The Bungee Cord 10-17-16

Hello,

     As my hair thins out….or should I say, as it has thinned out….I think that it looks better when I keep it cut short.  My ever rising forehead with its desert-like hair coverage stands out less when the sidewalls of my head are trimmed.  So, it happened that I looked in the mirror and I said to myself, “I really need to get my hair cut.”

     A while ago I wrote in the Bungee Cord about my barber who not only is graceful with her scissors, but is a vessel of God’s grace to the regulars who sit in her chair.  Showing them unconditional kindness.  Listening with a patient and careful ear.  Speaking words of encouragement and guidance.  Her one-chair barber shop is far more than just a place to get a good hair cut.

     So, on the way to make a hospital call, I thought I would stop by and get my ears lowered.  As I neared her shop, I noticed that there weren’t any cars parked in front of it, and I thought to myself, “You’re in luck today.”  Unfortunately, my hopes were premature, because as I came up to her shop there was a hand written sign on the door, “Closed Today”.  No wonder there were no cars.  I drove past, deciding to come back next week.

     This past week next week came, and as I drove up to her shop, no cars again.  Also, again, a professionally printed sign in the window, “Closed for a couple of weeks due to illness.”  Hope she’s okay.

     I looked in my rearview mirror and concluded that although I needed my hair to be cut, it could wait.  Sure, there are plenty of other places in town that I could get my hair cut, but I have become familiar with my barber.  She knows how I like my hair, and she does a good job in spite of the fact that she has very little to work with.  Disappointed, I drove on.

     If you wake up on Sunday morning and the thought pops into your head, “Should I go to church today?”, have you ever considered one of the answers to be, “Yes, someone may need me to be there for them.”  Have you ever thought yourself to be akin to my barber, a person who can snip through the tangled mats of a person’s life like no one else.  Someone, like none other, that they have come to trust.  Someone, like none other, that they respect and admire.

     Sure, there’s lots of other wonderful people who will be in church on any given Sunday.  Sure, the pastor will be there, but the truth is that there are those with whom each of us makes a uniquely deep connection….and maybe it will be that someone will come to church, hoping to find you there.

     Knowing my barber, I am sure that she is anxiously awaiting the day that she can get back to the scissors.  She knows that people are hoping to find her in her shop, and not just to have their hair cut.

     I know that there are lots of good reasons for you to respond affirmatively to yourself when you ask, “Should I go to church this morning.”  (To have your life shaped by God’s grace and mercy.  To go to the Lord’s table and feast on his life giving grace.  To be empowered to face the week ahead with hope and peace.  To gain a greater understanding of the depth of God’s love for you.)  To all those great reasons, there is another: someone might be hoping to find you there.

     Have a great week.

God’s grace and peace, (ggap)

Pastor Jerry Nuernberger

The Bungee Cord 10-10-16

Hello,

     Yesterday at 6:45 when I drove down our ½ mile lane to reach the main road, I encountered an unusual number of animals.  At the top of the hill a fox ran across my path and dodged into the tall grass, the eyes of a herd of a dozen deer caught my lights, and at the bottom of our hill another fox scurried to cover.  I suspect that these neighbors of mine are there every morning, but it wasn’t until the later autumn dawn that their lives intersected with mine.

     Truth is, I am sure, that for a variety of reasons there are a lot of people whose lives rarely intersect with mine.  People who live in the pre-dawn darkness of poverty.  People who have fallen into deep holes – some of their own making, and some that just happen to be in their paths.   People for whom the weariness of life has left them in prisons of exhaustion and fear.

     I was asked to offer an invocation at last month’s county commissioner’s meeting.  I have been asked to do so before, but because of conflicting schedules, this was the first time that I was able to do so.  The invitation to bring the invocation came about a week ahead of time, and for about a week I pondered what I should offer.   Realizing that I live in a diverse community, I was cognizant that many who would attend that meeting (turned out to be over 50) might not share my faith convictions, so this was my prayer:

Gracious God,

As we gather at this meeting

open our eyes to that which is difficult to see,

open our ears to the voices that are hard to hear,

open our minds with wisdom and compassion for those who are often forgotten,

and open our hands to reach out to those who have slipped through the cracks.

Amen

     Although this was the first time that I offered that prayer at a commissioners meeting, it isn’t the first time that that prayer has come across my lips.  The words may not have been exactly the same, but the substance of its petitions are part of prayers that I pray over and over again in my church.  The reason that I pray this prayer in my church is that I see that Jesus did what my prayer asks for God to do in us.  Jesus did not turn away from the things that are difficult to see, difficult because they are hidden, or difficult because they are revolting.  Jesus did not close his ears to those who were hard to hear, hard to hear because of the softness of their voices, or the obnoxiousness of their tone.  He kept his mind open to those whom the world had prejudged and discarded.  Jesus took up in his arms those who had slipped through the fingers of the world.

     I know how powerful are the hands of the world at work to shape and mold.  That is why I pray that God would use his power to shape and mold with the grace that was exhibited in Jesus.  Christians, after all, are the ones who bear the name of Christ into the world.  So, I pray that my county is one that all people are remembered, seen, heard and helped, but even more so I hope that is true for my church.  So, I pray this prayer over and over again amongst the people of God that I serve, in order that if you are one of whom this prayer speaks, you will find in us a place where you are treated with Christ-like care.

Have a great day.

God’s grace and peace, (ggap)

Pastor Jerry Nuernberger

The Bungee Cord 10-3-16

Hello, If you are coming to Western Pennsylvania, let me forewarn you that the stinkbugs have arrived.

Previous to moving here, I had never experienced stinkbugs and their fall-time population explosion. They are a bug about the size of a nickel with spindly legs and protruding antennae. As far as I can tell, they really don’t do any damage to things, other than leave occasional markings on walls. But when they arrive, they are everywhere! Everywhere outside, and somehow everywhere inside. Sitting on the couch, you will suddenly hear a slight fluttering, then feel something land on your shoulder or head, and soon you will feel it start to crawl on you.

But be careful! They don’t bite or sting, but if they get startled or frightened they put out a smell that is best described as “stinky”. The smell gets on your hands if you cup them in your hands, it wafts through the air of you smack them with your hands, and it permeates the room if by chance you smash them. They seem to have no purpose in the cycle of nature, and apparently their stink makes them the desire of no predator.

Some falls are worse than others as stink bugs go. A couple of falls ago they were so numerous that hundreds of them would crawl on window screens, almost as thick as scales on a fish. That particular year they discovered the air vent to our shower light so that when you took a shower and turned on the light it got dimmer and dimmer as the fall went on because of the growing number of stinkbugs piling up in the glass.

Who knows what this fall’s stinkbug encounter will be, maybe sparsely few or spectacularly overwhelming. Either way, they will be a pest.

In my life’s encounter, many of the “stinky” things in life are like stinkbugs. Certainly, there are those things that are more wasp-like in their attack on us, but a lot of the things that infiltrate our lives are less vicious yet more prevalent and more unrelenting. Smaller, day-to-day sort of things that have a way of crawling bothersomely, but harmlessly on you and me. And like stinkbugs, the dread they bring to life comes only if we react harshly and severely to them.

I give thanks to God for God’s grace to me, one who is often a creepy and crawly stinkbug lighting obnoxiously upon his efforts of love and mercy in this world. I give thanks to God for his grace that neither gently flicks me off of him or mightily crushes me, but instead finds me as one who is the focus of unfathomable love.

In western Pennsylvania, there’s no getting rid of stinkbugs, and in life there’s no getting rid of them, either. But I do know this, that as I live in the grace of God who has no desire to get rid of me, I am finding that I am being transformed by that grace to deal with life’s stinkbug encounters with similar grace and mercy….and in doing so, life isn’t quite so “stinky”.

Thank you, God, for your transformational grace.

Have a great week.

God’s grace and peace, (ggap)

Pastor Jerry Nuernberger

Bungee Cord 9-26-16

Hello,

     It was a good weekend for my team, the Fighting Illini of the University of Illinois.  We didn’t lose…..well, we didn’t play.

    It looks like another long year for the Illini.  I tell people that it sure must be boring cheering for a winning team, because when they win, there’s nothing to get very excited about.  But when you cheer for a cellar dweller…..when (rare as it may be) we win, life is thrilling!

     Some years ago when I was living in Ohio (Ohio State territory) I got tickets to the Illinois vs Ohio State game.  It was a late November game which meant that it was snowy, cold and windy.  One of my sons went with me (I don’t remember what I used to bribe him to go with me?).  We bundled up.  I put on my orange stocking cap, my orange stadium jacket, and my insulated boots.  My son was not so orange-ly clad.

     When we arrived at the “Horseshoe” we wove our way upstream through the river of scarlet and gray to our seats.  In the seats all around us were similarly clad folks, some even waving scarlet and grey pom-poms.  If the weather was not lousy enough to make it a miserable day, the score made it even worse.   44-0 in the third quarter….Ohio State.  The worst thing about the game was that with every score, the woman sitting next to me made sure that I was aware of the mounting score….cheering as if each touchdown was a game winner, turning toward me as she sang (off pitch, of course) the Ohio State fight song, and flinging her pom-pom in my face.

     Sometime in the fourth quarter when the score had ballooned even more, as the person next to me was rubbing my nose in it, I felt a tap on my shoulder.  I turned around, and there was a man in Notre Dame garb behind me.  Apparently he had been taking note of the abuse that I had been absorbing, and he said to me, “Aren’t Ohio State fans a pain in the #$%!”

     No comment then….no comment now.

     Truth be told, Ohio State fans are not the only ones who like to kick you in the teeth when you’re being crushed and humiliated.  The world seems to delight in it, too.  Scandals are not hidden deep in newspapers.  They are on the front page so everyone will see them.  It often only takes one misstep for a person to lose their job, and that misstep clings onto them like a stubborn tic when they try and find a new job.  Friends, when they see you at the mall, turn around and go the other way.  It may be that the world doesn’t make  losers wear a scarlet letter as were made to do in the days of the Puritans, but they wear letters…invisible ones…ones that everyone can amazingly see.

     The Christian church has often been accused of  kicking people when they are down, even to the point of shunning people for the mess they have made in their lives.  Fact is, the shoe too often has fit.

     But in my church, and a lot of other churches, we are trying not to be people who wear that shoe.  We try to be people who wear Christ-like sandals….sandals that took him to the homes of outcasts….sandals that brought him to touch lepers…sandals that walked with compassion alongside those who had foolishly ruined their lives…sandals that kicked stones away rather than gathered them up to throw.

     If you find yourself dealing with a world that is akin to my teeth kicking, rubbing noses in it, dirt slinging Ohio State fan, let me tap you on the shoulder today and instead of commenting on what a pain in the @#%!  the world is…let me invite you to come to a place where people who have walked in shoes like yours have been picked up off the ground by one wearing sandals.  Let me invite you to church.  The treatment you will get will be far better than an Illinois fan gets at the “Horseshoe”!

Have a great week.

God’s grace and peace, (ggap)

Pastor Jerry Nuernberger

Bungee Cord 9-19-16

Hello,

     Two funerals on Friday.  A wedding on Saturday.  A baptism in worship and the first day of Confirmation class with middle schoolers on Sunday.  This weekend was the gambit of life.

     “Pastor, what do you do?”  It is a question that has oft been asked of me by an honest inquisitor whose encounters with me are most often limited to seeing me in a white robe for an hour on Sunday morning.

     I usually answer that question with the list of daily tasks that I, as a Pastor, do, but after this weekend (not necessarily an abnormal weekend) I believe a more accurate answer is, “I live life with people.”

     I live life with people.  Not life at a distance.  Not life hidden behind rose colored curtains.  Not life at the surface.  Not life moving at just one speed or moving in just one direction.

     As a pastor, I live life with people.  I am with people in the most tender and the most terrible times of life.  I am with people in the most enthralling and most embarrassing times of life.  I am with people when life is settled and when life is spinning.  I am with people when life is cruising along and when it is crumbling away.  I am with people when they have no one else and I am with people when they are surrounded by everyone else.

     As a pastor, I live life with people…..because that is what God does.  When God enfleshed God’s self  in Jesus – as incomprehensible as that might be – God answered the question, “Where are you, God?”

     “I am here in your life,” says God.  God is not some spectator in the universal stands being entertained by the products of God’s creation.  God is not some force that is unmoved by the groaning of the cosmos.  God is not some theoretical idea that stems from human yearnings.  In Jesus Christ, God reveals what God does; God lives life with people.

     In knowing that God lives life with me, I discover that no moment of life is mundane.  I discover that no deed of life is a hole of inescapable depth nor a pedestal of superior view.  I discover that the bullies that try and bring me to my knees have to overwhelm a divine bodyguard.  I discover that quiet rings with love and that noise cannot plug my ears to hope.

     As this Bungee Cord intersects your life, I hope that it brings my presence into your life, wherever your life is or whatever is going on in your life, for as one who carries the yoke of Christ (that is what the stole that I wear on Sunday mornings is meant to symbolize), I do what God does….I live life with people.

Have a great week.

God’s grace and peace,

Pastor Jerry Nuernberger

Bungee Cord 9-12-16

Hello,

     Yesterday before both of our worship services, I assumed my place curb-side in front of our church waving at people as they pass in their cars.  It is what I do every Sunday morning, weather providing.  I have become somewhat of a Greensburg  fixture, to the point that when often when my members tell a friend that they attend First Lutheran Church, the response they get is, “Oh, you go to the church with the waving pastor.”

     I have been the “waving pastor” at the churches that I have been the pastor for over 20 years.  I have done it for a couple of reasons.  One reason is that Christians were never meant to be some secret society, mysteriously meeting behind guarded doors.  Jesus took his message of God’s grace and mercy to the streets, and likewise, I believe, so should we.  Just like the football player who lifts weights, we who are strengthened as we worship in our church, are not meant to stay in the weight room forever, but to get out on the field and play the game.

     The second reason that I wave is because I hope that my wave is received as a gesture of God’s grace to all who pass by.  I don’t know where the people are going to whom I wave.  Some are at work as they pass in their trucks and semi’s.  Some are going to play as they tote their four wheelers in trailers.  Some may be going to worship at some other church.  But for most of the people who pass me, I have no idea why they have travelled by 246 S. Main Street in Greensburg on a Sunday morning.  So I wave at them all, hoping that my brief and somewhat distant attendant care to their life will be a sign to them that they are somebody’s.  I hope that they get a brief notice that they matter….matter to me….matter to God.  In a world where mattering is as passing as paper plates, and is as hard to reach as the peak of Everest, I hope that my wave will speak the essence of the faith that holds me, that whoever you are, without doing anything to earn it, you matter to God.  And so I wave….a gesture of God’s grace.

     Some of my parishoners joke with me asking me, “How many have you brought in this morning?”  They joke with me because they know that the answer to that question is not the reason why I am waving away.  Fact is, I don’t know that anyone has stopped by because of my waving.  It would be wonderful if they did.  But it is no less wonderful that when the time in life comes whey those “wavee’s” find themselves up against a brick wall, or watching their lives slip through their fingers, or wandering aimlessly in a life with thin purpose, or being cast aside by something that they have done…..when they look in the mirror and see a nobody….they will remember that someone who didn’t even know them, someone standing out on a curbside wearing a white robe and a colored stole, someone outside of a church….waved at them….and with that wave spoke a word of gracious truth…that they are somebody….somebody worth waving at….somebody worth dying for.

     So, although you are not driving past First Lutheran Church today, I hope that you see me waving at you, waving at you in my weekly Bungee Cords.  These weekly words may not be deep and profound, but I hope that they always catch your eyes as a gesture of God’s grace.  You, too, are somebody….somebody worth waving at….somebody worth dying for!

     Have a great week.

God’s grace and peace, (ggap)

Pastor Jerry Nuernberger

Bungee Cord  9-5-16

Hello,

     I felt like honking….but I didn’t….because I don’t.  Out here you never know who has a shotgun in the car.

     The occasion for my urge to honk came as I pulled up at the drive-through ATM,  I was on my way to meet someone and needed some cash, so I was in a bit of a hurry.  There was only one car in front of me, so I figured that I would accomplish my mission of getting some money and be on time for my appointment.

     But I was wrong.  The person in the car in front of me must have been saving her yearly banking needs for the time that she was in front of me.  I don’t know how long she took to do her business, but it seemed like an hour (not really, but when you need to be somewhere, time moves speedily).  Three…maybe four times she stuck her card in the machine, pulled it out and sorted through stuff in her car.

     As I sat behind her, watching the minutes tick by, I thought to my self, “Surely she knows that I am waiting behind her.”  How inconsiderate of her to monopolize this machine.  If she had so much business to do, she should have gone to the inside teller….but no….she obviously was simply too lazy to park her car and do what would have been more considerate to others.  With every passing insertion of her card my patience waned. 

     Finally, she pulled her card out of the machine for the last time….but did she move forward?  No!  She rolled her window up, and in the comfort of her air conditioning she probably was sorting out her cash into old and  new bills …. and finally …..finally….she took her car out of park, applied her brake and crept out of the space that she had been hogging!  It is amazing, I thought to myself, how thoughtless some people are!

     So, I pulled up to the ATM, pulled out my card, and quickly inserted it.  By this time there was a car or two behind me, and I would show them that I would not be like the person who had been in front of me.  The screen invited me to take my card back and enter my pin number….and I did.  I, unlike the self-absorbed person that I waited for, I would be out of here in a second.

     A screen popped up that I had never seen before, asking me to select one of my accounts….wait…I only thought I had one account.  So, I stared at that screen wondering which button I should press.  So, I pressed one.  The wrong one, because after the computer thought for a bit, it printed the words on the screen, “Your request is larger than your account balance.  Transaction completed.”

     So, I had to reach into my back pocket and pull out my card that I had quickly put away, insert it in the ATM, punch in my pin number, and try a different account.  This time my request was within reach of my balance, but I must have hit the wrong button, because instead of giving me money, the machine read, “Thank you.  Transaction complete.”

     Back to my back pocket to retrieve my card, which I re-inserted in the machine, punched in my pin number, accessed the right account, typed in the amount that I wanted….and….this time it said, “Processing transaction”.  In a moment my cash appeared in front of me.  I pulled in into my car….and quickly moved out of the spot that I had monopolized…..a line of four or five cars now behind me.

     Evidence of the truth of what I say every Sunday morning, “I confess that I am in bondage to sin and cannot free myself.” 

     “Forgive me, Lord.”  And God does!

Have a great week.

Pastor Jerry Nuernberger