Bungee Cord 9-26-17

Hello,

     Just got back from my niece’s wedding that took place in Avon, Colorado.  Elevation: 8500 ft.  I was there not only as an uncle, but also a pastor, and so I presided at the wedding.  It was a wonderful event.  However, after the service, during the reception, I discovered something that I had not known before.  It is hard to dance when the air is thin.

     The air is thin….very thin…at 8500 ft., nevertheless as the reception was coming to a close and I had grabbed a seat, having danced several dances with my wife, I heard the introduction to a song that magnetically pulled me back onto the floor.  “Shut Up And Dance With Me!”  That was the song….a peppy song with a fun beat….and the chorus belting out an invitation that I could not resist.  So, my wife and I leapt (well, maybe slogged) onto the dance floor and showed everyone there how to do it.  Now, I may not quite be ready for dancing with the stars (I fail on two accounts: I am not that good of a dancer, and I am not a star.), but I have been known to be able to trip the light fantastic and keep “Stayin’ Alive”.  But it wasn’t too far along in the song that I could feel my legs getting a bit wobbly, and my breathing getting labored.  Not to be shown up by the younger and fitter there, we kept on dancing, but when the song was over we slogged (definitely not leapt) back to our seats, and I leaned over and said to my wife, “This altitude really saps the strength out of me.”  She nodded.

     It is hard to dance when the air is thin.

     How thin is the air that the world gives us to breath?  How full of hope is the air that comes with the promise of a friend, “You can count on me.”  How full of peace is the air that comes with the brandishing of guns and bombs?  How full of joy is the vows at a wedding, “I will”.

     It is not that these things are not in the air that the world gives us to breath: hope, peace, and joy.  It is just that the fullness of each of them is measured, not full.  Friends move.  War happens.  Spouses pass away.  The air that the world gives us to breath is thin, sometimes making it hard to dance.  Sometimes making it impossible to dance.

     But when I hear the Word of God say, “I will never leave you or forsake you,” (Hebrews 13:5) or “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.” (Romans 8:38), I feel strength and power pulse through my body to dance that only comes with thick air.  And I can feel my feet start to shuffle to know that God will not ever move away from me.  I can feel my shoes start to electrically slide to know that I am lead by the one who knows where the still waters and green pastures are and peacefully leads me there.  And I can feel my arms raise and gyrate to know that nothing….NOTHING….can separate me from God’s love in Jesus Christ.    Thick air!  Thick air filling my lungs.  Filling my life.  Giving me strength to dance….and keep on dancing!

     When I was a kid there was a simple “contemporary” song that we would sometimes sing in church, “Lord of the Dance.”  The chorus sang,

“Dance then wherever you may be.

I am the Lord of the dance said he.

And I’ll lead you all, wherever you may be

And I’ll lead you all in the dance said he.”

     Take in a deep breath of the divinely thick air that God gives us to breath, and see if you don’t find yourself surging with power to dance!

Have a great week.

God’s grace and peace, (ggap)

Pastor Jerry Nuernberger

Bungee Cord 9-17-17

Hello,

     As many of you, long time readers of the Bungee Cord, know, I am a rather avid University of Illinois fan.  I have more orange and blue apparel than the test for mental sanity allows.  I have a man cave where flags, shirts, pictures, pennants, and even the floor are orange and blue.  The cabinet that holds my orange and blue drinking glasses sports a large “I” on its door.  And the people of my congregations have all come to understand that my favorite colors are…..yup….orange and blue.  I have even floated the idea of beginning a write in campaign to establish orange and blue as one of the liturgical colors of the church year (an idea that hasn’t taken off very well in the opposing Big Ten states in which I have lived.).

     Some may think me to be a bit foolish….foolish to try and cover every inch of space with orange and blue….foolish to sing “Oskeewowow Illinois” in public settings…but maybe most of all, to be so foolish to set my heart on a team that is so often really bad!  And yet, I am not alone.  There are scores of people whose Illini fan-hood runs deep in their veins, who join me week after week in bemoaning yet another heartbreaking loss.  There are even some…yes Kate (that is my wife)…who are even more avid than I.  They buy vans and paint them orange and blue.  They travel far and wide to attend games, decked in orange and blue.  They even are bold enough to have purchased (and wear) orange suits.  Greater fools than I!

     I have thought about this foolishness, this foolishness to root for a team that regularly gets beaten and pummeled by so many others.  Surely, anyone with any brains would give up such foolish loyalty.  How many times does one’s hopes and heart have to be dashed in the last few minutes of a game (or from the very beginning of the game) to get it into one’s head that such loyalty is self-inflicted cruelty, and it makes one the laughing stock of many nearly every week?  Yet we Illinois fans go undeterred.  We still buy anything that is orange and blue.  We still have friends of the opposing team over to watch a game with us with “Oskeewowow Illinois” playing in the background when they walk into the house.  We don’t seem to care what people think about us….we cheer for the Illini (ugh!).

      Why?  Here’s my answer.  It really doesn’t matter.  Rooting for a sport’s team is not a life or death conviction.  In the scope of any day, except to those on the field, it really is of little consequence to life as to who wins or loses the game….whether the team does either with any regularity.  Rooting for the Illini with the foolish fervor that I do, for me, is merely a fun distraction as I deal with the blows that actually hit me hard in my life.  When it comes to my fanatic Illinois foolishness….it really doesn’t matter….and so I really don’t care if someone thinks me to be a fool.

     But when it comes to things that do matter, I don’t want to be a fool.  When it comes to doing my job, being a husband and father, making life and death decisions…the last thing I want to be is a fool.  And maybe most of all, in the largest of all things of matter, that which I most deeply believe in, being a fool is the riskiest of titles to own.

     Personally, it doesn’t bother me that many people find it hard to dive in head first into Christianity.  It doesn’t bother me that people ask hard questions of the Christian faith as they stick their toes in the water.  It doesn’t bother me if the words, “I believe”, are slow to make their way across one’s lips.  It doesn’t bother me that people are slow to hang their hearts on the Christian proclamation of God’s undeserved love and mercy.   These things don’t bother me because these things tell me that people understand that that of which we Christians speak is really important, and it matters deeply.

     To adorn one’s self with faith, to publically assert a trust in Jesus, to arrange one’s life in Christian devotion….all of that is very risky when it comes to potentially bearing the name, “Fool”.  But I find myself chiming in with the Apostle Paul of the Bible who devoutly claims the title “Fool for Christ”, because I, like he, have been woo-ed into the love of God in Christ.  It has not always been so in my life to be bold in faith, as a matter of fact when I was in high school a new kid in town showed up in my church, and I hid in the choir loft, fearful that I might be seen, and the faith that secreted in me might be judged in the court of public opinion.  But day after day, God, like a undeterred lover has courted me in grace….grace that has shaped my life….grace that has opened my hands to others….grace that has provided me hope…grace that has embedded in my heart…grace that has woo-ed me to not care if others think me to be a fool.

     Ok…I am a fool…a fool to parade around in orange and blue….because it really doesn’t matter.   And a fool (at least to some) to follow one whose grace has given me life…and that really does matter.

As Michael Card of Christian music sings, “Come be a fool with me!”

Have a great week.

God’s grace and peace, (ggap)

Pastor Jerry Nuernberger

The Bungee Cord 9-11-17

Hello,

     Some twenty years ago I launched the Bungee Cord, and I have been writing it weekly ever since.  I began it when I was the pastor of a church in a small town in Northwest Ohio in an attempt to make a Gospel connection with 18-35 year olds.  Some folks of that age I connected with regularly as Sunday morning worship was a consistent inclusion in their lives, but for the majority of them, it was not.  Thus the name, ”The Bungee Cord”.  Named so out of my scripture found conviction that God’s tether of grace is one that stretches as far as the gravity of the world might pull, and with the promise, “I will not let you go,” pulls us back into God’s loving embrace.  Like a bungee cord.

     I can imagine that to some the idea of a tethering God is not a welcome message, because when they hear it the image that comes to their mind is of a parent who tethers a child when they wander about, like a leashed dog.  Although such a tether might keep a child safe, it also restricts a child’s curiosity, discovery, and adventure.  Actually, I can understand why such an image finds its way into people’s minds, because what folks often hear from Christians sounds, at least to me, like such a tether.  God, from what they hear, tethers us to keep us from getting in trouble, from listening to others whose views may cause us question, and to keep us under his power and control.  It is a tether, however, that people hear can be broken if pulled too hard.   A tether that God just might snip if God’s patience should wear out.  A tether that really isn’t a tether at all that holds us, but rather a rope onto which we much hold for dear life. 

     When I read the Bible, however, that is not the kind of tethering God that I see.  I see a tethering God depicted in the story a shepherd who leaves 99 sheep in order to find the one that was lost, and rejoices as he brings it home on his shoulders.  I see it in the story of a woman who loses one of her ten coins, and determines she will sweep the entire house until she finds it, and when found she celebrates with her neighbors.  I see it in the story of the Prodigal son who wanders off in rebellious mischief, only to be drawn back to his father’s waiting arms by this father’s love that the son felt even in his deepest failure. (All of these are in Luke 15.).  God’s tether is not like some parental leash, it is like a bungee cord.

     As you live out your life, maybe you, like I, see yourself daily traversing the girder of a long and high bridge like a gymnast on a balance beam.  Some days I am well balanced.  Other days I teeter and totter.  I am glad to have discovered that my life’s journey is one that I can make with courage not fear, with hope not despair, with joy not regret….all because God, in Jesus Christ, has tethered me in grace.  So if I slip from the push of a hurricane driven wind….if I jump in wild adventure, seeking a thrill….if I trip and fall….or if I see the way rising to perilous heights…I will find out that like a bungee cord, God’s grace will hold me tight, stretch as far as gravity will take me, keep me from crashing, and bring me in a recoil of his love back to him.

     Not a leash, but a bungee cord.  That is how the Bible says God has tethered himself to you and me.  And I hope that my words are part of the Bungee Cord of God’s grace…..giving you divine courage, hope, and joy every day of your life, and even on the day when this life comes to an end.

Have a great week.

God’s grace and peace, (ggap)

Pastor Jerry Nuernberger