The Bungee Cord 3-15-22

Hello,

I learned something when I was a pastor in East Toledo: if a person doesn’t see any value in his or her life, they rarely see value in another person’s life.

It’s been nearly 30 years since I moved from St. Mark Lutheran Church in East Toledo. I was in my late twenties when I began my ministry there. St. Mark was a long established congregation in that neighborhood. Originally it was composed of lots of factory workers who lived in the neighborhood. As the congregation grew so did the building. The sanctuary seated 500+ people, with a soaring ceiling and balconies in the rear and both sides. An educational unit was built in the ‘50’s when over 900 children were attending Sunday School.

But, by the time I arrived, the glass factories had all left, and so did the jobs. East Toledo was hit hard. The neighborhoods were dilapidating as many of the people had no money to keep their houses up. Violence was common. One night, at an hour that no kid should be roaming the streets, a boy in his late elementary years was found dead in an alley, the victim of another boy who crushed his head with a cement block. Another time, a woman was walking home along a main street from the 7/11, and she was shot dead. When the police captured the shooter, and asked him why he had shot this woman whom he didn’t know, he said, “I wanted to know what it felt like to kill someone.” People who find no value in their lives, find little value in the lives of others.

But there in the midst of that dessert of valuelessness stood St Mark Lutheran Church, a place where people gathered around the self-giving love of Jesus Christ. Every time people gathered there they were told that the One who authored all of creation and holds it in place so valued each and every one of them that that One would die for them. That one would stand between them and those who would shoot them with bullets of evil and despair and take the bullet for them. Every time that people gathered in St. Mark they received a piece of bread and a sip of wine that carried the promised presence of Jesus, a presence putting into reality Jesus’ decision to make his home in us. What could make someone more valuable than for God almighty to dwell there?

As bombs are exploding in apartment buildings and hospitals, killing hundreds as if they were of no value, Jesus gives us something to say. “Jesus died for those apartment dwellers and hospital patients. They are of priceless value.” Likewise, Jesus gives us something to say to those who are firing those rockets and missiles, “Jesus died for you, too. You are of priceless value.”

One of the biggest lies that we hear is that you can make yourself valuable by having more money, having more land, having more power, but the book of Ecclesiastes tells us the truth in the face of this lie. It’s all “vanity”, and the value of these things is rendered empty by the truth of the words, “Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.”

Laws, police, and armies are important so that those who see others as valueless do not act out of their ignorance. But laws and armies have no ability to change the way a person looks at themselves or the way they look at others. Jesus, however, who with divine power and love creates and establishes value in every person. Just read the Zacchaeus story (Luke 19).

You and I may never get a chance to talk to any world leader, but I do believe that you and I have the power to start an avalanche of grace that can reach world leaders as we look upon ourselves and others as God does, each one having unmeasurable value in Christ Jesus, and live in that truth.

The peace of the Lord be upon us all.

God’s grace and peace, (ggap)

Pastor Jerry Nuernberger

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