Hello,
“OUT TO LUNCH”.
This was the sign hanging from the glass window at the
entrance that greeted me when I arrived at church at 7:00 Sunday morning. I snickered a bit when I saw it,
thinking it a humorous greeting for the hour that I stood in front of it.
Then I thought about it, and I wondered how many people
walking up to our door would see it, no matter what hour it hung, and would
say, “That’s right….Out to Lunch.”
Ask around and I suspect that you’ll find more than one
person who would quite assuredly tell you that we Christians have a shortage of
at least a marble or two….you know….out to lunch.
Out to lunch to think that forgiveness beats vengeance. Out to lunch to think that someone
whose life has been spilled out in disgrace on the front page of the paper
deserves a front row seat in church.
Out to lunch to think that there’s more joy in lifting people out of the
gutter than personally climbing a ladder to the top. Out to lunch to stand in the shadow of all the huge problems
that our world faces and confidently put on rickety old armor and say
charge. Out to lunch to stare into
a coffin filled hole and say, “Alleluia”.
Although many may consider the likes of me who bear the name
Christian to be out to lunch, I find myself believing, saying and doing the
things I do for what I think is quite a reasonable reason: I have been to supper. Been to supper where I have received
the tangible forgiving touch of Jesus, instead of the well deserved squashing
fist of God. Been to supper where
even though shame clings to me from the pig sty of my life, I have found a seat
reserved there for me. Been to
supper having graciously been lifted out of my sewage filled gutter to have the
holy presence of Jesus placed in my hands. Been to supper to have Jesus take hold of me with a hug from
the inside out, a hug that nothing has the power to break its hold. Been to supper where I get a taste of
what it will be like to be eternally engulfed in the presence of God.
If you wonder about me…the things that I say, the things
that I do, and the things that I believe….it is because I have been to
supper….a supper to which Jesus also invites you. It may be that to dine in this supper turns a diner into someone who appears to be out to
lunch in the world’s eyes, after all those who saw things through worldly eyes
thought that Jesus was out to lunch.
But those who dined, and who dine with him, would tell you that with him
there is a peace that surpasses all human understanding, with him there is joy
that the world cannot give, there is a hope that nothing in all creation can
take away, and there is a love that the world does not know. Out to lunch? Or been to supper?
Come to think of it, maybe the sign that would most rightly
be posted on our entrance door at 7:00 on any given Sunday morning to greet
people is,
“SUPPER SERVED
HERE. IMMEDIATE SEATING AVAILABLE!”
Have a great week.
God’s grace and peace, (ggap)
Pastor Jerry Nuernberger
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