The Bungee Cord  3-10-13

Hello,

     We had a visitor in church today.  Actually, we regularly, and thankfully, have visitors in our worship services.  Today’s visitor was far more memorable than the usual.

     I was saying “hi” to people and shaking their hands as they sat sparsely in the pews before our 8:15 service when I noticed a man sitting on the far aisle who I didn’t recognize.  The closer I got to him, the more unfamiliar he looked.  He was wearing a worn and dirtied Pittsburgh Steelers jacket, his hair was unkempt, his beard was several days unshaven.  He regularly adjusted his thick black rimmed glasses, and with each adjustment of his glasses he wiped his nose with the back of his hand.  His clothes were worn and they appeared in need of a good wash.  He was a tall man, and he had a sort of confused look in his eyes.

     “Good morning,” I said to him and extended my hand to him in welcome, noticing a small, worn out boom-box placed next to him.   “I don’t think that I recognize you,” I then said, my standard follow up to those whose faces I cannot place.

     He told me his name, and said that he was “new to here”.  “Well,” I said, “I am glad that you came this morning.  Welcome.”

     That was about the extent of my pre-service conversation with him, and as the service progressed, I could see that he was a bit lost in the sometimes confusing order of worship (liturgy) that we Lutherans engage in.  I noticed that he fumbled between the hymnal and the bulletin, looking around every once in a while to see what others were using.  Sometimes he would be sitting when everyone else was standing, but I noticed his mouth moving every once in a while when we were singing a hymn.

     He was sitting toward the rear of the church.  As communion approached, I wondered if he would come forward.  To my dismay, as the ushers made their way to his pew, he did not come to the altar.  Instead, he picked up his things and exited out the rear church doors.  I was disappointed.  Disappointed because I know that Jesus included this visitor in his invitation to his table, and I wondered if I had done something in my pre-service encounter with him to send a contrary message.  Or, did he feel that the invitation to the altar to receive the sacrament did not fall upon him because, in truth, he didn’t really look like the rest of the carefully dressed and clean clothed people…..maybe I should have tried to be clearer in extending the invitation to everyone?  Here, was a person in our midst, who appeared to be one who struggled with life….(don’t we all?)…and instead of coming to receive the very gift of the Lord, himself, our guest…..no, the Lord’s guest exited out the back. I had the distinct feeling of failure….I had failed him….I had failed the Lord.

     Interestingly enough, as the service concluded and I stood at the rear of the church and wished all who passed through my door “a great day”, our visitor walked back into church through the door that he had exited (the door where I was standing).  Caught off guard, I shook his hand coming in, and saying his name, I said, “I thought you had left.”

     “No,” he said, “he just needed a cup of coffee,” which we were serving in our basement. 

     “Oh,” I replied, and as no one else was exiting out my door, I tried to strike up a conversation with him.  “Are you from Greensburg?”

     “No,” he said, and told me a town that I had not heard of before.

     “Don’t know where that’s at,” I said, and then he rattled off a couple of other towns that were close to it, towns I didn’t know of either.

     “Well, I don’t know those towns, but I am glad that you came to worship with us today,”   With a little more small talk, I finished by saying, “Hope you’ll come again.”  And off I went to get together with some of our high school kids between our services.

     I had forgotten about him as we began the second service and made our way through the sermon and the congregational prayers, but as we began to collect the offering, the front door of the church by the choir loft opened, and in walked our visitor, again.  Apparently he had hung up his coat, because this time he was wearing a thin threaded shirt with a sports team’s tee shirt visible underneath.  He walked back to the pew that he had sat in during the first service, and I wondered again, as communion began…..”would he come and receive the sacrament?”

     I said the same preparatory things that I had said the first service, yet this time when the ushers motioned to him to invite him to the table, he got up…..and came!  He knelt beside the others, and as I came up to him, he extended his hands and I said to him as I placed the piece of bread in his hands, “This is the body of Christ, given for you.”  He took it, and he ate it.  When the wine made its way to him, the person giving it said, “This is the blood of Christ, shed for you.”, and pouring it into the small cup that he picked up on the way to the altar, he drank it.

     With communion over, I raised my hands in blessing and said to the congregation, “The body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ strengthen you and keep you in his grace.”  I hope heard me.

     The service ended, and this time he didn’t go out my door, so I assumed that he had returned to the life that had brought him to church, and as I left, I discovered what that life was.  Sitting on the bench, outside our church, there he was….in his Steelers jacket, listening his quite audilbe boom box, enjoying the warmth of the day, with a large, black, plastic garbage bag that appeared to be carrying his earthly belongings stuffed under the bench.

     “Have a great day,” I said to him, “Hope to see you next week.”  I don’t know where his life will take him this week.  I hope he stays safe and receives the care that he needs…..but more than that….I really do hope to see him next week….and everyone else who struggles with life (and who doesn’t?).

Have a great week.

God’s grace and peace, (ggap)

Pastor Jerry Nuernberger

(sorry for being a bit long winded today!)