching for my at bat prayer.  It’s there!  It is there for me to pray for all the years ahead of me (I doubt it to be 40)…actually for all of us to pray for the years ahead of all of us (for some it will be 40 and more).

     I discovered that I am remembered after 40 years for throwing a pretty unhittable curveball in high school, but my curve ball isn’t anything compared to some of the curve balls that life has thrown and will throw.  So today and everyday ahead of me, as I pick up my bat and step to the plate, I know that I will do so with a prayer rolling through my soul – a prayer that I have often prayed, and a prayer that I have seen answered over and over again – a prayer that I invite you to pray when you take your bat in hand….

“Lord God, you have called your servants…..”

Have a great week!  Play ball!

God’s grace and peace,

Pastor Jerry Nuernberger