The Bungee Cord 8-30-21

Hello,

With the starting of school this fall, I thought that I would answer an educational question that I have often been asked over the years: “Why did you decide to be a pastor?”

The short answer is, I found the unconditional love of God to be a rock unlike any other on which to build my life, and I wanted to be a vessel of that grace to others. That is the short answer.

Here’s the longer answer.

As a kid, I remember school assignments intended to get me thinking about what I wanted to do when I grew up. I think it was in Junior High that I looked into being an architect. The combination of creativity and science perked my interest. Sometime when I was in high school my yearning for architecture waned. I don’t remember why. My high school years were full of sports (baseball being my strong suit), math, science, and church. I did very well in high school, and when I met with guidance counsellors to have them help me in selecting college and a vocation, I was encouraged to pursue a vocation as a corporate lawyer. I had the intelligence and drive, so I was told, to make quite a future for myself in law. The power, prestige, and financial reward that was described was enticing.

So, off to college I went to be a corporate lawyer, and in college I ran into a bunch of people for whom power, prestige and financial reward was not top in their lives. Friendship. Making a dent for good in the world. Loyalty. Character. These were the things that were foremost in their lives, and the Christian faith that we shared was the breeding ground of these things. I resonated with them, and my years with them were life changing and vision changing. It was there that I began to dream of being able to do for others what these friends did for me, a dream that I saw coming to fruition in being a pastor.

After 4 years of college and 4 years of seminary I found myself kneeling in front of altar in a St. Paul, Minnesota church having a stole (the scarf-like thing that Lutheran pastors wear) draped over my shoulders and ordained to be a pastor. It has been quite a life being a pastor. It has taken me into the lives of many people. Celebrating the best in life, and being a visible presence of God’s presence in the most painful times of life. I’ve shared life with people of all ages, personally growing in all those relationships. I’ve lived in almost every type of community: suburban, inner city, small town rural, “metro” South Dakota, rural South Dakota, and the Appellation foothills. I’ve been humbled by my mistakes, and I have been thanked for my ministry.

As I look back on the 38+ years of being a pastor, I hope that I have been what I started out hoping to be: a vessel of God’s grace and mercy, through whom God has poured out the unconditional love upon which to bring life to others. Although I would be thankful for more, I have often said to myself, if I have only been so for one person, that would be enough for me to feel my work has been worthy of my calling.

I know that very few of you share with me the vocation of being a pastor, but that doesn’t mean that you haven’t been equally a vessel of God’s grace and mercy in the world. Truth to be told, you are able to reach people in your work that I will never touch. You are there to embrace a co-worker who just got the phone call from the hospital to come quickly because their child has been in an accident. You are there to sit next to the kid at lunch whose parents just got a divorce. You are there to take a meal over to a widower whose wife has just died. You are there to knock on the door of the new neighbor who race doesn’t match the majority and say, “Welcome.” You are there to phone a friend whose sinfulness has ruined their lives and tell them that they can still count on you.

As this school year begins, maybe this can be a time for all of us to look at what we do in life, and pray that in this year each of us might be blessed to be a vessel of God’s grace and mercy to at least one person …. for although we would certainly be thankful for more….one would be enough to make our work this year worthy of our calling.

Have a great week!

God’s grace and peace, (ggap)

Pastor Jerry Nuernberger