The Bungee Cord

Hello,

I am writing this week’s Bungee Cord as I sit in the Denver airport, having come here for a week to share in the joy of my son’s wedding. It was a wonderful week of crystal blue skies and warmer weather than I had expected for the end of September. If you have ever been to Denver and the mountains that lie west of it, you know of the towering glory of the Rockies and the stark beauty that they supply.

With time to kill before my flight home I have taken my temporary home at an empty flight gate feeling as if I was on some ocean-side beach watching the to and FRO of the waves of people passing by on the people movers in front of me. Sometimes the waves are no bigger than a few people with a lengthy interlude between the small crests, but other times when a plane has just landed, there is a crashing of humanity, churning with people scurrying to get to their connecting flight or to the object of the travel they have made.

I find myself amazed by some of the travelers, most amazed by those who are travelling with small children. Having made such trips when I was younger, I know the struggle of such journeys. Packing the essentials that a baby will need when away from home….getting to the gate with toddlers in tow…keeping them occupied as you await the flight…hoping that they will not scream during the flight, or worse yet, the duration of the flight…excess trips to the small bathroom in the back of the plane….hoping that their luggage isn’t lost……. Travelling with young children is an adventure!

On our way to Denver a family of six boarded ahead of us. Mother with a baby in her arms. Father with a baby in the baby carrier on his chest. A little girl who was preschool in age, and a boy, pulling a small suitcase, who may have been 5. I don’t know if they were on their way home, or if they were starting their trip, but this I do know; given the challenge of their travelling, wherever they were going or had gone, the destination must have been very important.

Speaking of challenging travel, consider the travel that Jesus, the Son of God, made when he came into this world. Packing to enduring the struggles of life…seeking to bring God’s grace into a love-lacking world…wondering if the people will take hold of God’s word…preparing for the disappointment of the people…hoping that roadblocks will not be placed in his way. It was, to say the least, a challenge for Jesus to make his journey into the world….a journey that would find its end on a cross and out of a grave. And realizing the difficulty that he faced, it is clear that there was only one thing that motivated his trip……the importance of the destination.

And the destination wasn’t Jerusalem….it wasn’t Rome….it wasn’t Athens…it wasn’t Cairo. It was your heart and mine. More important than to see some spectacular sight. More important than visiting a beloved, dying grandfather…more important than being there for a son’s wedding…..Jesus, the Son of God, left his heavenly throne to stake his claim on your heart. Nothing could have stopped him from his journey, and nothing did. The destination of your heart and mine was not just some bucket list quest to accomplish before he died, it was the destination for which brought about his death.

It took more than the courage of travelling with young children for Jesus to make his human-bound trip…it took undenying love. Just think, you are that important of a destination to Jesus!

Have a great week.

God’s grace and peace, (ggap)

Pastor Jerry Nuernberger

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 The Bungee Cord 9-20-21

Hello,

In my mind, it is one thing to be welcome, but it is quite another thing to be welcomed. And it makes all the difference in the world.

When I lived in small town in Ohio, I would wander up to the big town, Findlay, on my lunch times to get some exercise by playing pick-up basketball at the YMCA. The Y was located right next to the Marathon Oil office building, so the majority of the basketballers were from there. It was a busy double court. At the time, I was in my thirties, and still had a small remnant of my high school basketball skills. But there were others. Some who were young, right out of college and they carried their more recent skill set. And others were my age or older, but had far more skill in their younger years, so what they had left was far greater than mine.

When I got in a game with the more skilled and competitive guys, I discovered that I rarely had the ball passed to me, and when I shot and missed, I was verbally reprimanded. It was clear, that although the YMCA advertised the pick-up basketball to be welcome to everyone, I certainly was not welcomed to play in those games.

The Bible tells us that when Jesus was in his hometown of Capernaum, he took a young child….maybe a newborn, but no older than a toddler….and he gathered that child up in his arms and welcomed it into his embrace. Now we might think that such an act would be cute or sweet, but not so in Jesus’ day. Children were on the bottom rung of importance and worth in Jesus’ day, a place they assumed because by the age that they would 16 years old, 60% of them would die. The life investment that they required, especially in lean times, was great, and the return for that investment offered a 60% failure rate. At best, children were tolerated…at worst they were treated as dispensable.

So, when Jesus took that young child into his arms and welcomed it, it wasn’t a cute thing….it was a shocking thing. By his action, Jesus made it crystal clear that the world’s judgment of worth and value was not his. He welcomed ones who the world considered the lowest.

if you ever might wonder if you are worth anything to Jesus, the ones that the world considers of least value Jesus considers worthy of his embrace….and not only his embrace, but his life. The cradle of his arms said to that child, “Welcome, unwelcomed one.” And when Jesus stretched out his arms on the cross, that was the stretch as welcoming as of a grandmother greeting her three year old grandchild that she hasn’t seen since Covid struck. That is the welcome that Jesus likewise gives to you…no matter who you are, what you have done, or what you think of yourself.

It is my hope, that at the church at which I am a pastor, we carry on that welcoming embrace of Jesus. I hope that we are like the father in the story of the prodigal son, who when he sees his son coming back home, he runs out to that son and embraces him with a bear hug. Now, I don’t instruct the people of my church to give bear hugs to those who come to worship, but I do tell them that we get the chance to be a place where people – no matter what anyone else thinks of that person – find out that there’s at least one place in the world that they are not only welcome, but welcomed.

The world can be a rather unwelcoming place….and so can the church, sometimes….but that is not the way that Jesus intends his church to be. So, if you haven’t been to worship in a while because you weren’t welcomed….don’t give up, because Jesus hasn’t given up transforming his flock into his likeness. And I have confidence that the day will come when you walk into a church and experience a welcome (maybe not a bear hug) that will take hold of you with a love that you have never felt before….the love of God Almighty who considers you of such worth that he would die for you….and that will make all the difference in the world.

Have a great week.

God’s grace and peace, (ggap)

Pastor Jerry Nuernberger

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 The Bungee Cord 9-13-21

Hello,

I, like I suspect every one of you, remember exactly where I was when the news of the planes crashing into the Twin Towers happened. I was sitting in my office at church when someone came and told me that a plane had crashed into the Tower. I remember that my initial reaction was to think that some small Cessna-like plane had flown off course. Not true. Far worse than that. When I saw the second plane crash into the other tower, I was caught up in shock. That is when my memory gets blurry about that day. Shock has a way of overloading a person and details get lost. I know that I was glued to my TV, but I don’t remember much of what I heard and saw. Overwhelmed.

Yesterday evening I was watching 60 Minutes, and the whole show was about work of the fire department and other rescuers. Maybe you saw it, too. The interviews with some of those who survived the Tower fires and collapse were heart gripping. The bravery, compassion, conviction, and sacrifice that those firefighters showed was humbling to me. To know that such people are at the helm of my safety is a blessing that I know that I don’t deserve.

But another emotion started percolating in my soul as I watched, and that was sad astonishment. How sad it is that hatred can boil so strong in people’s hearts that such an attack would be planned and carried out. Now, I am not naïve to the reality of such hatred and such attacks, they catch the news with too much regularity. But sitting in front of my TV last night, listening to the stories of those who survived the attack and those who did not, I was sadly astonished that anyone could harbor so much hatred that they would consider those who worked in those buildings and who tried to save them…would consider them to only be pawns in their hate driven pursuits.

This sad astonishment shed a new shadow on another event of hatred, the crucifixion of Jesus. Maybe it is because I know the story so well that the feeling of sad astonishment has tended to slip by my soul when I hear the Good Friday story. But today, I feel it in my bones. How sad it is that a person could be so hated, that he would find himself nailed to a cross by those whose hatred drove their deeds.

Hatred is, and always has been, a fierce and deadly monster, and when we measure its might and our tiny muscles we might easily fall into despair, and throw up our hands, and say, “It’s just too big of a thing. I guess that there’s nothing we can do about it.”

But that is not true. There is something that we can do about the hatred that prowls in our world. There is something we can do about it because someone whose love and power is greater than anything and everything in the universe, Jesus, the Son of God, has thrown up his hands on a deadly cross, gathered in all the hatred that the world can muster, and all that hatred breathed its last breath when Jesus breathed his and yelled, “It is finished!”

And on Easter Sunday morning, when Jesus walked out of that tomb, he was the only one to walk out of that tomb. All those things which he took to death with him on the cross stayed dead. Hatred did not live…. Jesus did.

And although hatred may regularly rise up in this world, its rise will wither and fall, because its defeat has already taken place. Hatred will not win, because Jesus’ love already has. And Jesus’ love has made its home in your hearts and mine. And although our hearts may be small, and our arms and hands be weak, they are the vessels of Jesus’ infinite and unmatched love. So, when we love with our hearts, and care with our hands it is nothing less than Jesus’ victorious mercy at work in the world.

When teenagers are confirmed in my church, they are asked, among other things, if they will strive for peace and justice in the whole world. Quite a task for a 13-year-old to take on. So, I tell them that in setting their sights to do this, they needn’t look too far. “What if you strove for peace and justice in your corner of the world….in your home, at your school, with your friends, or in your neighborhood? And although it might be like throwing a stone in the ocean, every stone makes a wave, and if everyone tossed their stone in that ocean, what a difference that would make.”

You and I just might be joyfully astonished at the difference we can make.

God’s grace and peace, (ggap)

Pastor Jerry Nuernberger

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 The Bungee Cord 9-6-21

Hello,

I watched some of the Little League World Series a couple of weeks ago, and it brought back memories of my days on the small diamond. A gray flannel buttoned uniform with Pirates stitched across my chest in green letters, and a panel on my back advertising our sponsor, Foster Toys. A green felt baseball hat on my head, folded correctly when not worn so the front would stand up straight making the “H”, for Hinsdale, prominently seen when worn. Green stirrup socks on my calves, and black cleated shoes on my feet (you only wore black shoes in those days). A mitt that was a little bit too big on my left hand, and a wood Louisville slugger bat draped over my shoulder in my right.

I was a pitcher and a short stop and generally batted clean-up for our team. Little League baseball was big in my town. There were two “leagues”, the American League and the National league, and the league that you were in depended on your home address. Odd numbered addresses were National League, even numbered were American. 705 S. Grant was my address, so that landed me in the National league, and specifically on the Pirates. I wound up on the Pirates by virtue of a draft. Everyone, when they started playing baseball, would show up on at Robin’s Park for a tryout, from which the coaches picked their team. And once you were picked by a particular team, that was your team for your Little League career, moving up the “farm” levels until you made the majors. As you can see, baseball was quite a serious, organized thing in Hinsdale.

Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed playing Little League baseball, battling with and against the kids that I would rub shoulders with in school. We all, or course, wore our baseball hats to school, showing our team pride. I would smile when I was on the mound and I could hear all of my team mates yelling, “Hey, batter! Hey, batter. Hey, batter, batter, batter….SWING!” But sometimes, it seemed to me, that something got lost in our games. Sometimes it seemed like the pressure of the whole world lay upon my shoulders as I was out there pitching, after all we needed to win to hold our heads up high. And each ground ball that came bounding my way carried with it the label goat (not today’s interpretation of “goat”) or hero. And even more so at bat, a strike out, especially with someone on base, was a branding of failure. Some coaches took losing better than others, but we who played knew that losing brought with it a name that no one wanted to bear, “LOSER!”

Sometimes, something got lost, and what got lost was that baseball was meant to be fun. Sure there was great good in mastering a talent, trying your hardest, carrying your part on a team, but at its deepest level, Little League baseball was supposed to be about fun. Sometimes, greatness, glory, perfection, and dominance had a way of overshadowing fun.

Over the course of my ministry, I have sometimes seen the same thing happening in the church. Something gets lost, and in the church it seems to me that Jesus gets lost. It seems to me that Jesus gets hidden behind the counting of people sitting in the pews. It seems to me that Jesus gets hidden behind focusing on proper piety or perfection in worship. It seems to me that Jesus gets hidden behind conflicts over budgets and turf wars. It seems to me that Jesus gets hidden behind church structure and rules. It seems to me that Jesus gets hidden behind human pride and human fears. Somehow greatness, glory, perfection and dominance also seep their way into the church and sometimes seem to overshadow why the church exists….and that is the church exists to experience the life-transforming grace of Jesus.

Notice that I repeatedly used the word, “sometimes”, both in my remembrance of Little League and my speaking of the church. Sometimes fun gets lost in Little League…sometimes Jesus gets lost in the church. But at other times my Little League baseball days were so fun that I remember them as if they were yesterday and yearn for them today. At other times when I look at the churches in which I have been involved I have seen God’s love so palpably present that despair, fear, sorrow, and even death are overwhelmed….for others, and for me.

Little League baseball is not perfect, but the more we keep our eyes on what is at the core of Little League baseball, the more it will be true to its core - fun. Likewise, the church is not perfect, and maybe quite far from perfect, because after all, it is comprised of sinners in need of forgiveness. However, the more we keep our eyes on the core….and the core is Jesus….the more it will be true to its core, Jesus.

The core is worth keeping our eyes on!

Have a great week.

God’s grace and peace, (ggap)

Pastor Jerry Nuernberger

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