Bungee Cord 1-16-17

Hello,

     I wonder how many people do not come to worship on Sunday morning because they fear the offering basket.  The way that we collect offerings on Sunday mornings is a rather public display, and I wonder if putting our offerings in a passed basket isn’t a bit intimidating, intimidating enough to keep some away from worship.  True, we use envelopes so as to decrease the public-ness of the event, but still the one who puts their envelope in the basket knows what has been placed there.

     I wonder if some who find themselves unable to put much in the offering plate find the feelings of their situation aversive enough to keep them from facing them.  After all, who wants to feel like they aren’t pulling their weight?  Who wants to feel the world’s judgment of failure for not having succeeded in the American Dream of financial success?  Who wants to look into the dark abyss of debt that has had the gravitational pull of a black hole?  Who wants to have to justify to themselves the priorities one has made in life?  I fear that these sorts of feelings well up in folks when they think about coming to church and having to have that offering plate pass in front of them.

     Well, if you find yourself thus deterred from coming to church, hear this:  God does not want you for your money.  God wants you.  God is like a parent of a teenager who hasn’t been seen in a couple of days and comes home.  God wants to embrace you with a hug that comes from the heart. God is like the parent of a newly licensed driver who receives a phone call from that child saying that he’s been in an accident, and all that parent is concerned about is that the child is okay.  That is all that God has on his mind.  God is like the parent who sees thugs dragging off an adult child, and cries out, “Take me!”.  That is the way God is.

     God, because God loves you, doesn’t want you for your money.  God wants you.

     I believe with all of my heart, that the church is not an institution that is trying to make money, or even an institution that is trying to stay fiscally afloat.  I believe that the church is the place where God is at work changing lives with the power of God’s love.  Love so powerful that it forgives even those for whom the world has no forgiveness.  Love so powerful that it draws itself into the most fearful and scary situations from which any sane person would turn and run away.  Love so powerful that God invests himself completely and fully no matter how often a person fails or how terrible that failure might be.  No church is perfect, but I know that as the pastor of the church have been called to lead and serve, this is the sort of perfection for which I believe God would have us strive.

     God, because God loves you, doesn’t want you for your money.  God wants you.

     So what about that offering plate that might feel so intimidating?

     When I was just starting out as a pastor, nearly 34 years ago, I went to a seminar on congregational offerings that has impacted me and my ministry ever since.  At that seminar, I learned that when the Bible speaks of giving an offering, the Bible notes only one motivation:  thanks.  Not duty.  Not obligation.  Not dues.  Not shared responsibility.  Not for a cause or concern.  The only motivation that the Bible notes for the giving of one’s offering is thanks.

     Thanks to God.  Thanks for God’s love that God would spare nothing so that God might embrace you with uncompromising, unfaltering, unstoppable, unending, unyielding love.  Because God loves you, all God wants is you.   And God has tangibly given you all of his love in Jesus.  What you place in that offering basket is the tangible way for you  to say “thank you”.

     So, I hope that if it is the case, that the offering basket has been an intimidating deterrent, keeping you from experiencing the life changing love that God turns up the heat on in Sunday morning worship, then know this.  God doesn’t want you for your money.  God wants you.

     If you are in worship on Sunday morning, I believe that God is very thankful.   So come.   And when the offering plate comes by, may whatever you drop in it simply be this, “Thank you, God.”

Have a great week.

God’s grace and peace, (ggap)

Pastor Jerry Nuernberger

The Bungee Cord 1-9-17

Hello,

     For those of us Christians who follow the liturgical calendar, yesterday was the Sunday closest to the day Epiphany.  Epiphany?  The word means, “making known”, and it marks the day of the arrival of the Wise Men to the infant Jesus.  Epiphany always falls twelve days after Christmas, thus the basis of the memory challenging Christmas Carol, “The Twelve Days of Christmas”.  As the Bible story goes, the Wise Men who traveled from afar, were led by a star to discover the one who was the light of the world.

     So, Epiphany is all about light.

     At our church we invite children to bring their offerings to the front of the church and place it in the “Thank You Jesus” jar.  Personally, I find it refreshingly delightful to see the kids gladly  hopping out of their pews, and with unbridled enthusiasm, scurry their way to the front of the church and drop their offering in the brightly decorated jar.  It is a sharp contrast from the rather emotionless, and sometimes reluctant offering giving of the adults who pan-faced pass the offering plates to one another sitting in the pews.

     In Lutheran churches, the pastor prepares the communion table while the offering is collected, and so I often miss the little occurrences that transpire as the offering is collected.  But yesterday, something happened so brazen that I couldn’t help but see it in the corner of my eye.

     Amid the stream of kids coming forward to put there offering in the “Thank You Jesus” jar, I saw some blinking lights, akin to hazard lights flashing on the highway.  I looked up from my prescribed duties and discovered the source of the blinking: a young elementary boy whose shoes had chasing lights flashing around the perimeter of their soles and heels.  Red.  Green. Yellow.  Blue.

     Later in the service, when he came up to receive his altar blessing, I noticed that his shoes were no longer blinking their lights, and since he was the last one at the communion table, I had a moment to ask him, “What happened to your blinking lights on your shoes?”

     He reached down and pushed a button on the top of the tongue (technology!), and as if he was a police car driver, his shoes lit up with blinking fury.  I said to him, “When the service is over, could you turn your shoes back on and come to the front with me?”  He nodded.

     So when communion had finished and it was time for the benediction, I altered my normal procedure, and I said, “This morning, I noticed that there was one person who came appropriately dressed for Epiphany,” and I named his name.  And as I invited him up to the front and he ran up the center aisle, the congregation began to giggle, as they saw the blinking of lights around his feet.  “On this day,” I continued, “on Epiphany we, like the Wise Men are blessed to gaze upon the one who is the light of the world, and we, also like they, are blessed to carry that light out into the world.”  The very thing that was being shown to us by this little boy’s shoes.

     He stood in front of me with his hands outstretched, just like mine, as I sang the benediction, his feet blinking away.  The benediction complete, I told him to go back to his grandmother who was awaiting him at the back of the church.  The organ kicked into the closing hymn, and I followed the choir to the center door at the rear of the church, where I had the young boy join me. 

     “Have a great day,” I always say to everyone who empowered by the grace of God leaves worship, and so I told him to say the same to everyone as he shook their hands, too.

     Somehow, I am certain, that everyone who shook his hand would have exactly what he had offered them.  A great day, seeing that they, like he, had been enlightened with the light of Christ and blessed to carry it out into the world!

Have a great week.

God’s grace and peace, (ggap)

Pastor Jerry Nuernberger

The Bungee Cord 1-2-17

Hello,

     A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about our new adventure into puppy-land.  Well, we are fully involved in it now.  On December 21^st we drove to Lexington, Kentucky and brought home our 8 week old Gordon Setter puppy, McMahon.

He is adorable….and incorrigible.  Despite the fact that he has to be taken outside every 30 minutes to do his business, or else he does his business where his business is not wanted…despite the fact that he whimpers and whines in the middle of the night because of business urges….despite the fact that he gnaws on everything (most interested in fingers)…despite the fact that he seeks out electric cords so we can’t let him out of our sight…despite the fact that he wants the particular toy that our 9 year old dog has causing an explosion of growling…despite the fact he doesn’t sit still any longer than 10 seconds…despite it all…….he still melts my heart.

It is funny to watch him hunt the chickens.  He doesn’t know quite what they are, and he often loses his balance when he tries to point.  It is fun to watch his ears, that are so big that they get half wet when he drinks water, flop when he clumbsily runs.  It is fun to watch him pounce on a ball then bounce away from it and pounce on it again.  It is fun to have him cuddle on your lap when he has worn himself out and sleep as though all is right in the world.  There are fun things about him, but I have to admit, even if there were fewer fun things, he would still melt my heart.

All in all, McMahon has helped me in things far deeper and more important.  I have come to believe in and be thankful for the love that God has for me, despite who I am.  I have come to see that if I, as a flawed human, can find it in my heart to love one who is pestering as an eight week old puppy, God just might be able to find the same in his heart for me, though my unrelenting gnawing on him and his world.   What McMahon has stirred up in my heart has given me a clearer vision of the Calvary cross, a love that led God to take on death so that death could never take me.

I can’t tell you why McMahon melts my heart, but he does.  Likewise, I can’t tell you why I (and you) melt God’s heart, but the cross is the proof that you and I do.  I know that the next time that McMahon pees in my house, even if he does so 7 times 70, I will forgive him.  Makes me trust with surer certainty and more appreciative thanks that God will do the same for me when I mess up, even when I do so 7 times 70 times.

Ooops….McMahon has just wandered out of my sight!

Have a great week.

God’s grace and peace, (ggap)

Pastor Jerry Nuernberger