The Bungee Cord 12-4-23
Hello,
My mom, Rose Ellis Nuernberger died on Friday in the early afternoon. She had been struggling through life for the last year, and, thankfully, her struggles are now over. God’s grace and peace are now fully hers.
I know that only a few of you knew my mom. I hope that you will indulge me in this Bungee Cord to let you get to know her, not because she was a more saintly person than others, but because as I have written for the cover of her funeral bulletin, “Our mom lived with an undeterrable will to bring joy to people’s lives, and she died having accomplished that mission with great regularity.”
I was one of those who was the object of her mission. Growing up, she made sure that the successes of my life were full of celebration, and likewise she made sure that my struggles did not empty the joy in my life. She would take me on in ping pong in our basement, and she would play Boggle with me on the dining room table. She made scrapbooks that marked the milestones of my youth, and she was the number one fan of my music and sermons. Although she didn’t say it to me, I know that she prayed for me every day.
But the target of her mission was far greater than me. The kids in her school classes were not just students, they were rose buds to bring to bloom. People in nursing homes were not strangers to her, but they were weekly party invitees as she would go from room to room with her small keyboard singing with them and getting them to dance in their wheelchairs and beds. One such person was an elderly woman who was paralyzed from her neck down, and my mom saw her dancing in her smile. My mom naively saw the best in everyone, and she loved the best out of them. She was zealous in her mission, sometimes it would feel a bit overly zealous to me, but if that was her greatest flaw, I know that I would rather be guilty of that than to be guilty of living a life where my zeal could be questioned. No one would ever have questioned my mom’s zeal to bring joy to others’ lives.
And what fueled her life’s mission? Over and over again, she was quick to answer that question from whomever might ask, “The Lord.” She was not one to bang people over the head with Biblical quotes and righteous guidance, instead she would, as Jesus did, look for the “lonely” (as she called them) ones and embraced them in divine friendship. She surrounded people with the God given gift of music, Even in her last months of her life, she would play her keyboard in her room and the piano in the central room, and people would gather around to sing, if not audibly, but in their soul. A fellow nursing home resident who could not speak, named Harvey, would play an air piano when he saw her, which was code, “Let’s go sing.” When others would hesitate for fear of not being “cool”, she would jump into action knowing that being “cool” was not part of the fuel that drove Jesus’ life. Someone once asked, if you were accused of being Christian, would there be enough evidence in your life to convict you? No matter who the jury might be, for my mom, there was only one verdict, “Guilty as charged!”
I write to you about my mom, not to glorify her, for she would not appreciate such from me. But I write about my mom to give you evidence of the power of Christ’s love in someone who history books will probably forget. I suspect that you, like I, sometimes wonder what grace I can bring to a world that is parched of grace. My mom is the answer to that wonder. I have seen how Christ, through her, has brought life, hope, peace and joy to this arid world. I have seen how the pebble of grace that she has tossed into the lake of life has rippled its way far from the shore upon which she has stood. She has given me the proof to tell 8th graders about to be confirmed in their faith, that they might not be the ones to go to Ethiopia and feed the starving, but they just might be the ones who will feed the hungry (both in body and spirit) in their corner of the world, which will ripple its way to the furthest corner of the world.
Jesus tells a parable of three servants who were given talents (it was money then, but interestingly enough that word carries a wider meaning now) from their master to invest in the world. Upon his return, the master says to the servants who trusted in the master’s great ability to “reap where he did not sow and gather where he did not winnow”, and put those talents to work in his absence, “Well done good and faithful servant. Come into the joy of your master.” My eyes have seen the truth in Jesus’ “absentee productivity” (a word description that I penned in a seminary paper I wrote 40 years ago) in the life of my mom. And I hope that it will be as visibly true of me…and you….when you and I have, as the Bible says, “run the race.”
Have a great week.
God’s grace and peace, (ggap)
Pastor Jerry Nuernberger
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