The Bungee Cord. 2-9-26

Hello,

This week's Bungee Cord is the sermon I preached on Sunday. It seemed Bungee-worthy. If you want to see it live and in person, you can go to Bethel Evangelical Lutheran Church, Stahlstown, Pa's facebook page....and you can see it there. Have a great week.

God's grace and Peace, (ggap)

Pastor Jerry Nuernberger

Matthew 5:13-20

Feb. 2026

And Jesus says to you and me who have gathered around him this morning, “You are the salt of the earth…You are the light of the world.” This morning, Jesus is talking to you.

You…You…

• Not the influential and powerful people out there

• Not the rich and agenda driving people out there

• Not the rulers of nations and governmental officials out there

• Not the brilliant and technological wizards out there

• Not the famous and celebrated people out there

• Not the loud and blaring people out there

• Not the Super Bowl players and the Super T.V. Commercial makers out there

No….you….you who have gathered yourselves around Jesus this morning

You ARE

• Not you could be

• Not should be

• Not with a little time you will be

• Not if you want to be

• Not if you work hard enough to be

• Not if no one else wants to be

No….you ARE

Jesus says to you and me this morning who have gathered around him, “YOU ARE the salt of the earth….YOU ARE the light of the world.

I don’t know about you, but I am tired of wallowing around day to day in the foot-deep mud that I encounter every day. From the moment that I step out of bed to the moment that I close my eyes at night in sleep, I feel like each step I take is through one of those swampy fields where when I step down my feet get swallowed up in the mud and when I try and lift my feet up it is almost as if they have been suctioned cupped to the wall, pulling my boots right off of me. For months now, the news that I hear and the events that have engulfed me, have been like heavy downpours, drenching the already saturated pathway of my life to the point that every step saps me of my strength and will to move forward.

And this morning, as you and I have trudged here through this seemingly unending thunderstorm pouring down cruelty, inhumanity, brutality, chaos, bitterness, callousness, and arrogance like cats and dogs creating a mud-path of loneliness, fearfulness, anger, despair, and hopelessness swallowing people up….Jesus says to you and to me, “YOU Are the salt of the earth…YOU ARE the light of the world.

Salt in Jesus day wasn’t so much used for seasoning as it was used for preserving. I don’t know how it is done, but up until refrigeration, people used salt to keep meat from rotting. So when Jesus says that you and are the salt of the earth, Jesus is telling you and me that we are preservers of life. As Jesus said in John 10, “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.” In Baptism, Jesus has saturated your life with grace upon grace,

• and so when you go to your neighbor – maybe even a neighbor who you have not gotten along with very well, but who is suffocating in grief and say, “I’m here for you. If there is anything you need, give me a call, and I hope you don’t mind if I call you every once in a while to see how you’re doing….you are being salt.

• Or once, I found myself in 2009 when the ELCA sexuality study came out, when someone asked me, “What do you think about this gay thing?”, and I responded, “Well, I think they are people, too.” …. that was being salt.

And remember in Jesus’ day, when lights didn’t pollute the night sky, night was very dark.

• Some years ago, I was in the bush country of Africa where electricity had not reached that town. After an evening of dancing with the town around a fire, it was time to return to the hut in which I was staying, but it was so dark, I couldn’t see my hand at my side, let alone the path on which to walk. But as I stood there, frozen in the dark, I felt a hand take hold of mine…a hand that belonged to someone who had walked that pitch dark path all of his life, and he, like a light, let me home.

• When you reach out with your hand to someone in the pit of deepest darkness…someone who has been put down their whole life because of their failures, someone who has never been able to fit in and is lost in loneliness, someone who has sinned … maybe 70 x 7 times and you …and has made a mess of their life and you keep your hear open to them …not in an enabling way, but in a loving way, getting them the help that they need…you are being the light of the world.

Jesus says to you today, “You Are the salt of the earth…You are the light of the world,” because it is you that – not the powerful, not the famous, not the high and mighty….it is you that will come face to face with the people who walk and who live in the world around you. It will be your hand that they will feel. It will be your voice that they will hear. It will be your arms that will hold them up. Hands and voice and arms that in Baptism have been saturated with Christ’s love and mercy.

You…yes you…are…yes are…the salt of the earth and the light of the world. “So let your light so shine before others that they may see your good works and give glory to your father in heaven!”

This little light of mine. I’m gonna let it shine……..

Amen

 The Bungee Cord. 2-2-26

Hello,

It’s cold here…at least for here it is cold. Temperatures hovering in the single digits. My memories of life in South Dakota and Minnesota would be thankful for these temperatures in the middle of the winter!

Thursday, I had to have my brakes worked on, and so I drove to our mechanic in Latrobe, about 30 minutes away, expecting to wait there for a couple of hours. After a bit, it was discovered that the parts they ordered didn’t fit my car, and beyond that my brake fluid hose had developed a leak. So, I would have to leave my car there, which was fine with me. They kindly gave me a lift back to my house, and they drove back to their shop, leaving me outside my house in the cold. I walked up to the door, and it was locked. Apparently, my wife had left to run errands. Ooops….my house key was on my car key chain. I went to look for the hidden key, and it wasn’t there, and I remembered that it had been used a week or so ago and by its absence, it must not have been put back.

Fortunately, we live in the day of cellphones, so I called my wife, and she said she would be right home, which meant a half-hour or so. Our closest neighbors live a half mile away, so I decided that I would wait in the cab of our pickup, which was air temperature, 5 degrees. Even though I had a couple of layers on, the cold seeped its way to my skin, and I was cold! I tried to relax and tell myself that it wasn’t that cold. It didn’t work. I was very cold, and I started measuring the minutes…no, the seconds …. until my wife’s return. I’ll say this: I was elated when she arrived, and when she opened the door, I rushed to the woodburning stove, wallowing in the warmth!

The world can be a very cold place, not just when the snow falls and the winter wind blows, but also when harsh words spilling out of cold hearts swirl around us….when callous decisions are made and you are fearful, left out in the cold… when people you count on let you down, betray you, or just disappear and the blanket of care is torn off of you… when violence and arrogance, like a blizzard, sweep through cities and nations… when some people seem to get all the breaks and you seem to get none ….when drugs and hatred seep through the cracks in our lives and chill us to the bone.

I don’t know about you, but this winter seems to have been a colder winter than usual…not weather wise…but otherwise. Just sitting in my house, watching the news, I shiver.

One way that one might speak of the Christian faith is that we have a God who feels the cold of this world and is at work to warm it up. That is the whole point of Jesus life, death, and resurrection. Jesus came to warm up this world with warmth of God’s love. In this one man, Jesus, the Son of God, God flinted a spark of divine grace and mercy, igniting a fire by which all people might find warmth. And even though we, with our cold hearts, tried to extinguish that fire by snuffing it out on the cross, God showed the world that his power to warm was far greater than any power to chill. On Easter, that fire of warmth was rekindled when Jesus rose from the dead, and it is a fire that continues to burn.

When the world is the coldest, as it has been lately, I find myself eagerly making my way to church on Sunday morning….not to escape the cold….but rather to be warmed…warmed so that the chill of fear and despair might be soothed by hope….hope that like a blanket embraces me when grace is shown to me when I walk in the door, when peace takes hold of me when I sing and when I pray, when love covers my ears like ear muffs when scripture is read and taught, and when joy, like an icebreaker, reaches my heart when I receive the Lord’s Supper.

And when I am sufficiently warmed, I am inspired to bring that same warmth to those who shiver from the arctic cold of the word, wrapping them in the grace with which I have been embraced, and inviting them to come closer to the fire where deep warmth is found.

Martin Luther once said that evangelism (telling others about Jesus) is nothing more than one beggar telling another beggar where there is food. It occurs to me that one might also say, “Evangelism is nothing more than telling one person who was freezing telling another person who is freezing where there is warmth.”

Have a great week. Be warm.

God’s grace and peace, (ggap)

Pastor Jerry Nuernberger

 The Bungee Cord 1-25-26

Hello,

I am sad.

Over the course of my years of being a pastor, I have sat with people who are weeping. Often times they have said to me, “I’m sorry, Pastor,” apologizing for their tears. Without exception, my response to them is, “No need to apologize. Sad things are sad.” No matter how tragic or trivial the situation may appear to be to me, when a person is weeping , the situation is obviously deeply felt by the weeper. Sad things are sad.

When I say that I am sad, I do not find myself at the verge of tears. Rather I find myself moved to sadness by the things that are swirling around me. It saddens me to hear people count others as “casualties” or “collateral damage” rather than human beings. It saddens me to hear people name others as “enemy” and divide the world into “us” and “them”. It saddens me that human made borders seem to also be borders of care. It saddens me that the pain incurring way of dealing with things, “an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth”, seems to have morphed into an even more painful way of doing things, “two eyes for an eye, and I’ll punch your teeth out.” It saddens me to see kindness mocked at as being weak and naïve, and callousness applauded as a sign of strength. It saddens me to see people wielding shovels that dig holes of hate deeper and deeper, rather than to see those shovels being stored away in a shed because people have stopped digging. I am saddened when I look in the mirror and see that I, sadly, have a hand in the things that are going on around me that makes me sad.

What do I do with my sadness?

I have decided to share my sadness with you, the readers of the Bungee Cord. I do so not to create an online pity party where we might gather together to wallow in the state of things and wallow in our sadness. That does me, or you, any good.

Rather I share my sadness with you because I am tired of being sad, and I have come to know that fighting sadness alone is a losing battle

Sad things are sad, and I have come to see that there is a God who not only understands that but also feels it in the depths of God’s being. So deeply does God experience the sadness in what God sees rumbling through those who were created in the image of God, that God took upon himself, in his Son, Jesus, all the sad-creating things of this world on the cross and took them to the grave….forever. Like logs thrown into a roaring campfire, their future was to be powerless ashes, but out of their burning a great fire erupted…a great fire of hope…a great fire of alleluia’s and joy…a great fire that exploded out of the grave raising Jesus from the dead with power that erupted into the world with newness of life.

I share my sadness with you as a way of throwing all the tinder of my sadness into the blazing fire of Good Friday, inviting you to do the same, so that our combined sadness might fuel that fire into an ever more, all-consuming blazing fire of God’s Easter grace and mercy …. a fire with the power to transform all things into a new creation full of hope, peace, joy and love…where the lion lays down with the lamb, where spears are melted into pruning hooks, and where tears flow not from sadness but from joy because sad things will be no more.

Have a great week.

God’s grace and peace, (ggap)

Pastor Jerry Nuernberger

 The Bungee Cord

Hello,

Does God care about who will win the college football championship game tonight?

I do. I am hoping that Indiana will beat Miami. It’s not that I am anti-Miami or that I am a big Indiana fan, actually quite the opposite since Indiana crushed Illinois this fall in our game against them. But in this game, I find myself rooting for Indiana. Why? Well, it is always fun to see a cellar-dweller team rise out of nowhere, like a phoenix, suddenly coming to life. Indiana, as you may know, has lost more games in its history than any other major college team. Year after year it has dwelt among the dregs of the Big-10. Much like people asked of Jesus, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?”, the same, football wise, has been said of Indiana, “Can anything good come out of Indiana?”

Well, this year we may find out. I’ve been impressed with Indiana’s quarterback who seems to be a well-grounded person. When he won the Heisman Trophy, he acknowledged that the award was really a team award, and even more so credited his resiliency in sports and life to his mother who has been in a knock down battle with Multiple Sclerosis. When he speaks, he also gives glory to God, not so much in crediting God for his victories, but rather for God’s steadfast presence and blessings in life that have come his way. Interestingly, he even took the Heisman Trophy to show the priests in his hometown parish.

Although I have never heard it asked of him, “Does God care about who will win the college football championship game?”, it is my feeling that he would answer in the same manner as I, “No.”

Sometimes when I hear people talk about the way that God works in the world, it sounds like some people do think that God cares about football victories, as if God was on their side…seeking to reward them for their righteousness, their hard work, and their devotion. But as important as a football game might be to those who are playing or cheering , when I read the Bible, it seems that there are other things that bear far more import in God’s desires.

What might be more important than a football game? Surely the relationship of love and trust that is held between God and all people. So important is this to God that he sent his Son to take to the grave anything that might come between the world and God. Even as clearly, the Bible tells us that the plight of people is more important. The plight of the poor, the oppressed, the hungry, the naked, the imprisoned lie heavily on God’s heart. So personal are these plights that Jesus has said that whenever we reach out in Christlike care to such as these, we are reaching out to Christ, himself. The list of things superiorly important to God than a football game could go on and on, forever: peace between nations, care of the earth, hope for the dying, strength to battle despair, calm to overcome fear.

I have always thought of sports as great momentary diversions from the weight of the world. They give us something to stick out our necks for that really doesn’t matter so that when we encounter those things that really matter, we have had some practice. They give us a display of talent and ability that might lead us to use our talents and abilities in things that are of great consequence. They help us see that the good guy doesn’t always win, but those who have been trampled upon sometimes overcome their tramplers.

I’ll be watching the football game tonight, because I appreciate the diversion that it gives me. More importantly, however, I will be in church on Sunday, because I need the nourishment that it gives me to face the far more consequential things that I daily encounter and which are far dearer in the heart of God than a football game.

By the way, Indiana 35, Miami 24.

Have a great week.

God’s grace and peace, (ggap)

Pastor Jerry Nuernberger

 The Bungee Cord 1-12-26

Hello,

I walked into church yesterday, and I was caught off guard. Christmas was gone.

Gone were the trees and the decorations that adorned them. Gone were the garlands draped over the windows and doorways. Gone was the manger scene that sat near the altar. Gone were the trumpeting angels that hung near the cross. Gone were the advent wreath and its blue candles. Gone were the candelabras that lighted the main aisle. Gone were the banners that proclaimed the Christmas story. Gone. Christmas was gone.

What remained was the barren walls. What remained was the altar, the lectern and the pulpit clad in their normal clothes. What remained was the large cross that hangs on the stone wall in the front of the church. What remained was the baptismal font, unadorned. What remained was the un-candled pews and aisle. It was stark and bare.

As I considered what I walked into yesterday, it was a visible reminder of the rhythm of the life of the Christian faith. There are those moments in the life of faith that are full of splendor and magnificence, like Christmas and Easter, spiritual discoveries, and bonfires of joy. But most of the life of faith is plain, unadorned, and unremarkable. It is more like the weight training and conditioning that basketball teams fill their days with between games. It is more like the vacuuming and cleaning that is done to keep a house livable. It is more like the reading and studying that is done to pass a class. It is the prayers said before meals, the ride to the doctor given to an elderly neighbor, the hymns sung and the Bible heard week after week, the daily remembrance of your Baptism when you wash your face, and the blessings that you bring to the world through your vocation. The life of faith is more often stark and bare.

As a pastor, I strive to make sure that the jubilation of Christmas and Easter is powerfully palpable in our worship services, and it is my hope that the extravagance of grace that all who attend experience will ignite a roaring fire of God’s love for them, that that fire might be to the world a stubborn smoldering fire that won’t go out….that the red hot cinders of hope, peace, mercy and joy might be unextinguishable. Additionally, as a Pastor, I strive to make sure that every Sunday is like a new log placed on that fire so that when the splendor and magnificence is gone there still might be a place in this cold and chilling world where people might come together and warm their hands to love their neighbor, where people might fill their lungs with air that changes their coughing into singing, and where people might come and have their shivering transformed into thanks and praise.

As I look back on the great gala of Christmas, I find myself thankful for the burst of God’s grace that exploded around me. And as I look forward into the weeks ahead, I find myself thankful for the campfire around which I can always find divine warmth when life is stark and bare.

Have a great week.

God’s grace and peace, (ggap)

Pastor Jerry Nuernberger

 The Bungee Cord

Hello,

This past Saturday, I went to see the Fighting Illini basketball team beat Penn State. Oskeewowow!

But I almost missed it.

My fellow college friend from my days at the University of Illinois, Mark Hoffman, lives in the Gettysburg area, and we zoom at halftime of basketball and football games to either prepare ourselves for a second half let-down, or a rousing victory. Earlier this fall I checked the Illinois baskeball schedule and saw that we (Illinois!) were playing Penn State on Jan. 3, an away game for us. We decided that we should break out our orange and blue and go to the game. So, I bought tickets and reserved a Hotel at State College, Pennsylvania.

Last week at the half-time of our football victory (Oskeewowow!) we finalized our plans to meet at State College at the hotel around 4 in the afternoon, eat, and then go to the game. Later that night at 11:00 or so, I got a text from Mark, “THE GAME IS IN PHILADEPLPIA!” He had heard some comment on a sports broadcast that mentioned in passing that the Illinois/Penn State baskeball game was going to be played at a legendary arena in Philadelphia!

So, I got my computer out and looked up the Illinois schedule and it said, “ILLINOIS AT PENN STATE”, and then I noticed in very small letters in the neighboring column, “To be played at the Palestra in Philadelphia”. So, when I woke up in the morning, I called my friend and discovered we were able to change our plans, and that I would instead drive to his house and go to Philly from there, and come back to his house late at night after the game. And that is what happened.

Good thing that he found out that the venue was not at Penn State, as we had expected. Otherwise, we would have found ourselves at Penn State, banging on the door of the arena wondering where everyone was, and we would have missed the thrill and the wonder of going to see the Illini play.

My near miss basketball experience got me to thinking about how often this sort of thing happens, and unlike me with the Illini, we find ourselves in the wrong place and missing what we had hoped to be part of.

When Sunday morning comes the schedule that the world prints in all capital letters that this is a time for peace, renewal, family relationship building, enjoyment, and relaxation…..and in big letters it says that the venue for these things are in a Lazy-boy chair drinking a couple of cups of coffee, under warm covers where you can enjoy a few extra winks and casually read a good book, or gather around a table with the family over a hearty brunch, or getting ready for having people over to watch the Steelers (what a slippery win it was last night for them!), or just flying by the seat of your pants with nothing planned….and it is true that a degree of what each venue promised might be found there…much like a degree of what we had hoped to find at the Penn State arena if we had gotten and discovered an intramural basketball game going on….the fact of the matter is that all those things that we hope to experience on Sunday morning are really being played out in a different place: at church.

Yes….at church! If you look closely at the schedule that the world puts in front of you every Sunday morning, you’ll see in the neighboring column announcing the day’s events, “To be played out in church”. Every Sunday in the legendary arena of the church you will be enveloped in a peace that passes all human understanding as you gather to be caught up in praise to God who incredibly unconditionally loves you. Every Sunday in the legendary arena of the church you will be blanketed by the love of those around you as the unparallelled page turner of grace is read amongst you. Every Sunday in the legendary arena of the church you will gather around an eternal family at the Lord’s table and be fed a heal that will transform your heart. Every Sunday at the legendary arena of the church you will be part of a victory celebration that would make a Steelers Super Bowl championship seem less thrilling than the pop of a snap gun. And every Sunday morning at the legendary arena of the church you can find yourself raised up as on eagle’s wings as God holds you in the palm of his hand.

Like my friend’s 11:00 p.m. text, although the world may direct you elsewhere, I am sending you this Bungee Cord to tell you that the game that you are wanting to experience will actually be played at church this Sunday! Alleluia!

Have a great week.

God’s grace and peace, (ggap)

Pastor Jerry Nuernberger

 The Bungee Cord. 12-29-25

Hello,

Did you ever notice that there is no “should” in Christmas. The story of Christmas, at least the Biblical story of Christmas, is one of sheer gift.

I suspect that there has been a time, or times in your life when someone has given you something, and when that has happened to you, if that which has been given to you is of significant value, (tickets to an Illinois basketball game, a piece of jewelry that you had saved up for years to buy, a world famous doctor who makes an appointment for you) you say to the giver, “I should give you something for this.” And the giver puts out their hand like a traffic cop yelling stop, says, “No, No. Just take it.”

Moments like that are the things upon which relationships are made and built. In this transactional world in which we live, a world in which backs are scratched but hearts are left untouched, gifts given as sheer gift are pilons for a skyscraper sized relationship that no wind, quake or storm can topple. When a parent says to a child, “No matter what you do, you will always be my child,” that child can step into the trap filled world with confidence and hope. When a person says to another, “Here’s my telephone number. You call me no matter what time of the day it is, even the middle of the night, and I’ll be there for you,” that is like sealing a friendship with superglue. “Just take it.”

Such gifts are not like poker chips to be cashed in when the giver needs help. Such gifts are not shackles of never ending duty and allegiance. They are not given out of guilt or pity. They are acts of love, and to say, “I should give you for this,” diminishes the degree of love in which they are given.

When God gave you and me the gift of Jesus, his Son, God’s desire was to do only one thing, love us. God was not looking for some compensation for his generosity. God was not hoping to make us permanently carry a debt to him. As a matter of fact, to say to God, “I should give you something for this,” would be an affront to the motivation in God’s heart that led God to give us a gift of such personal worth to God. “Just take it.”

Over and over again, the Bible tells us that God has given us Jesus unconditionally. Such giving may trigger a profound “Thank you!” from us, but more so God means it to ever more deeply wrap us in his embrace, and when that happens we are changed….changed into people who are driven by being loved. Changed from people who look what they can get out of people, to look how they can do as God does, abundantly fill people. Changed from people who ask others, “What have you done for me, lately?”, to people who never stop asking others, “What can I do for you.” Changed from people who seek to do God’s will out of duty and obligation, to people who simply live their lives as who they are, beloved Children of God.

As the world has gotten ahold of the Christmas story, the world always adds a “should” to it, but my hope is that this Bungee Cord will open your ears to the announcement of the Bethlehem angels,

10 But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid, for see, I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: 11 to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah,[b] the Lord. 12 This will be a sign for you: you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger.” 13 And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host,[c] praising God and saying,14 “Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace among those whom he favors!”[d] (Luke 2)

Notice….there is no “should”.

Have a great week.

God’s grace and peace, (ggap)

Pastor Jerry Nuernberger