The Bungee Cord. 6-28-21

Hello,

 

A couple of years ago, I bought 6 blueberry bushes for my wife for her birthday.  We gave them a home near the vegetable garden behind our house.  They must like it there, because they are hardy in their production of berries.  Of course, we are not the only ones who enjoy the berries.  The birds love them, too.  So, in order that there are any blueberries for us to consume, we have to put nets around them.  

 

In the past, the nets have been held up by some 8-foot branches that we picked up around our house.   Triangularly assembled, the nets looked like pup tents, letting the rain and sun in, but keeping the birds out. This year, however, we decided to upgrade our netting system.  I went out and got a bunch of ¾ inch plastic conduit and some rebar.  I pounded the rebar into the ground, cut the plastic conduits to be legs and crossbars, dropped the conduits over the rebar, connected the crossbars, and secured the nets on the structure….all without the help of a structural engineer!

 

As the blueberries have begun to ripen, I have gone into these net-boxes and picked the first crop of berries.  The birds have also noticed the blueberries ripening, and so they fly circles around the boxes, like a squadron of reconnaissance jets.  Although they locate their target, they find that the berries are safe inside the impenetrable nets.  Sometimes they land on the crossbars, I suspect with great frustration, being able to see those berries and not being able to reach them.  So close, but yet so far away!

 

Recently, I looked out of my bedroom widow, and I saw a bird flying around the blueberry bushes.  At first, I thought it was outside the netting, but upon closer examination, it was clear that it was inside.  It was flying between the two bushes that the net was covering.   Back and forth.  Back and forth.  However, it wasn’t consuming any of the berries.  It was trying to get out.  It was trapped.  I don’t know how it got in, but it was clear that it did not remember, and its efforts to escape were completely in vain.

 

I got on with my day, and completely forgot about the trapped bird.  When I came home in the afternoon, I remembered the bird and went to the blueberry bushes to see if I could rescue it.  It was gone.  I told my wife that I noticed that the bird was not in the nets any longer, and I said, “It must have figured how to get out.”

 

“No,” she said, “I had to let it out.”  I suspect that without my wife’s help, or mine, that bird would still be in there today.  She saved that bird.

 

What an incredible picture of what Jesus has done for us.  We, like that bird, can get drawn to the things that tantalize our eyes.  Not always things that are bad for us like blueberries, (a job, a physique, a family, popularity) but sometimes things that do want to consume our lives (fame, power, excitement, fear).  But drawn to them we can be.  They become the focus of our hearts.  Their lack of accessibility can become a nagging frustration, to the point that we “have” to have them.  And sometimes our desires are fulfilled and we find a way to get them…..only to find ourselves trapped inside an inescapable net.  But Jesus, when he sees us trapped, has compassion on us….compassion that turns his complete focus on us.  And unlike me, Jesus is not distracted, but comes to us with powerful grace….doesn’t just open a hole for us to try and find our escape, but he removes the net completely and says, “Fly. You are free.”  Once in flight, he secures the nets again, blessing us with the freedom to soar in God’s grace.  Not trapped by the things of this world, but caught in the joy of the one whose eye is on the sparrow.

 

“If the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed!” (John 8:36)

 

Have a great week.

God’s grace and peace, (ggap)

Pastor Jerry Nuernberger

 The Bungee Cord  6-21-21

Hello,

 

The Pirates (Pittsburgh’s baseball team) are not doing very well this year.  So, when something good happens, there is a lot of rejoicing. This weekend, they won a game!  In addition to the winning the game, our center fielder hit a home run that cleared the stadium wall and bounced into the river which runs alongside the stadium.  Such home runs happen only every once in a while, so when they come it is pretty exciting.

 

So exciting it was that a man who was walking along the edge of the river jumped off of the platform into the river to retrieve the ball.  Apparently, this man’s dive was caught on TV, and so this morning (Monday) as I was driving into work, listening to the sports talk station, the radio guys started talking about this man’s splashing retrieval of the ball.

 

“No way would I ever do that!” said one of the announcers.  “Not for a home run hit by the center fielder, in the middle of June, by a team that is playing so badly.”

 

“Me either,” said the other announcer.  “There’s no way that I am jumping in that river.  Well, if I did see some law abiding person slip and fall in the river and there wasn’t anyone else around.  I might jump it.  But if some drunk stumbled into the river, no way I am jumping in.  No way for some drunk!”

 

I don’t know what you would do for a “worthless” baseball or person, but I do know what God would do, and I know it because I saw God do it.  I saw God jump into slimy and polluted water, to retrieve what the world considered worthless, and was floating in the water because of stumbling through life drunk with sin.   When God jumped into this world in Jesus, it wasn’t captured on TV, but just as certainly captured in the words of Scripture.

 

“For God so loved the world, that he sent his only begotten Son….” (John 3:16)  The truth is that people do seemingly crazy, and maybe even stupid things when it comes to someone they love.  And that is what led to God’s river jump.  One of the things that some find scandalous about  the Christian faith is that God would jump into this river for those who the world views as worthless, but to me that is the greatest news of all that the Christian faith proclaims….because when I am floating in this river, I know that Jesus, like that “crazy” Pirate fan, would jump in just to have me…..and have you, too.  

 

I don’t know what that Pirate fan did with that “worthless” baseball, but I do know what God has in store for the “worthless” ones that Jesus jumped into retrieve.  God plans to take care of you and me like we are the finest pearl in the ocean.  God plans on having you and me right next to him for eternity.  You and I will be the first thing God sees when every morning of eternity and the last thing he sees every eternity’s evening.  You and I are the apple of God’s eye, and God’s plan is to hold us in his divine love forever.

 

Thank you, God, for jumping in the river for us….as foolish as the world might think that jump may have been!

Have a great week.

God’s grace and peace, (ggap)

Pastor Jerry Nuernberger

 The Bungee Cord  6-14-21

Hello,

 

If you are a long time reader of the Bungee Cord, you know that on Sunday mornings before worship, I stand outside on the sidewalk and wave at people driving by.  My wave is intended to be a token of God’s grace to them. A reminder to them that even in the busy-ness of their lives, God has not forgotten them, never failing in God’s love for them.  As I wave, some people return a wave to me.  Others tap their horns.  Other’s don’t see me (or pretend to not see me) and drive right by.

 

The other thing that I do before worship is I go over my sermon a couple of times, hoping to pound it into my memory so I can speak it to the people, rather than read it to them. When the weather is not nice, I find a quiet place in the church building to do that.  When the weather is nice, I sit outside on the bench that is located by the sidewalk facing the street.  Of course, when I am sitting on that bench, my eyes are looking down, and I am focused on my sermon in my own world.

 

But yesterday, my concentration was interrupted a couple of times by the honking of a horn.  A couple of people who saw me sitting there in my liturgical garb tapped their horns at me, giving me a gesture of God’s grace and mercy.  Although some might think that a pastor whose vocation it is to share God’s grace and mercy would not need to be the recipient of such, for me, that is far from the truth. I need the expressions of God’s care for me through the care of others just as much as anyone else…..maybe even more. So, both times when I was honked at and waved at by the people, I lifted my head and attention from my sermon and waved back with a spontaneous grin on my face.

 

I learned something by those couple of honks.  I learned that the little things that we do to share God’s grace and mercy do make a difference, and do move people’s hearts.  Sometimes it may seem that the struggles of life and the speed of life make it too hard for God’s grace to break through.  But yesterday, I found out that God’s grace and mercy, given in a simple wave, changed at least two people’s lives, transforming them into grace-givers.

 

So, as the Bible says, “don’t lose heart”.  When your kids do not seem to live in the confidence of God’s love for them, placing their confidence somewhere else….when you neighbors seem to be caught in the grips of anger…..when someone you deeply love is beset with addiction….when loneliness creates such a cloud of despair for those who are aging….when the days are dark and the pace of the world is rapid….keep on gracing them and others with a gesture of God’s love.  Keep on “waving” (in whatever form your waving might be).  Do not lose heart, because God’s love and mercy does make a difference in people’s lives.  I’ve seen…no, I have heard (honk, honk) that it is true!

 

Have a great week

God’s grace and peace, (ggap)

Pastor Jerry Nuernberger

 The Bungee Cord.  6-7-21

The Bungee Cord 6-7-21

Hello,

I was with a pastor friend at a local coffee shop talking about pastor things, and in our random strain of talking he told me of an old Catholic priest from his younger years in ministry. This priest was to my friend, a mentor of sorts. Someone to whom my friend would go to find some wisdom, get his feet on the ground, and settle his soul.

“This priest,” said my friend, “said to me that when this life is over and you are standing at the gates of heaven, God is going to only ask you one question.”

“Oh, I know this,” I thought to myself. “It has got to be, ‘Do you know Jesus?’”

But that wasn’t the question my friend recounted. “The question God will ask you is, “Did you enjoy it? I did all of this for you. I created the heavens and the earth. I filled it with beauty. I gave you a universe full of things to strike your curiosity. I saturated it with love. I even sent my son to die for you to open up pathways for peace, and joy. I did it all for you. Did you enjoy it?”

Who knows what God’s welcome will be like when the final trumpet of this life shall sound and the inaugural trumpet of the life to come play reveille? Personally, I don’t think that there will be a question at all. I think that God will look us straight in the eyes and holding back tears of joy, God will say, “Welcome! You’re in room 405,876,345.”

But the question that Catholic priest proposes sure sheds some truth and light on the days of this life. We can get life all turned upside down, and when that happens life becomes much more of a daily drudgery. Trying to make a name for ourselves. Counting the number of toys we can claim. Slogging our way through pits of quicksand measuring ourselves against others. Getting lost in a stampede of tragedies. Always seeking to squeeze something more out of each of our days.

“I did all of this for you. Did you enjoy it? Did you enjoy each breath, whether only a handful or more than you could ever count, wherein your lungs took in the power of life? Did you enjoy every glimpse, whether only a few or more than you could count, of the brilliant array of color that created an explosion of marvel and delight? Did you enjoy each touch of another’s hand, whether only a few or more than you could count, that carried its grip as far as your heart with a flood of joy? Did you enjoy the hope of the resurrection of Jesus that opened every day to you with grace and peace? I did all of this for you. Did you enjoy it?”

The Bible tells us that you and I are the apple of God’s eye. So treasured in God’s heart are we that he would…no, has….done everything to love us. Like a parent who lavishly goes all out for their child’s birthday…Chucky Cheese, a balloon shaping clown, your favorite cake and ice cream, noise makers and hats, friends invited from all over, music….the works. And when it is over, and when everyone has left, the parent embraces the child and says, “I did it all for you. Did you enjoy it?”

Enjoy it.

Have a great week.

God’s grace and peace, (ggap)

Pastor Jerry Nuernberger