Bungee Cord 2-22-15

Hello,

     This morning I took my four-wheel drive Ford Ranger to church.  We’ve had some snow, so the trek up and down our lane and up and over the ridge is more reliably made with all four wheels taking hold of the road, rather than just the front two wheels on my Mini.  The other difference between my pick-up and my Mini is that I have my radio stations preset in my Mini, and I don’t in my truck.  So, when I am in my truck I am sort of stuck listening to whatever I was listening to when I was in a truck-driving mood.  This morning I found myself listening to the “Oldies” station, which is the music that I grew up listening to.  The song that was playing was “Imagine” by John Lennon of Beatles fame.

     If you have heard this song, you, can understand why I found it ironic to be listening to it on my way to church.

“Imagine there's no heaven

It's easy if you try.”

     There I was on my way to church, and I was being asked to imagine something that, if true, would tell me that my journey to church was nothing less than a wild goose chase and that I should turn around and go back home.

     Although I do not believe that heaven is the central concern of Christianity (I believe that Jesus is.), heaven is certainly a pretty thick cord entwined in the rope of the Christian faith.  So, having said that, if I were to do what John Lennon was asking,,,to imagine there’s no heaven….the first thing that I would find myself asking is, “What is heaven, that I might imagine it’s nonexistence.”

     As I read the Bible, I see the Bible’s answer to be, “Heaven isn’t a “what”.  Heaven is a “when”.  Heaven is when the presence and the grace of God is all in all….when God’s presence and grace is no longer bound by time or space….when God’s presence and grace is no longer tainted by suffering and pain….when God’s presence and grace is so full and complete that darkness vanishes….when God’s promises are no longer faith, but sight.

     Given that, I find myself agreeing with John Lennon.  It is easy to imagine that there is no heaven, because when I look around me it seems like heaven will never happen.  There is so much hatred to be seen.  I see so many people being  treated as if they are worth nothing, and sometimes I feel that way about myself.  I see the might of tragedy take people’s lives and crush them into dust.  I see my ability to dig myself into deeper holes thriving like an antibiotic resistant bacteria, leaving me hopeless in an ever darkening pit.  Given what I see when I look around, it is easy, as John Lennon says, to imagine that there is no heaven.

     But when I get to church and see a God who is so at one with creation that God would incarnate himself in creation….when I see a God whose love for his creation is so all consuming that he would take on all the suffering and pain that the creation could stir up….when I see a God who on Easter morning trampled upon the power of death as if it was no mightier than a picnic troubling ant….when I see a God whose promise takes hold of me in splash of water that will never dry…..when I see a God who is so determined that I know the depth of his love that he shoves his love and forgiveness down my throat at the communion table.… when I look around at what God – not the world – puts before my eyes – well, it’s not so easy to imagine there’s no heaven.  As a matter of fact, it’s hard to imagine that there isn’t.

     Come to church and see and imagine for yourself!

Have a great week.

God’s grace and peace,

Pastor Jerry Nuernberger

         

   

Bungee Cord  2-16-15

Hello,

How cold was it today (Sunday) in Stahlstown, Pa? 

·      It was so cold that when I dashed the 10 feet from the heat of my man cave to my hot tub I could feel the goose bumps rise on my bare skin. 

·      It was so cold that when I jumped into my hot tub, I didn’t sit on the seat but sat my hind end on the floor level keeping as much of my body below the 104 degree water as I could. 

·      It was so cold that when I finally took my place on the seat level my hair froze up as if it was sprayed with a couple of cans of hair spray. 

·      It was so cold that when my time was up in my hot tub and I walked the 10 feet back to my man cave, my flip flops immediately froze to the patio stones with every step making me tear them off the stones with my steps as if I had put super glue on them.

·      It was so cold that when I put my wet hand on the patio door to open it up, my fingers began to instantaneously freeze on the handle as if making a Velcro connection. 

·      It was so cold that anyone with any brains would not have been so stupid to go outside dressed for summer, jump into a hot tub thinking it would warm me up, and then summerly clad hop out and try to get back into the house.

When I got back in the house and told my wife that I had ventured out to my hot tub in our sub-zero weather, she looked at me with a deserved look of incredibility and said, “You did what?!”

I imagine that when I come to worship every Sunday and begin, as we Lutherans always do, by corporate confession of our sins,….I imagine that Jesus has that same look on his face that I saw on my wife’s.  “You did what?!”  Although we don’t list the individual foolish and painful things that we have done in our corporate confession, I know what my deeds and thoughts were, and I know that I deserve the astonished look that I envision on Jesus face.  Some might say that my continual repetition of deeds that bring pain to the heart of God and are evidence of my fickle faith and fickle love of God, and those things have earned me God’s disdain and desertion…..and they are right.

But something amazing happens every Sunday.  While our knees are locked by our weight to the ground these words wash across us, “As a called and ordained minister of Christ, and by His authority, I therefore declare to you the entire forgiveness of all of your sins…in the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.”  The ENTIRE forgiveness….of ALL of your sins.    A clean slate.  A new beginning.  The shaping and reshaping of who we are by grace.

No words of shock and shame, “You did what?!”  No aggravated, “Will you ever learn?!”  No despairing, “This is the last straw.”  No demeaning, “Just what kind of person are you?!”  No regret-full, “Why did I pick you in the first place?!”

There’s a different outcome that results from shaping a person’s life with forgiveness and grace than reshaping it with guilt and shame…especially when that person continues to do foolish things….which is what we are all destined to do.  I am thankful for the grace and forgiveness that my wife continually shows me (after she swallows hard).  It makes our relationship more resilient and hopeful.  Likewise, such is the case with me and my relationship with God.  Forgiveness and grace are the only things that can give a recitivist fool as myself any hope and peace, and when the relationship in question is with God Almighty, thankful is a vast understatement of the expression of my heart.

So…if you find yourself doing foolish and painful things,(far more foolish and painful than jumping in a hot tub when it is 3 below zero) and don’t we all.  Make your way to church, and discover as I have discovered, that the shame and surprise from God that you might envision and deserve will not be there.  What will be there will be forgiveness and grace….and that will change your life forever.  Forever!

Have a great week.

God’s grace and peace,

Pastor Jerry Nuernberger

Bungee Cord 2-9-15

Hello,

     The Bible tells us that the rain fell upon the earth for 40 days and 40 nights.  It says the Israelites wandered in the wilderness from Egypt to the promised land for 40 years.  Jesus, it says, was tempted by the devil for 40 days in the wilderness, and Christians all around the world will begin their yearly 40 day journey through Lent beginning next Wednesday, Ash Wednesday.

    The number “40” is a common number in the Bible, and as with many numbers in the Bible it has a deeper meaning than just its numerical value.  Actually, the truth that I learned in my seminary years is that the number “40” is rarely meant to denote its numerical value.  Like many figures of speech in English, the number “40” amongst the Hebrew speaking people of the Old Testament is really meant to be heard as “a long time”.  The number 40 was used in much the same way that we might use “all day” (e.g. – When I called the IRS they put me on hold “all day”. (Do you sense a bit of personal input here?))

     Well, I am coming upon an actual “40” years in my life, my 40^th anniversary of my high school graduation for which a reunion has just begun to be planned.  When I think back to 1975, in some ways it seems like “a long time” ago but in other ways not so long ago.  I remember seeing alumni come back for their 40^th reunion and as they walked down the parade route I thought to myself, “Boy, do they look old!”  But now that I am one of those 40 year folks, I don’t perceive myself to be as old as those upon whom I looked 40 years ago.  On the other hand, much has changed over these 40 years.  I have aged, and I wonder if others might recognize me or not when they see me.  I moved away from my home town to go to college, and my work life has never led me back, and so I wonder how much at home I will feel in my home town.  I have lost touch with almost everyone with whom I graduated (except for facebook “friends” with whom I have made social media connections),  and so I wonder what it might be like to reunite with what will seem to me to be a group of strangers.  Could be interesting!

     I wonder who might come to this 40^th reunion, and I wonder what the talk will be amongst those who get together.  I suspect that many will share the stories that they remember from those days 40 years ago.  I suspect that many will tell the tales of where life has taken them over these 40 years.  And this is what I suspect the common content of all these stories will be….good memories, good times, and good adventures.  That is, after all, what high school reunions are meant to be.

     My other suspicion is that there will be a group of people missing from this high school reunion: those people for whom life has been hard, fraught with “failures”, and whose stories and tales bring bad memories.  Don’t think many of these people will travel far, give up their time, and spend their money to be part of something that they know will magnify in their eyes these painful things.

     As a Pastor for 32 of these past  40 years, it seems to me that many folks envision church to be like a high school reunion…to be a place where people come whose lives are full of good memories, good times and good adventures….a place for good people.  More than once when divorce strikes a couple, I have seen those people vanish from church.  More than once when a person has found their dirty laundry being aired out on the front page of the paper, that person no longer comes to church.  More than once, I have seen people who I know are grappling with soul-deep pain come to church with a cosmetic smile that they hope will hide the crushing turmoil in their lives.

     But here’s the kicker: church was never meant to be a high school reunion.  Church is meant to be the place where people reunite every week to share everything in life….the good….and the bad.  A time and a place to rejoice.  A time and a place to weep.  A time and a place to celebrate victories.  A time and a place to put the past behind and start over again, fresh.  A time and a place where we don’t have to hide from one another, where we don’t have to be judged by one another, and where we can lift one another up by the power of the one who was lifted on the cross.

     So, whether or not  people will be surprised to see you at a high school reunion, know that when you come to church, people won’t be surprised.  They will be glad…glad to see you, glad to hear you, and glad to love you (at least that is the way it is supposed to be in church.).  Also  know this: no matter whether it has been 40 minutes, 40 days, 40 months, or even 40 years since you have been to church…it doesn’t matter.  Jesus invites you anyway….for a reunion with him!

Have a great week.

God’s grace and peace,

Pastor Jerry Nuernberger

The Bungee Cord 2-2-15

Hello,

Pete Carroll.

If we were to play a little game of word association, I wonder what the first thing that would come to your mind if I said the name, “Pete Carroll”?

I would venture to guess that it if you watched the Super Bowl last night you would say the “rotten” call at the end of the game when he went for a pass, that was intercepted, rather than run the ball which would have certainly (really?) scored the winning Touchdown.

I know when I turned on Mike and Mike, ESPN, this morning that is almost completely what the discussion was all about.  Person after person came on to say that Pete Carroll’s decision to pass rather than run was hard to understand and close to idiotic.  “What was he thinking?” said guest after guest.  It seems quite possible that this blunder (?) by Pete Carroll with be the one thing that will be remembered about Super Bowl 49 for years and years to come.

Just goes to show how easy our failures, our foibles, our faults and our fractures can become the thing that we are known for, not just in football games, but also in life.  Benedict Arnold…traitor.  Richard Nixon….Watergate.  Bill Clinton….Monica Lewinski.  Lance Armstrong….liar.  Michael Phelps…DUI.  You…?  Me…?

Maybe this phenomenon is the reason why we so fear failure.  Maybe it is the reason that we work so hard to hide our foibles.  Maybe it is the reason that we feel the drive to be faultless.  Maybe it is the reason that we don’t let people know how fractured and broken we really are.

Thing is, though, even if no one else knows these things about us, we know them, and we see them every time we look into a mirror.  We know what losers we are.  We know how foolish we are.  We know how painfully imperfect we are.  We know how messed up we are.

It is in this knowledge that I find the deepest relevance of the Christian faith.  The Christian faith is founded on a God who knows what we know about ourselves….a God who knows and cares about the pain that these things bring to our lives and to the world…a God who sends his Son to silence the claim of these things on us and claims us as his own…a God who is at work in us shaping us with divine love and mercy.  The Christian faith is about a God who does not remember us according to our sins, but according to what he has done to overcome our sin.  That is the magnet that draws me into faith, into worship, and even into life.

So, when you have blown it, like Pete Carroll blew it (at least the world thinks he did), let me invite you to come to be among a bunch of people who are well aware of their tendency to blow it…to church…and find out that there’s a place for people who have failed, people with foibles, people who have faults, and people who are fractured.  A place where you will be embraced with God’s grace and be enlivened by the way that God remembers you….as his beloved child.

1 John 3:1  “See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called Children of God, and that (not our failures, our foibles, our faults, our fractures) is what we are.”

Have a great week.

God’s grace and peace, (ggap)

Pastor Jerry Nuernberger