Hello,
“Rumor is that you’re a preacher,” said a high school kid I had never
met who told me that he lived across the valley from me. He and a buddy had just hopped out of
their Rhino that had zipped through my back yard and disappeared. They had come back to ask me if it was ok for them to ride
around on my property (after, of course, they had already done so…but it was
nice of them to ask).
“Rumor is that you’re a preacher.”
His statement caught me off guard.
So, apparently the people in our sparsely populated valley and ridge
have been talking about me….”you know that house on the hill…a preacher lives
there.”
I responded to his statement, “Is that a good rumor or bad?”
“It’s okay,” he said.
He and his buddy were the kind of kids common to this area, “ridge
kids”…..a bit unkempt, kids who have been hunting since they learned to crawl
and were shooting guns before that,
kids who spent their afternoons catching fish at the nearby lake, kids
who endure school, kids who have cousins by the dozens living around them, and
kids who have Rhino’s and four wheelers and buzz around the ridge and valley in
them.
“Yeah. I am the pastor at
First Lutheran Church in Greensburg”, the “big” town 25 miles away over the
ridge, the county seat and the closest thing to urban life in this county an
hour east of Pittsburgh.
“Oh,” he said, “I figured that you were preacher at Word of Life, or
something.” Word of Life is a very
conservative independent “mega-church”.
I don’t know why he thought this was so. It must have been part of the rumor.
“No, Lutheran. Right
downtown Greensburg, three blocks south of the courthouse.”
“I’m Lutheran, too,” he said, “I go to Zion’s in Donegal,” a small
church 3 miles south of where I live.
Surprised again. Surprised
to find out that this high school kid with whom I seemed to have nothing in
common (I am a bit of a fish out of water here…I don’t own a gun, don’t know
how to shoot one, don’t hunt, could never field dress an animal without tossing
my cookies, don’t have a four wheeler, regularly take showers, and have spent a
good deal of my life engaged in education.) is actually a blood relative, brothers in Christ who align
ourselves with the grace focused teachings of Martin Luther.
He and
his buddy hopped back into their Rhino after receiving permission from me to
ride it …..slowly….and away from my house. I don’t know how often I will see him. I have lived here two years, and this
was my first meeting with him. But
if I don’t see him again for another two years, I hope that he will put some
truth in the rumors that are apparently circling around.
“You know that guy that lives on top of the hill…..he’s a preacher,
alright. He’s a Lutheran, just
like me, and he talked to me like he really cared about me. He’s a pretty good guy.”
If that’s the rumor that starts swirling around the valley and ridge,
I’ll take it.
I guess that I should not have been taken by surprise to hear that
people are talking about me….I would wager that they are talking about you,
too. I don’t know how the rumor will be shaped when this high
school Rhino rider goes back home and talks to his clan, but I do know this……I
am thankful that I had a chance to put some flesh on the rumor….flesh that
hopefully bore witness to the one whose blood bound us together regardless of
how different we are, a witness of care, love, respect, forgiveness and grace.
Have a great week.
God’s grace and peace,
Pastor Jerry Nuernberger
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