Bungee Cord   6-25-15

Hello,

     During these summer months I have been concluding our worship service with a simple song that I learned as a kid, a song that put the words of John 16:33 to music:

“These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.”

     I don’t know that it is any more dangerous a world to live in today than it ever has been, but I do believe that the modern communications with which we live make us aware of just how dangerous the world is.  We see the violence that takes place around the world and in our own back yards.  We hear the hatred spewing from places we don’t even know where they are on the globe, and we hear it spewing from places we know all too well.  We are told of cataclysmic changes going on in our environment that may change our world forever.  Economies and trusted institutions, seem to be falling apart.

     We might remember that when Jesus said these words to his disciples they were living in a country where the road into the city might be lined, not with palm trees, but with crucifixions.  Roman soldiers could beat your door down and imprison you for no cause.  Famines and droughts were yearly events causing hoards of children and old folks to die.  A scratch could easily be fatal, and the masses found delight in watching gladiators fight to the death.  Positions of power, governmental and religious, were regularly bought and sold.

     If Jesus could tell the people who first heard these words that they could “be of good cheer” as they faced their world, surely he would say to us as we face our world that we can “be of good cheer” as well.  And what is the catalyst for the good cheer that can take hold of our hearts?.....not that the world is a better place….not that we are more powerful than they….not that we are wiser….but that what Jesus did in that world still applies to this world.  “I have overcome the world.”

     When Jesus screamed from the cross, “It is finished!”, what was the “it”?  Well, the “it” was hatred’s hold on people’s hearts, sin’s claim on people’s lives, fear’s crushing weight of suffocation, and the deadly pull of arrogance and pride.  All those things drove Jesus to the cross, they all died on the cross when Jesus died, and when Jesus stepped out of the Easter tomb they all could be heard crumbling under his feet.

     Sure, they still spit and sputter, sometimes like a powerful flatulent, but their impact is fleeting.  Jesus has overcome them.  The gust of God’s grace from the cross and the tomb has blown them all away.  Over and over again we see how forgiveness, love and mercy are at work transforming the world in a victory march that cannot be stopped.

     Sometimes you and I might be knocked down by the bullying forces of evil, but know this, there is a thundering noise of feet trampling towards us.  Not the feet of elephants to trample us, but the feet of an army of the beloved of God to lift you back up on your feet, surround you with his love and mercy, and walk side by side with you into this dangerous world in which we live. 

     And when that happens there will be an explosion of God’s grace that will erupt in your life, transforming you into one who can “be of good cheer.”

Have a great week.

God’s grace and peace, (ggap)

Pastor Jerry Nuernberger

Bungee Cord 7-18-16

Hello

     Last week  I wrote about Miss Nicklebee, our sweet, skittish, and cuddly outdoor cat (you can find it on my blog: 1johnthreeone.blogspot.com), and what I might learn from her in my relationship to God.  This week, her polar opposite and companion in woodshed cohabitation, Attaboy.

      He and Miss Nicklebee were supposed to be from the same litter, but you’ld never guess so from the way he looks to the way he acts.   Attaboy is a completely white furred cat except for his tail, which is raccoon-like in color.  He rarely spends time in the shelter of the shed.  Instead, he is always on the prowl making his presence known on our neighbors’ land as well as ours.  He seems to have no fear as he prances his way right up to our dog, Duncan, who he greets by rising up on his back legs and caressing Duncan’s neck with his head. (You may remember that Duncan nearly killed Miss Nicklebee.)  He is a bit Hollywood in his personal perception, assuming that everyone that he sees is someone who wants his autograph.  Definitely not skittish.  He loves to be picked up and petted.

     Thing is, though, when you pick him up he is every bit in motion as he is in his perpetual prowling life.  Laps, for him, are not things to sit upon, but rather platforms to pace upon.  He doesn’t cuddle, but rather does to me what he does to Duncan, caressing my cheek with the fur between his ears.  No matter my attempts to get him to relax in my arms, he does not.  He keeps on churning and whirling.  Perfect, purring peace is not something that Attaboy has ever captured.  There’s a restlessness in Attaboy that never seems to be quelled.

     I see those Attaboy traits often, if not usually, in me.  I, like he with me, delight to see God wandering around in my life, and I find myself wagging my tail in delight as he stoops down to pick me up.  But once in his embrace, I don’t rest calmly and at ease.   My mind still churns and spins trying to hold things together, myself.  I pace back and forth in nervousness and anxiety.  I am reluctant to simply relax, restlessness like ADHD in my soul.

     Last week I made note that I might learn from Miss Nicklebee what it means to melt in the graceful embrace of God.   From Attaboy and his relationship to me, I hope to incarnate this truth: God does not embrace me for what it does to God, but what it does to me.  When Miss Nicklebee melts in my lap, my heart melts, too.  That does not happen when Attaboy is in my lap….but nevertheless, I still pick him up and gladly take him for who he is…..and if I can do that with an outdoor cat who lives in my wood shed, certainly I can count on God doing that with me for whom he has made my home in his heart.  Restlessness and roaming do not cool my heart to Attaboy….I can count, therefore, that neither will they cool God’s heart to me.

     And with that assuredness, I can have hope….hope that the gentle grace of God will slowly and suredly assuage my restlessness, and purr-fect peace will indeed take hold of my soul, and I will rest, like Miss Nicklebee, in the abiding peace of being “dandled” on the lap of God.

Have a great week.

God’s grace and peace, (ggap)

Pastor Jerry Nuernberger

Bungee Cord 7-11-16

Hello,

     Amongst the menagerie that lives with us atop our hill are two outside cats.  My wife acquired them a couple of years ago from one of her client’s whose home was in need of getting rid of a couple of kittens.  Miss Nicklebee and Attaboy, their names.   Sharing our home site together, I have gotten to know them, and they have gotten to know me, and in this growing mutual understanding, I have come to see that their relationship with me much mirrors my relationship with God.

     Miss Nicklebee is the slighter of the two cats, her coat a brown camouflage.  Life has treated her a bit roughly (my wife pried her from the jaws of our dog), and she has become a bit skittish around me.  She often hides in recessed corners of the woodshed that is their home, keeping herself just beyond my reach, but close enough to sniff my hand when I raise it near her.  When she ventures out of her fortress, she often makes her way close to me as if she wants to be picked up or petted, but as soon as I bend over, she darts off, outside my reach.  She is hard to catch.

     But when I do catch her and gather her up in my arms, she melts.  Her skittishness transforms into complete confidence and trust.  She delights in being held belly-up and having her tummy scratched.  She purrs and hums in perfect peace….all’s well.

    When it comes to my relationship with God, I, like Miss Nicklebee can be a bit skittish.  I, too, find myself sheltering in what seems like safe refuges of my own discerning, close enough for God to reach out to me, but distant enough for me to cautiously sniff and smell and avoid God’s grasp.  And when I venture out from the shelters of my making, I, too, mimic Miss Nicklebee’s “teasing” of God, venturing close, but darting away when God stoops down to gather me up.  I, too, can be pretty hard to catch.

     And when God catches me….and God always does….I find myself doing just what Miss Nicklebee does in my grasp: spontaneously purring, gracefully resting, full of trust in the one holding me that I am glad to recline in a worldly venerable position.  That’s what happens to me when God catches me at the communion table and feeds me extravagantly with his tangible grace.  That is what happens to me when I get caught up in worship and song.  That is what happens to me when God’s promises overwhelm my fears when God catches hold of me in prayer.  In God’s gracious embrace….I melt.

     Given the wonder of what happens to Miss Nicklebee when she is in my arms, you would think she would learn not to skittishly avoid my grasp.  I don’t know why she continues in skittish fear. 

     Given the wonder of what happens to me when I am in God’s embrace, you would think that I would, likewise, learn to not to skittishly avoid God’s grasp.  Why do I continue in skittish fear?  Why?  God, melt my heart so it will no longer be so.

     Next week….Attaboy.

Have a great week!

God’s grace and peace (ggap)

Pastor Jerry Nuernberger

Bungee Cord 7-4-16

Hello,

     Yesterday I learned that when it comes to Baptism, hair matters.

     For us Lutheran Christians, Baptism is a big deal…a real big deal, so whenever I get to be part of God’s life giving grace, I consider it one of the greatest honors of my vocation of being a pastor.  Most often , for us, Baptism happens at a very young age, providing a baseline of divine grace for a person’s life, but when that doesn’t happen it is a delight to douse an adult with the horizon opening promises of God.

     Well, yesterday was one of those days.  A man in his 40’s was baptized.  Midway through the service, the man came forward to the font (the piece of church furniture that holds the bowl-full of water).  He was somewhat formally dressed for the occasion with a dress shirt and a tie.  After some preparatory scripture readings and responses to faith-based questions, I motioned to him that now was the time for him to lean over the font to be baptized.  We Lutherans are not concerned about the amount of water used in Baptism, but the practice in our church is to use a seashell to gather and apply the water on the person’s head.  So, I dipped the shell into the water and filled it about half-full, the amount that I gather up for children and adults, alike.

     I lifted the shell over his head which was face down over the font, and I said as I poured the water, “I baptize you in the name of the Father,”…..and the water streamed down his forehead, over his nose, past his chin, and drenched his tie and shirt.

     With two more pours to go, I got a bit worried.  I have baptized many adults in the same manner, and never has such drenching of clothing taken place.  Did I overfill the shell with water?  I said to him with a bit of embarrassment in my voice, “I am really getting you wet.”

     Not to be daunted, I dipped the shell into the water again, being careful to only fill it halfway.  “And in the name of the Son,” and I poured, creating the same drenching  of his face, shirt, and tie.  The man did not seem as surprised as I was at the shower he was getting, so I dipped the shell in the water for the third time, filled it halfway with water, and I poured it over his head as I said, “and in the name of the Holy Spirit.”  And again, the water spilled its way to his shirt and tie.

     He lifted his head from the font….and he was wet!  Seeing the soaking that I had made of his shirt and tie, I out of fear that I had misapplied the water, apologized for dousing him so.  Fortunately, he was not bothered by his liturgical shower, and we finished the Baptismal event with the joy and wonder of which his Baptism was infused.

     After everything was completed, I wondered why things went so drenchingly ….and then it occurred to me.  This man sported a completely shaved head.  Hairless heads are not so unusual when I have baptized infants, but since infants are held face up over the font, the water simply flows back into the font over their back tilted heads.  And for all the rest of the adults that I have baptized, my recollection is that their heads were full of hair…hair that gathered up the water and created a pathway for it to flow back into the font.

     When it comes to Baptism, hair matters.

     At least it matters to the one who pours the water.  But of this I am sure: it doesn’t matter to God.  When Jesus gave his command, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,” he did not put any hairline requirements on his directive….nor any line in the sand of good deeds or bad….nor any line of nation or race.  I may have gotten upset with the unintended drenching that I gave to that man who was baptized yesterday, but I am quite certain that all God was concerned about was that his life-giving promises were felt and heard by one whom he so loves that Jesus, the Son of God, gave his life for.

Have a great week!

God’s grace and peace, (ggap)

Pastor Jerry Nuernberger

Bungee Cord 6-27-16

Hello,

     A fact that many may not know about me: I was a skate-boarder.

     In elementary school I owned a skateboard, as did many of my friends.  My skating was in the nascent years of skateboarding.  My skateboard did not resemble at all the long, wide skateboards of today.   Mine looked more like a flattened loaf of Italian bread with wheels underneath.  It was just big enough to get both feet on it, and it was not designed for all the trick-doing that modern skateboarders do.  It worked well to roll along sidewalks, but the main thing that we did with our skateboard was to find a paved hill…..a street, or such…..and bomb down the hill with reckless abandon.

     The best hill was the blacktopped walk that led from the elementary school, Madison School, down to the blacktopped play area that housed the basketball courts.  My recollection of that hill is that it was very steep, 60 degrees at least (well, maybe that is a bit of an exaggeration).  We would line up on top of the hill, sequentially set our skateboards down on the pavement, and with one foot on the board and the other foot providing propulsion, we would see who could keep balanced atop their skateboard while most rapidly bombing down the hill.  Those of greater skateboarding efficiency would serpentine their way down the hill, shifting their weight from side to side.  Many a time balance would be lost and someone would go tumbling off their skateboard….scraping their hands and knees on the pavement and rolling like a rolling pin on the adjacent grass.  Of course, no one had a helmet or pads…they didn’t exist in those days.

     Looking back on it, it seems a little crazy to plunge down those hills, almost inviting bodily injury.  Without knowing it them, with my adult-hindsighted evaluation now, I would say that for the sake of the thrill and challenge, we deemed the pain and suffering that could happen well worth the risk of taking.  Of course, we well underestimated the degree of pain and suffering that could actually occur.

     The Bible characterizes Jesus in images of his day: shepherd, sower of seeds, mother hen gathering in chicks.  I think it would be appropriate to update those images and add “Skateboarder”.  Reading the Bible, I see Jesus plunging headlong down steep hills, risking life and limb all for the sake of the thrill of bringing hope to the despairing, life to the lifeless, forgiveness to the outcast sinners, and peace to the fearful.  Many people thought him crazy to descend so recklessly into people’s lives, yet even after having been warned of the risk, he intently set his face down the hill.  Jesus was akin to the skateboarders of my youth.

     Not that caution and carefulness are all bad, but in our world today where  helmets, pads, seatbelts, and carseats are the norm, it seems to me that the image of Jesus as Skateboarder is a good one for us to remember.  When Jesus says to us, “Follow me.”,  he is saying that standing on top of a hill, one foot on his skateboard and the other propelling him on his way.  “Safety First” was not his slogan….and good thing it wasn’t, because if that was his slogan, where would I be?  Hopelessly despairing….lifelessly existing…..abandoned in my sin….shattered in fear….dying at the bottom of the hill which I had rolled down.

     So, if you’re down at the bottom of the hill, exhausted from the tumble that you have taken, here’s good news.  Jesus is already on his skateboard, and with the thrill and challenge of making his way to you with his saving grace, he is waving on those who bear his name (Christian) to join him….risking with him…to bomb down that hill and to share in the thrill of reaching you with God’s saving grace and mercy!           

     Have a great week!

God’s grace and peace, (ggap)

Pastor Jerry Nuernberger

Bungee Cord 6-20-16

Hello,

Let it be known that my wife went away for the weekend, and all of our chickens were alive when she returned home.

Yes, we are chicken farmers again.  As you may recall, in the fall our three surviving chickens became stew fodder, their egg laying days being over.  After a peaceful chickenless winter, eight new chicks took their home at our home.  We got them at only a day after they broke out of their shells, and now, some months later they have become nearly full-size chickens.  They have survived Duncan’s (our dog) drooling gaze.  They have survived chilly nights. They have survived the stalking of four fox pups that we discovered lurking in the brush……and they have survived Kate’s three day absence and my three day care-taking assignment. (You may remember that our previous flock of chickens were not so fortunate in all these cases.)

But, I have to confess that their lifespan nearly reached its culmination when my wife was away.  It happened when I went out to feed them Saturday morning.  Connected to their coop is a completely enclosed chicken-wire pen that has a door to the free world for the chickens to go in and out, and a hatch on the top that allows a person to reach in and get the water dispenser for refilling.  My plan for the chickens’ survival was to keep them in the pen during Kate’s absence.  Unfortunately, I did not know the chickens well enough for my plan to work.

I opened up the hatch and noticed their water dispenser needed to be refilled.  So, I took it off its hook and made my way to the house to fill it from the spigot.  When I returned with the newly fill water dispenser I was aghast at what I saw.  Two of the chickens had flown through the open hatch and were strolling around in the danger-filled world.  My attempts to corral them were unsuccessful as they took flight to get around me.  Being the chicken genius that I am, I thought that if I opened the door to the pen, they would hear their chicken friends calling them back and they would go back in…..wrong!  No, their chicken friends heard the call of the wild and they charged out the open door to join the two escapees.

Determined that I would not be guilty of chicken neglect, I took a seat on my porch and waited out their wanderlust, hoping they would return to the pen by themselves….and so they did after about an hour of scratching and pecking the ground.

With this experience behind me, I am glad, as a sort of rebellious chicken, myself when I read from the book of John; ¹¹“I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. ¹²The hired hand, who is not the shepherd and does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and runs away—and the wolf snatches them and scatters them. ¹³The hired hand runs away because a hired hand does not care for the sheep. ¹⁴I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me, ¹⁵just as the Father knows me and I know the Father. And I lay down my life for the sheep.”

Good thing that Jesus knows how to take care of his “chickens” better than I do!

Have a great week.

God’s grace and peace, (ggap)

Pastor Jerry Nuernberger

Bungee Cord 6-13-16

Hello,

     I didn’t hear the news yesterday morning when I woke up to get ready to go to worship/work.  So, I didn’t know about the shooting in Orlando.  One of my parishoners mentioned it to me as I greeted her outside, but the conversation was short and I didn’t capture the horror of the events.  When I got home after church I found out what happened.

What does one say….what does one do?

Interestingly enough, the appointed Gospel lesson yesterday was Luke 7:36-50, the story of Jesus’ encounter with two people: one person who was known as a “sinner”, and another person who was well known as one who was not.  As I studied these verses from Scripture, it became clear to me that the point that Jesus was making  as he interacted with these two people is that one of these people understood the truth of who they were and the other did not.  The one who was called a “sinner”  saw the pain that sin was bringing to that person’s life and the community, so that person went to Jesus to do something about that sin.  The other person, who thought himself to be sinless, didn’t see any pain emanating into the world from him, and so he didn’t go to Jesus in hopes of having his life transformed.  Instead he pointed his finger at others: Jesus and that “sinner”.  Jesus, in response, applauded the “sinner” and told the “sinless” man how blind he was.

Thus the point of my sermon: none of us is sinless and Jesus welcomes with transforming grace those who seek to do something about their sins.

Eventhough I didn’t know the depth of the tragedy which was inflicted in Orlando, I would say that my sermon is what I would have said to this horrific event, and what I would say what one can do.  Although the natural response might be to look at the sin in others (and certainly there is sin enough in everyone for us to see), a more productive and Christ-directed response would be to take an honest look at ourselves and seek to do something about the pain and suffering that our sins bring into our lives and the lives of others.

The pain that the Orlando shooter inflicted upon the world is far too clear and needs to be clearly addressed, and I will leave it to those who have the power and authority to address it to do so.  But here is what I am going to do:  I am going to shine the light of truth on my life so that I can see the pain and suffering that I add to this world.  My selfish thoughts.  My self-preserving fears.  My myopic vision.  My calloused skin and heart.  And I will go to the one who I trust will use the cross of Good Friday and the empty tomb of Easter to transform me into one who might be an agent of peace and compassion in my corner of the world, and as that one tosses me into the world that I might create a ripple of God’s transforming grace that will grow into a tsunamic wave of divine peace and compassion as all those who bear Christ’s name do the same.

I hope that what I am saying here is not seen capitalizing of an act of unspeakable pain to advance the Christian faith, as if to say that if everyone was Christian things like this would never happen.  In fact, I don’t believe that is true, for I know the sin that still resides in my heart, and the hearts of all people, that often escapes my heart….sin that will fester and grow lest I take an honest look at it and do something about it.  And so, that is what I will do, and invite all who are named Christian to do.  It is my hope and prayer that when we who are Christian do this we might be part of the balm of healing that my Christian faith tells me is why God sent his Son into the world and what God’s desire is for all the world.

Have a great week.

God’s grace and peace, (ggap)

Pastor Jerry Nuernberger