Bungee Cord 1-30-17

Hello,

     I live about 25 miles from the church that I serve.  The quickest route is a winding two lane road over the ridge that rises between my house and my work.  Because the road twists and turns there is not one inch where passing is allowed.  That means that if I get behind a slow moving vehicle, there is nothing that I can do about it, but dig deep for patience.

     One day last week I was making my way to work, needing to be there in time for pre-school chapel.  It normally takes me about 30 minutes to make my commute, but knowing the potential for additional time, I left 45 minutes before I needed to be there.  Sure enough, as soon as I got on the road I found myself behind two pick-up trucks in no hurry going 25-30 miles an hour.  Patience!

     I breathed a sigh of relief when they turned off on one of the few crossroads, and quickly geared up my car (a Mini Cooper) to the 45 miles per hour that is permissible (ok….I geared it up a “little” higher).  I had only traveled about a quarter mile when I came around a bend and found myself behind a very slow moving salt truck whose upmost speed was 20 miles per hour.  I was a bit mystified as to why this salt truck was on my road, because it had not just recently snowed and the road was clear.  Nevertheless, there it was moving at snail’s pace.  Patience!

     On its tail, the truck and I wound around the last bend over the ridge, and suddenly it came to a complete stop!  I soon discovered the reason for stop.  A yellow caution tape had been stretched across the road.  I sat in my car wondering what the reason for the caution tape might have been, when out of the truck stepped a man who turned toward me and started circling his index finger in the air signally me to turn around and go back from where I had come.  Patience!

     So, I did a three-point turn-about and headed back up the ridge, five or six miles back to a cross road that I had never taken but hoped would provide an alternate way to work.  The road that I took sent me through residential areas, gravel roads which mandated slow and cautious travel.  Finally, I wound up on a “major” road that I knew would take me to Greensburg, although not very directly and made my way to the church…..too late for the pre-school chapel which I had aimed to lead.  Patience!

     In truth, it was just a delayed commute to work which although aggravating was not a monumental life crisis.  When, however, when this sort of thing happens in life, it is far from mere aggravation.  When one is awaiting test results over a newly found tumor, the slow pace of the answers is exasperating.  When one is fighting an addiction, and just when you think you see some light, running up against a fall back into addiction’s grip is disheartening.  When family life is tough and work toward peace in one’s home is sluggishly slow, and then something happens like a caution tape blocking your way, saying you have to turn around and go back and take another road it can be soul sapping.

     At these times in life, I find myself joining the voices of the Bible who say, “How long, O Lord?”  Give me patience!

    ²⁸ Have you not known? Have you not heard?
The Lord is the everlasting God,
   the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He does not faint or grow weary;
   his understanding is unsearchable. 
²⁹ He gives power to the faint,
   and strengthens the powerless. 
³⁰ Even youths will faint and be weary,
   and the young will fall exhausted; 
³¹ but those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength,
   they shall mount up with wings like eagles,
they shall run and not be weary,
   they shall walk and not faint.  (Isaiah 40:28-31)

These words are the seeds from which I see patience sprouting in my life…..patience when I need it the most.
Have a great week.
God’s grace and peace, (ggap)

Pastor Jerry Nuernberger

Bungee Cord 1-23-17

Hello,

     An amazing thing happened yesterday in Greensburg, Pennsylvania.

     It was an unusually warm January day, so I decided to take advantage of the warmth and go outside before the worship services to spread some grace around, waving at people who drove by in their cars.  Readers of the Bungee Cord know that “grace-waving” is my normal practice during nice weather months.  It is my hope that as people caught in the spin cycle of this world scurry their way past First Lutheran church, that the gesture of God’s grace that is wrapped in my wave might momentarily sneak its way into their lives and bring them a since of hope, peace, and joy that whirling around in the world cannot.

     And herein lies the amazing thing that happened this past Sunday morning outside of First Lutheran Church.  What I hoped might happen, happened.  I saw, right before my very eyes, that grace works!

     Here’s what I saw.  Three times, not just once, people waved at me before I could wave at them!  (Two of the waves were taps on their horns.  One was an official wave.)  Because I am sometimes engaged in greeting parishioners as they walk into church, I am not always facing traffic.  Three times as I was turning back to “grace-wave”, before I could get my hand in the air, I was the object of a passer-by’s wave.  Grace works!

     It can be an exhausting and debilitating thing for those of us who seek to be conduits of God’s kindness, mercy, and steadfast love to see how judgment, worldly pressure, and mean-spiritedness seem to excel in suffocating our efforts. When one reads the Bible, one finds out that this is not a new disparaging frustration.  The Psalms ask over and over again as to why the evil seem to prosper and those who seek to do good suffer.  And even when the bystanders passed by the cross on which Jesus died, they mocked him for the defeat he was suffering.

     But every once in a while, something amazing happens; the truth that grace is more powerful than judgment flashes before our eyes.  Like a stain that is covered with paint that eventually bleeds through, the grace of God that has been splashed upon the world in the blood of Jesus bleeds through.  It bled through a stone-sealed grave.  It bleeds through a piece of bread and a sip of wine.  And it bleeds through a wave coming from a passing car.

     When the power of evil and judgment seem so overwhelming and we find ourselves asking, “Am I doing any good?  Should I give up?”, the unprovoked wave of those three people passing me on Sunday carried a message with divine content, “Don’t give up, because it is worth it, and in the end….Grace works!

     Have a great week.

God’s grace and peace, (ggap)

Pastor Jerry Nuernberger

Bungee Cord 1-16-17

Hello,

     I wonder how many people do not come to worship on Sunday morning because they fear the offering basket.  The way that we collect offerings on Sunday mornings is a rather public display, and I wonder if putting our offerings in a passed basket isn’t a bit intimidating, intimidating enough to keep some away from worship.  True, we use envelopes so as to decrease the public-ness of the event, but still the one who puts their envelope in the basket knows what has been placed there.

     I wonder if some who find themselves unable to put much in the offering plate find the feelings of their situation aversive enough to keep them from facing them.  After all, who wants to feel like they aren’t pulling their weight?  Who wants to feel the world’s judgment of failure for not having succeeded in the American Dream of financial success?  Who wants to look into the dark abyss of debt that has had the gravitational pull of a black hole?  Who wants to have to justify to themselves the priorities one has made in life?  I fear that these sorts of feelings well up in folks when they think about coming to church and having to have that offering plate pass in front of them.

     Well, if you find yourself thus deterred from coming to church, hear this:  God does not want you for your money.  God wants you.  God is like a parent of a teenager who hasn’t been seen in a couple of days and comes home.  God wants to embrace you with a hug that comes from the heart. God is like the parent of a newly licensed driver who receives a phone call from that child saying that he’s been in an accident, and all that parent is concerned about is that the child is okay.  That is all that God has on his mind.  God is like the parent who sees thugs dragging off an adult child, and cries out, “Take me!”.  That is the way God is.

     God, because God loves you, doesn’t want you for your money.  God wants you.

     I believe with all of my heart, that the church is not an institution that is trying to make money, or even an institution that is trying to stay fiscally afloat.  I believe that the church is the place where God is at work changing lives with the power of God’s love.  Love so powerful that it forgives even those for whom the world has no forgiveness.  Love so powerful that it draws itself into the most fearful and scary situations from which any sane person would turn and run away.  Love so powerful that God invests himself completely and fully no matter how often a person fails or how terrible that failure might be.  No church is perfect, but I know that as the pastor of the church have been called to lead and serve, this is the sort of perfection for which I believe God would have us strive.

     God, because God loves you, doesn’t want you for your money.  God wants you.

     So what about that offering plate that might feel so intimidating?

     When I was just starting out as a pastor, nearly 34 years ago, I went to a seminar on congregational offerings that has impacted me and my ministry ever since.  At that seminar, I learned that when the Bible speaks of giving an offering, the Bible notes only one motivation:  thanks.  Not duty.  Not obligation.  Not dues.  Not shared responsibility.  Not for a cause or concern.  The only motivation that the Bible notes for the giving of one’s offering is thanks.

     Thanks to God.  Thanks for God’s love that God would spare nothing so that God might embrace you with uncompromising, unfaltering, unstoppable, unending, unyielding love.  Because God loves you, all God wants is you.   And God has tangibly given you all of his love in Jesus.  What you place in that offering basket is the tangible way for you  to say “thank you”.

     So, I hope that if it is the case, that the offering basket has been an intimidating deterrent, keeping you from experiencing the life changing love that God turns up the heat on in Sunday morning worship, then know this.  God doesn’t want you for your money.  God wants you.

     If you are in worship on Sunday morning, I believe that God is very thankful.   So come.   And when the offering plate comes by, may whatever you drop in it simply be this, “Thank you, God.”

Have a great week.

God’s grace and peace, (ggap)

Pastor Jerry Nuernberger