Hello,
A couple of weeks ago I was out in front of the church, as I usually am
on Sunday mornings, waving at people as they passed by in their cars, trucks,
and motorcycles. Occasionally,
people walk by to whom I also pass along a grace-full greeting. Some of them stop and chat a bit, and
others speed by without a word in return.
So it was on this particular Sunday morning that a woman came strolling
along the sidewalk, a black woman, maybe in her 30’s. I said to her, “Good morning. Are you out for a stroll or have you come to worship with us
today?”
“No,” she said, and with that one word I could tell that she was not
from western Pennsylvania. Her
accent was the one that I heard when I was in Africa. “No,” she said, “I am going to the Presbyterian
church.” (It is across the
street.)
“Oh,” I said, “Well, God be with you, and have a great day.”
“You know,” she replied, “I am not from around here. I am from Cameroon.”
“Really,” I said back with familiar delight, “I was in Cameroon for 4
weeks some years ago.” And we
immediately bonded over the stories of the places that I had been. She had been in the states to spend
some time with her nieces and then take them back to Cameroon.
And then she laughed….laughed that African laugh…and said, “I’ve got to
tell you something. Yesterday, I
was at the park listening to the concert there, and there were some people from
a church evangelizing. They came
up to me and asked me if I was a Christian, and I said yes. Then they asked me if I went to church,
and I said,”Yes ,the Presbyterian Church on Main Street.”
“Oh, you go to the stone church across the street from the church with
the waving Pastor?” they said to her, and when she told me of their description
of me, she gave another good African laugh.
“The Church with the Waving Pastor.” I guess that my waving has become more widely known than I
had thought, so widely known that our church has become so dubbed. People may not know where First
Lutheran Church is, but apparently they know where the “Church With The Waving
Pastor” is.
I am not too sure that “Lutheran” means a lot to the average
Greensburgite”, but it appears that waving does. I hope that my waving means to them that they are the
objects of God’s love and mercy no matter where their life is taking them on
any given Sunday morning. I hope
that it means that there is a sense of peace and hope that goes with them as
they go on their way. I hope that
it means that God is glad to meet them where they are at. I hope that those who receive my wave
see it as more than just a friendly greeting, but that they see it as a small
gesture of God’s grace to them.
That is what I believe the Christian message is essentially all about:
God’s grace to the world, each and every person in the world. So, I’ll take it. I’ll take the description by which our
church is apparently being come to known as, “The Church With The Waving Pastor”,
for I hope that when they experience the harshness of life, the crumbling of
their world, the perplexity of right-less answers, the pressure of complicated
questions…that they will know where they can go to be swaddled and grasped in
the Grace of God……..at the “Church With The Waving Pastor,’
Have a great week…waving!
God’s grace and peace, (ggap)
Pastor Jerry Nuernberger
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