The Bungee Cord 2-25-19

Hello,

     Wind is a powerful thing!  For the last 24 hours we have been experiencing a steady wind of 25 mph, with gusts reaching 60 mph.  The result of this “breeze” is trees down across roads, limbs littered all over the place, and loss of power to hundreds of homes.  All three of these things apply to our house, with the added addition of the loss of many shingles from our roof.

     Fortunately, we have a generator that powers parts of our house when the electricity is cut, and it has had to kick in often over the 7 years we have lived here.  Previous to this outage, the generator has only had to work for short periods of time, a couple of hours at the most.  But with the prediction of the onslaught of the wind to continue through the rest of the day, the generator is getting quite a work out.

     Now, I know that those of you who live in hurricane zones or who have wrestled with a tornado will tell me that I don’t know what wind is. Having never been caught in a hurricane, I can only imagine what it must be like to be pounded by 100 mph winds. I have, however, had a tornado bounce right over me, and I have witnessed with my eyes the destruction that those winds brought.  But having said all of this, I stand by my first statement, wind is a powerful thing.

     Christians, as you probably know, experience God as triune, and we call that the Trinity.  The Bible gives witness to God’s nature as being three-in-one.  Only one God, but simultaneously expressing God’s-self in three ways: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.  Over the course of Christianity, people have tried to provide an understandable way of conceiving the triune nature of God, but every explanation tends to fall short of capturing the essence of God’s nature. Usually, God gets divided up into separate modes of acting, or into separate times of being.  But the witness of the Bible is that God is not divided up by actions or time,  God’s entire self is actively at work, unified at all times.  Some have found the witness of the Triune nature of God to be a stumbling block to their faith.  Personally, I find the human incomprehensibility of the trinity to be a helpful piece to my Christian faith, for it seems to me that God being God would naturally be beyond complete human comprehension.  And further, I find “peace that surpasses all human understanding” in knowing that God is bigger than my human struggles, and because of that God can see a way through them that I cannot see, and has the power to do so, when I do not.

     Well, after that theological interlude, let me get back to the wind.   When the Bible speaks of God, the Holy Spirit, wind is often part of the picture.  In the second chapter of Acts, the Disciples encountered the presence of the Holy Spirit as a loud, gushing wind blew through the room in which they were hiding.  And previously, in the book of John, the disciples experienced the presence of the Holy Spirit when Jesus breathed on them.  Wind.

     As incomprehensible God’s nature might be, when I encounter the power of the wind, I find myself in a faith learning event. Wind is something that the human eye cannot see, but its power can sure be felt.  Likewise, God, especially as encountered in the Holy Spirit, might be unseen to the human eye, but its windy power can sure be felt…..felt in the release of one’s shoulders as forgiveness sweeps through a sin cluttered life, cleaning it out….felt in the nudge toward faith when the bread and wine are given and the words are spoken, “this is the body and blood of Christ given for you”…..felt when in the deepest moments of loneliness and worthlessness someone takes hold of your hand and says, “the peace of the Lord be with you”…felt when you stand at the freshly dug gravesite of a loved one and grief is tempered by the singing, “Praise God from whom all blessings flow….”

     Wind is a powerful thing….and so is God.

Have a great week.

God’s grace and peace, (ggap)

Pastor Jerry Nuernberger

The Bungee Cord   2-18-19

Hello,

     “Slow down, you move too fast.  You’ve got to make the morning last.   Just kickin’ down the cobblestones.  Lookin’ for fun, and feeling groovy.”  So sang Simon and Garfunkel.

     I used to often listen to Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel when I was a kid.  We had a pool table in our basement, and as I shot pool I would stack six records on the turntable stand of my technologically snappy stereo that would drop a record onto the turntable, move the stylus over to play the first song, and then when it had played the album through, the stylus would move out of the way for the next record to be dropped and repeat the process.  (Ah….the good old days!)  Almost always, Simon and Garfunkel was included in that stack.

     Looking back on things from where we are now, it seems odd that Simon and Garfunkel thought that the world, and we who were on it, was moving too fast.  “Slow down, you move too fast.”  That, of course, was before cell phones that picked up the pace of communication, before T.V. remotes and hundreds of stations sped up our attention spans, and before the internet set us racing around the world without even getting out of our chairs.  If it seemed like the world was spinning rapidly in the 60’s, today’s world spins at a rate that makes the 60’s seem like a snail’s pace.

     I wonder.  Is it possible to slow down?

     If you slow down, will you get run over?  If you slow down, will you fall so far behind that you are all alone?  If you slow down, will people yell and scream at you to get out of the way?  If you slow down, will you be constantly late for everything or miss everything?

     As I think about it, it is hard to slow down, and it may even be dangerous.  But when the sidewalks and streets are icy, it is far more dangerous if you don’t slow down.  For those of us who live in the northern tier of states, I would bet that every one of us has felt the fear that comes when you’ve hit the ice and you’re going too fast.

     So, when the sidewalks and streets of your life are icy…when you are tired and worn out from the pace of life that you are running….when you are feeling like you are on an ever accelerating hamster wheel…..when you afraid of being rear ended by everyone who is honking behind you, Jesus has a word for you, “I am with you always.” (Matthew 28:20)  

     You see, in this fast paced world where you have to get somewhere to get something, there is one thing that you don’t have to move an inch for to get, and that is Jesus, because Jesus comes to us….no matter where we are….always.  So, get out of the way of the world’s traffic, go ahead and pull off the side of the road at a rest stop….(that is what Sunday morning worship is meant to be)…and rest in the grace of God.  Grace that brings peace that the world cannot give.  Grace that wraps you in hope that the chill of the world cannot break through. Joy that fills your life that the fast-food joy of the world cannot provide.  And grace that fuels you with love to sustain you as you get back on the road of life.

     I suspect that Jesus, who loves you more than you can imagine and who is with you always, is singing along with Simon and Garfunkel, “Slow down, you move too fast.”

Have a great week.

God’s grace and peace, (ggap)

Pastor Jerry Nuernberger

     

The Bungee Cord    2-12-19

Hello,

EVER CHANGED BY CHRIST’S CLAIMING CALL, TODAY I JOIN GOD IN THE DIVINE ADVENTURE OF MAKING ALL THINGS NEW.

     Some years ago, I felt like I needed some focus in my life, so I decided to write my personal mission statement.  I figured that if churches, businesses and governments can benefit from intentionally discerning who they are and where they hope to be going, it sure wouldn’t hurt me.  So, what I wrote above is what I came up with to anchor my feet and keep me from getting blown too far off course by the gusts of the world around me.

     My mission statement isn’t a mission statement for me as a pastor, but rather it is a statement for me as a person.  Through this mission statement, I hope to remember that God’s grace is at work in my life, every day, working in my life because God has chosen to do so without considering my worthiness.  And not only does God choose to do his potter’s work in my life, God has empowered me to be a force of grace and mercy in this world, and God leads the charge to bring life into death, and hope into despair.

     Of course, there are plenty of voices trying to tell me that my mission in life is elsewise.  Some, even fellow Christians, are often apt to tell me that my life’s mission is to conform to certain rules and standards…..rules and standards that are certainly worthy of my conforming…but that brings a daily burden of failure and frustration Some, even fellow Christians, are often apt to tell me that my life’s mission is to continually sharpen my gifts and talents, and in so doing become successful and powerful…but that makes every day a wrestling match with others….and that is very tiring.  Some, even fellow Christians, are often apt to tell me that my life’s mission is happiness and that God will lead me there if I carefully follow his directions…but such a goal turns out to be hollow and flimsy and easily topples when life’s storms pass through.

     Honestly, for some of my life I have listened to and followed these mission statements that have been spoken in my ears, but over the course of my life a clarifying voice has also made its way into my hearing…a voice that has spoken through hymns, sermons, and scripture as I have gathered weekly with the people of God in worship…a voice that has spoken through the touch of water and bread and wine….a voice that has etched its way into my soul when more than 7 times 70 I have heard the decree of God, “You are forgiven.”  It is this other voice that has formulated my mission statement, and with this voice resounding in my ears I find myself propelled by hope and joyful anticipation on the adventure of each day.

     I don’t know if my mission statement rings true to you and your life, but I share it with you today with the invitation of joining hands with me in the divine adventure ahead!

Have a great week.

God’s grace and peace, (ggap)

Pastor Jerry Nuernberger

The Bungee Cord  2-6-19

Hello,

     In my younger years I was involved in lots of sports: baseball, football, basketball.  We lived kitty corner from an open park in my home town where in our elementary school years we would play touch football and argue about getting touched or not.  We would play a variety of baseball games, Piggy Move Up, for one.  We would gather at the basketball hoop and pretend that we were stars.  It was a time when kids could just play pick-up games, and sports camps were unknown.

     As I got older the pick-up games were replaced by organized athletics.  Practices came into play, “non-mandatory” open gyms were “encouraged”, as was spending a week at a summer basketball camp.  There was a sense of satisfaction in becoming better at sports, and as the level of competition rose, there was a thrilling rush of excitement when things got close and victory happened.

     But with the rise of competition and organization, so rose the pressure.  Not necessarily a bad thing, as learning how to deal with pressure is a very important learning in life.  But with relentless application of that pressure, that which was meant to also be a game, easily expanded into what seemed as matters of life and death.  It almost seemed that the future of the world, or at least my world, was dependent upon completing a pass, sinking a free throw, or striking someone out.  One’s teammates were counting on you.  Your school was counting on you.  Your town…your state…your nation….even the world (I know….I am wandering into a bit of exaggeration….but sometimes it would seem all too real)….was counting on you!

     There was a name for the one who blew it, and that name was “goat”.  The goat. That was the name that was given to the person who was the cause of defeat.  I don’t know why a goat was chosen to embody all the shame of losing, but I do know this, no one wanted to be the goat.

     But things have changed in the world of sports since my days of playing.  Now, everyone wants to be the goat….G.O.A.T., that is.  It’s an acronym, and the letters stand for this acclaim…The Greatest Of All Time.  Maybe you heard of this acronym a long time ago, but for me it is new.  I began hearing it this summer in reference to baseball players who seem to be head and shoulders better than their peers, but most recently, I have heard it in reference to Tom Brady, Super Bowl champion and quarterback.  The G.O.A.T. Announcers, fellow players, and analysts have all, over the last week, bestowed upon Tom Brady, the title of the G.O.A.T.

     Personally, I find a bit of arrogance in the bestowal of this title, the arrogance in assigning greatness to a specific day that rates above the greatest of other days.  Great as he may be, it seems a bit hyperbolic to say that Tom Brady is the greatest football player…or quarterback of all time.  Nevertheless, it seems that the world we live in is always looking for greatness, working for greatness, and even expecting greatness, and you and I can get caught up in the tantalizing pursuit of working hard enough, sacrificing enough time and money, and focusing our efforts singularly enough that we might at least be in the running for the G.O.A.T.

     But what if I were to tell you that getting caught up in the pursuit of being the G.O.A.T. is a waste of your time….not a waste because striving for excellence is a waste of time….but it is a waste of time because you already are the G.O.A.T., at least to God.  “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). What in all of creation could be greater than to be acclaimed a child of God Almighty?  What greater accolade in all of time could there be than God’s crowning deed for you, that he gave his Son to die for you?  What greater honor could there be than to be given a seat at the divine banquet table and a place prepared for you in God’s eternal home. To me, it makes the title of G.O.A.T. for a football player seem like a Little League trophy compared to the title of G.O.A.T. that is bestowed upon the children of God.

     And what is even greater is to know that this title is not given to anyone by virtue of their greatness, rather it is placed upon people because of God’s greatness….greatness of the exploding love from the heart of God. Jesus died and rose for you…for the world, so in God’s sight you are a G.O.A.T. who is part of uncountable flock of G.O.A.T.’s., and that, unlike the debate if Tom Brady really is the G.O.A.T., is undebatable.

Have a great week.

God’s grace and peace. (ggap)

Pastor Jerry Nuernberger