Bungee Cord 8-18-14

Hello,

     There’s no place like western Pennsylvania in the fall to experience the beauty of creation.  We aren’t there yet, but the beauty is beginning to blossom.  In these late summer months the field behind our house has begun to shimmer with the golden rod just in time to accent the dark purple flowers of the Joe-Pye weed.   There are still a few bright orange Butterfly Weed that had reached their prime a couple of weeks ago, and the Heliotrophe (aka, False Sunflower) that stands 8 feet tall lines the paths that we cut through them when they were just a few inches tall.  The Queen Ann lace has begun to set its doilies on the field grass, and the Milkweed is ready to dust the land with its snow.  And this is only the beginning!  Wow!

     I often hear people talk about nature’s testimony to the existence  and character of God as they cite the awesome beauty of nature that amazes them(and me) , but amid the beauty there’s also the opposite.  There are storms that bring devastating hail and winds.  There are earthquakes and floods.  Garden plants once full of the fruit of the vine begin to wilt and decay.  Cold winds chill parents at soccer games and homeless people on the street, and the daylight disappears into darkness.

    To me, nature paints a very confusing picture of God.  One might stand in awe and wonder at the beauty of all that is around us, but at the very same time one certainly stands in confused disbelief when famines bloat the stomachs of children.  Actually, the randomness of nature might lead one to all the more distrust the God that is seen behind it than to believe in that One, and in our ever increasing knowledge of nature some are led to see even less of God in it.

     From the very beginning of the Christian faith, it has not been nature that has stirred belief and trust, but ironically something that had previously been used to create fear and terror….the cross.  In the cross of Calvary, the cross on which Jesus hung, there is a clear picture of God’s character and power.  With an eye on the cross one can see nothing but sheer grace and mercy (⁷Indeed, rarely will anyone die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person someone might actually dare to die. ⁸But God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us.(Romans 5)), a beauty far more beautiful than sunset and fields of flowers.  With an eye on the cross one can see nothing but ultimate power (¹⁰The death he died, he died to sin, once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God. (Romans 6)).

      True, it takes eyes of faith to see these things in the cross, but just like a lover seeks to transform the eyes of the one who is loved into eyes of love….so, it seems reasonable to me that the One upon whom I can place my trust in life and in  death would be seeking to transform my eyes into eyes of faith and trust….and your eyes, too.

     Don’t get me wrong.  My heart is stirred by the beauty of the creation, and my doubts are likewise stirred at the heartless power in creation.  But that is why I go to church on Sunday mornings….to hear and see something that opens my eyes to that which wonder cannot capture and confusion cannot destroy….the love of God with which God is wooing me…wooing me so that I might live in peace, hope, and joy.  And as I step into the darkness of death, I might lay myself down in that same peace, hope and joy, resting in the arms of the one whose hands have held me in life.

Have a great week.

God’s grace and peace,  (GGAP)

Pastor Jerry Nuernberger

Bungee Cord 8-10-14

Hello,

     This morning as I was standing out in front of the church waving at the people in the cars that drove by, one of the cars came to a stop in the middle of the northbound lane.  It caught me by surprise, because for the past 2+ years that I have been doing this, no one has ever stopped.  There was a single driver in the car, and the window was rolled down.

    The driver was a young man, maybe in his late 20’s.  As he stopped, he looked toward me, and I could tell he was going to say something….directions?....heckle me?...laugh at me?  None of those things.  Instead he said, “I want to come to this church this morning, where can I park my car?”  I was a bit stunned.  Even though I have been waving at people for 2 years, I guess that I have never really expected any of them to stop and say they wanted to come to church.  I found myself stumbling over my words as I told him how to get to our parking garage behind the church.

     As he drove down the block to turn at the corner, I wondered if my blubbering may have caused him to change his mind, but a few minutes later, I looked to my right, and there he was coming out of the church to meet me, guided by one of our members.

     “I see you found the parking garage,” I said to him

     “Yeah…no problem,” he said back.

     “You live in Greensburg?.... What’s your name?”, the standard barrage of questions I tend to ask of those whom I don’t know.

     I found out that he has lived here his whole life,  and what his name is.

     “So, where are you in life?...in school…working?”

     He told me what his day job is, and then he said a most curious thing, “I am writing a book.”

     “About what?”  I said.

     “About the existence of God.  Does God exist….or doesn’t he.”

     “Well, I am glad you’ve come here.  There’s plenty in the world that would make us wonder about the existence of God, and I am always impressed with people who wrestle with the deepest concerns of life.  You won’t be alone wrestling in there (the church), I am sure that many people will be wrestling along with you.  I hope people know that the church is meant to be a place to bring life’s deepest questions and doubts.  It’s in the wrestling that the truth comes out….the world’s truth….or God’s truth.”

     So, after inviting him to give me a call where we can wrestle together, he left me, walked into the church, and I went back to my waving.

     It has come to my attention that many assume that those who come to church are avid “believers”.  And when asked why they don’t come to church, their answer is, “Well, I don’t know that I really believe it.”

     Well, let me say this: I am not too sure that everyone…or even the majority of those who come to church “really believe it”.  I am pretty sure that there is a mixture of belief and doubt in almost everyone who comes to church….some with doubt so strong that they are like a very weak bar drink, not much kick of faith in them at all….others come like a pure shot of whiskey, with a warming faith that goes all the way to the belly.

     Personally, I believe that the church was never meant to be a place just for those who “really believe it.”  No, I believe that the church was always meant to be a place for those whom Jesus has invited to engage in a friendly wrestling match….a wrestling match for the truth…does God exist?....Does God care about me?....Does God care about the world?....Is it true that I am a loser?....Can I ever be forgiven?...How can I find meaning and purpose in life?....Why is the world in such a mess?

     I hope that this Bungee Cords has been like a street side wave to you, inviting you with the invitation of Jesus to come to church on Sunday, not because you “already believe it”, but because Jesus is looking forward to having a friendly wrestling match with you.     “Ready….wrestle!”

Have a great week.

God’s grace and peace,

Pastor Jerry Nuernberger

Bungee Cord 8-4-14

Hello,

     Note to self: do not take an antihistamine before going to church.

     As some of you will remember, a couple of weeks ago my ear tubes plugged up and my world spun with nauseating revolutions.  When I woke up this past Sunday, I could feel my ears plugging up again, so to ward off a whirling adventure in church, I took a decongestant that happened to have an antihistamine in it, too.  It was the same pill that I took a couple of weeks ago that brought the ceiling spinning to an end, so I figured it would be just the trick for my Sunday morning needs.

     The thing that I did not realize, though, was when I took the pill before it was in the middle of the night so I didn’t think twice about how fast I fell back asleep.  So, when I hopped in my car at 7:00 to go to church I chalked up my drowsiness to the couple of hours of sleep that I had lost in the middle of the night, and not to the contents of the pill that I had taken.  When church began at 8:15 I noticed that there seemed to be some clog between my brain and my mouth as I was having a bit of trouble getting my mouth to say what my brain was telling it.  But when it came to sermon time (my associate was preaching) and I sat down, suddenly I felt a wash of drowsiness come over me.  That is when I realized the power of the antihistamine that I had taken.  I fought off the sleepiness, made it through the sermon, served communion, gave the benediction, and after I shook hands with people at the end of the service I went and splashed some water on my face, hoping to jolt me awake for the second service.

     It didn’t work.  As the second service began I was no less drowsy.  Actually, my drowsiness had increased.  When I stepped up to start the service my legs were a little wobbly with sleep, and I had to concentrate hard with my words as if I had just been to the dentist and the Novocain was wearing off.  If it was a challenge to stay awake at the first service, it was immensely more difficult at the second service.  Although I think my head bobbed a couple of times reminding me of when I was in high school and weekly fought off sleep during the sermon, I made it through the sermon without dozing off.  I was in a bit of a fog as I said the prayers, served communion and gave the benediction.  When the worship service was over and I got into the car with my wife, I said to her, “I won’t take one of those pills before church again!”

     Some might say that I got nothing out of those two worship services, and they would be right if the only thing to get out of worship was what my antihistamine fogged mind could take in.  But because I was at church, I was able to share a high five with a toddler who is just beginning his life of faith.  I was able to talk to some folks for whom life has been a pot-holed road.  The Lord, in the mystery of his Supper, united himself with me, filling me with mercy, hope, peace and joy that only he can give.  I received the blessing of the Lord to carry me back out into the world as the congregation echoed the benediction back at me.  And the groove of God’s grace was etched a little deeper so that the efforts of the world to scratch it out would all be in vain.

     So, if you were up late on Saturday night that makes you tired…if you have a lot on your mind that is distracting and worrying you….if you have a full day ahead and you wonder if it is worth your time to go to church…if you find your faith in Christ is faltering and wavering…if you feel like a hypocrite to go to church and so you shouldn’t go to church…….if you think that you won’t get anything out of it…..please hear this………Jesus still wants you to come to church because there is far more to worship than what you are able to store up in your mind.  But one word of advice: don’t take an antihistamine before you come to church!

Have a great week.

God’s grace and peace, (ggap)

Pastor Jerry Nuernberger

Bungee Cord 7-28-14

Hello,

    Saturday morning at 4:00 I woke myself from sleep when I rolled over and I found my world swirling around as if I had been swept up in a tornado.  When I opened my eyes my ceiling looked as if it was a record spinning on a turntable, and I could feel the gastric juices in my stomach churning and swelling with volcanic potential.

     This had happened to me once before when out of nowhere I was overcome with dizziness and nausea accompanied with a full body cold sweat.  The cause of my distress was plugged ear tubes that put a computer crash on my balancing mechanisms behind my ear drums.  This time as with the previous time even the slightest motion would speed up the swirling and increase the pressure building in my belly.  So, learning from my previous experience, I tried to lie perfectly still in hopes that it would still everything down.  I pinched my nose and blew it thinking that I could dislodge whatever was plugging my tubes, and although I could hear a “pop”, no relief.

     Having tried to resolve the problem myself, I determined my only hope would be in waking my wife….at 4:00 in the morning.  “Dear,” I said a couple of times before I broke her slumber, “I can’t move.  If I do, I get so dizzy that I feel sick.  Could you get me a decongestant to clear my head out?”

     Graciously, she got out of bed and went to the medicine cabinet, returning with the decongestant that had helped before.  I slowly lifted my head, took the pill, and put my head back on my pillow, trying not to move a muscle.  I lay there a while unable to return to sleep, but after some passage of time I dozed off.  When dawn arrived and I opened my eyes again the swirling had abated some, but not completely gone.   So, I took another decongestant hoping that a second shelling of the blockage would do the trick….which in about a half an hour I was pleased to find out that it did.

     Have you ever woke up, not from sleep, but maybe from a slumbering life, only to find the world swirling around you with nauseating power?  Your head clogged and pressure building?  Pressure from overwhelming expectations at work…from disappointment with failure….from guilt over something you have done….from sorrow over a loved one gone from your life….from fear as you face powers far greater than you…from despair over a sink hole you have fallen into and is too deep for you to climb out?  Dizzying?

     Well, if so, so have I, and I have found that I need something to clear my head out and relieve the pressure.  The thing that has done the trick for me is a good dose of the grace of God: God’s love for me in Jesus that requires nothing of me, God’s promise of shepherding presence even when I wander, God’s unrelenting forgiveness that is given even when I sin 70 x 70 times, God’s hand that lifts me up from my failures giving me hope to try again, and God’s embrace from which “nothing in all creation” can separate me.

     That is what going to church is all about for me, getting a good dose of God’s grace to clear out my head.  Away from the noise of the world, splashed awake with the waters of Baptism, lifted up by the Word of God, strengthened by Jesus’ uniting with me at his table, and recharged to face the struggles of life….that’s the dose of God’s grace that I receive every Sunday when I worship.  It’s the dose of grace that also awaits you.

     Feeling a bit dizzy?  See you in church!

Have a great week,

God’s grace and peace, (ggap)

Pastor Jerry Nuernberger

Bungee Cord 7-21-14

Hello,

     I can’t tell you the number of times when I have been with someone upon whom the world has crashed down, and as they begin to cry they have said, “I’m sorry.”

     My usual response to them is, “That’s fine,” and often I will follow in saying, “Sad things are sad.”

     As you know, I am an ESPN watcher, especially the morning show, “Mike and Mike”.  This past week has been ESPN annual focus on the Jimmy V Foundation for Cancer Research.  Jimmy V was a basketball coach for South Carolina University a couple of decades ago when he was stricken with cancer and his life came to an abrupt and far too early end.  A couple of months before his death he, along with ESPN, inaugurated a foundation to battle cancer, and at its inauguration he delivered a speech that poignantly spoke about his battle with cancer and his hopes that he might be part of an ultimate cure.  “Don’t give up, never give up,” is the motto of his foundation a motto that has rung in my heart as I tackle the struggles of my life, albeit thus far not cancer.

     As Mike and Mike promoted the foundation’s cause and asked for money, they showed clips of several sports figures who had battled cancer personally or with one whom they loved.  In those clips a common theme carried through: the inner strength that they admired in those who fought the disease with stoic dignity.  “Up to the very end, you would have never known he had cancer.”

     Indeed, there is an admirable dignity in those who line up against cancer like an offensive lineman and say to cancer (or any of life’s tacklers), “Look out!  I’m coming your way!”  But I wonder if this admiration has wandered a bit far to the point that it has become a sign of weakness to let people, especially the ones whom one deeply loves, see the toil and the pain that are also eating away at life.  Tom Hanks, playing the manager of a woman’s baseball league during WWII said to one of his distraught, crying players, “There’s no crying in baseball!”  It almost seems that his words have carried outside of baseball into life and people hear, “There’s no crying in life!”

     Also this past week an award for perseverance was given to Stuart Scott, one of ESPN’s own who is in a life and death battle with cancer, and in his acceptance speech he offered an insight quite different from the “stiff upper lip” messages that had dominated the discussion.  Unknown to the audience, he had just gotten out of the hospital before the award ceremony, a hospital stay that had pulled him with vacuum force into a black hole, and with that experience fresh in his life he amended the Jimmy V motto by saying, “Fight.  Fight like hell.  But when you can’t fight any more, lay down and let someone else fight for you.”

     With 30+ years of ministry behind me, I have found myself less drawn to tell people how they should live their lives (I have decided that in the area of moral decisions I would rather help draw people closer to God and let that relationship shape and mold their decisions), and increasingly drawn to people in their pain and fight with and for them.  I strive for the church that I pastor to be a hospital for the hurting…a place where it is okay to cry, a place where no one will shame you for the mess that you have made of your life, a place where the hopeless prognoses of the world are countered with the absolute hope of the cross and resurrection, a place where forgiveness overwhelms fault, a place where when you can’t fight anymore you can lie down and let someone else fight for you….let Jesus fight for you….a place where healing is so profound that that healing becomes a fountain of grace and hope to the world.

     Sometimes it may appear that the church is a hotel for the holy, a place where crying is not allowed, a place where the broken don’t belong, a place for “stiff upper lipped people”.  Well…as I read the Bible and see Jesus in action, it sure doesn’t seem to me that Jesus was in the hotel and resort business.  He was in the hope and healing business, and his motto was,

‘Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. ²⁹Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. ³⁰For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.’  Matthew 11:28

     The truth is that sad things are sad, but a greater truth is this:…Jesus is lord even of the sad!  Have a great week!

God’s grace and peace, (ggap)

Pastor Jerry Nuernberger

Bungee Cord 7-14-14

Hello,

     There has been a sign posted on the winding road of which I have written that I take to and from work.  The sign, “Road To Be Oiled Next Week”.  This sign has been posted for three weeks; meaning that “Next Week” has already become “This Week” and even “Last Week.”  As I drive to work tomorrow, if the road is still unoiled then “This Week” will also become “Last Week”, and “Next Week” will take its place as “This Week”, and still the road remains unworked.

     I don’t know if they repair roads in the same way throughout the country, but here in Pennsylvania they do a thing called “tar and chip”.  First, a layer of tar, or oil, is sprayed on the crumbling asphalt, and then a layer of small gravel is spread across the oil.  Over the next couple of weeks as the road is driven upon, the gravel settles into the tar, and voila….a reconditioned road.

     The end product is actually a pretty nice surface on which to ride, but the application is messy and traffic clogging.  Sometimes when you drive over the fresh application the tar gets on your tires and splashes up on your car, and remember that the entire road is a two lane road, so traffic is always stopped by flaggers creating lengthy waits.  So, the signs are a warning to drivers…..”go a different way next week.”

     That is what I did for the first week and a half until I discovered that the signs were not precise.  Since then, I have taken to my normal route, wondering if this week might be actually be “this week” making next week actually “next week”.

     One of the tenets of the Christian faith is the second coming of Christ at which time the recreating work of God will come to eternal completion and the veil between the divine and creation/creature will be fully gone.  During the early days of the Christian faith, many thought that Jesus’ return would be imminent, and its delay created quite a dilemma for believers.  As time has passed, instead of coming to an end, the fact of the delay has not created quandaries, but instead it has caused some people to turn their efforts toward predicting the day of Jesus’ second coming.

     Those of you who were alive at the turn of the millennium may remember the predictions of the return of Jesus with the turn of the calendar page (all of which proved wrong).  Others of you may well remember the captivating power of the “Left Behind” series that led some  (out of fear, not out of faith) to get their lives in salvific order, and led others to mock the Christian faith for what seemed to be such a judgmental and arrogant message.  Even now there are those who are investing themselves in the doings of the state of Israel, thinking (wrongly in my reading of the Bible) that the current state of Israel has a defining place in the second coming of Jesus.

     Way back in the 1500’s Martin Luther was alleged to have answered the question, “What would you do today if you knew that tomorrow Jesus would come again?”,  by saying, “Today, I would plant a tree.”  Which I hear as, “Why would I live today differently than I would any other day?”  For Christians every day is full of the forgiving presence of God propelling them with grace and mercy into a fragile, frail and fractured world.

     When will “Next Week” come and my road will be fixed?  I don’t know.  So, in the mean time I plan to continue taking the path that I have daily driven, thankful for the short cut it provides, taking in the beauty of the woods and the vistas, enjoying the thrills of the hills and the turns…….and when the day comes that the tar and stone trucks come, I’ll deal with the change that it creates.  Likewise as I await the day of Jesus’ return (a day that overextends the width and depth of my imagination) I will strive to keep on the path that I have daily taken….thankful for the shepherding care of Jesus, taking in the vistas of his grace, mercy and peace, and enjoying the thrills of the hills and turns along the way…..confident that the grace of God will likewise guide me into whatever lies ahead when Jesus comes again.

     What would you do today if you knew Jesus was coming again tomorrow?  Why not join Martin Luther and me……and plant a tree!

Talk to you “Next Week’….Have a great week.

God’s grace and peace, (ggap)

Pastor Jerry Nuernberger

Bungee Cord 7-7-14

Hello,

     “Rumor is that you’re a preacher,” said a high school kid I had never met who told me that he lived across the valley from me.  He and a buddy had just hopped out of their Rhino that had zipped through my back yard and disappeared.  They had come back  to ask me if it was ok for them to ride around on my property (after, of course, they had already done so…but it was nice of them to ask).

     “Rumor is that you’re a preacher.”  His statement caught me off guard.  So, apparently the people in our sparsely populated valley and ridge have been talking about me….”you know that house on the hill…a preacher lives there.”

     I responded to his statement, “Is that a good rumor or bad?”

     “It’s okay,” he said.

     He and his buddy were the kind of kids common to this area, “ridge kids”…..a bit unkempt, kids who have been hunting since they learned to crawl and were shooting guns before that,  kids who spent their afternoons catching fish at the nearby lake, kids who endure school, kids who have cousins by the dozens living around them, and kids who have Rhino’s and four wheelers and buzz around the ridge and valley in them.

     “Yeah.  I am the pastor at First Lutheran Church in Greensburg”, the “big” town 25 miles away over the ridge, the county seat and the closest thing to urban life in this county an hour east of Pittsburgh.

     “Oh,” he said, “I figured that you were preacher at Word of Life, or something.”  Word of Life is a very conservative independent “mega-church”.  I don’t know why he thought this was so.  It must have been part of the rumor.

     “No, Lutheran.  Right downtown Greensburg, three blocks south of the courthouse.”

     “I’m Lutheran, too,” he said, “I go to Zion’s in Donegal,” a small church 3 miles south of where I live.

     Surprised again.  Surprised to find out that this high school kid with whom I seemed to have nothing in common (I am a bit of a fish out of water here…I don’t own a gun, don’t know how to shoot one, don’t hunt, could never field dress an animal without tossing my cookies, don’t have a four wheeler, regularly take showers, and have spent a good deal of my life engaged in education.)  is actually a blood relative, brothers in Christ who align ourselves with the grace focused teachings of Martin Luther.

   He and his buddy hopped back into their Rhino after receiving permission from me to ride it …..slowly….and away from my house.  I don’t know how often I will see him.  I have lived here two years, and this was my first meeting with him.  But if I don’t see him again for another two years, I hope that he will put some truth in the rumors that are apparently circling around.

     “You know that guy that lives on top of the hill…..he’s a preacher, alright.  He’s a Lutheran, just like me, and he talked to me like he really cared about me.  He’s a pretty good guy.”

     If that’s the rumor that starts swirling around the valley and ridge, I’ll take it.

     I guess that I should not have been taken by surprise to hear that people are talking about me….I would wager that they are talking about you, too.   I don’t know how the rumor will be shaped when this high school Rhino rider goes back home and talks to his clan, but I do know this……I am thankful that I had a chance to put some flesh on the rumor….flesh that hopefully bore witness to the one whose blood bound us together regardless of how different we are, a witness of care, love, respect, forgiveness and grace.

     Have a great week.

God’s grace and peace,

Pastor Jerry Nuernberger