Bungee Cord 7-23-13

Hello,

     Here’s a quiz to start off this week’s Bungee Cord.  What town is hometown to Arnold Palmer, Mr. Rogers, and the Ice Cream Sundae?  What the locals know, now all the readers of Bungee Cord now know, the answer:  Latrobe, Pennsylvania.

     Latrobe is the closest “big” town to where I live, 15 miles away.  It houses things like Wal-Mart and Lowes.  So, with some regularity, I make my way to Latrobe, and the way that I get there is to take the road over the ridge, Bethel Church Road, the most direct route.  When I say direct, I mean, direct by how the crow flies, not by the straightness of the road.  In order to go up and over the ridge, Bethel Church road squiggles and bends.   After you travel about 2/3 ways along the twisting road, a rather curious sign greets you.  It’s a yellow, squarish sign that sits on one of the corners of the square, and it reads, “WINDING ROAD NEXT 2 ½ MILES”.

     The first time I encountered this sign I thought to myself, “What did they think the last 7 miles were?”  It seems quirky that this warning should come closer to the road’s end than at its beginning.  I guess that I should feel lucky that I regularly safely traverse the first 2/3 of the way without a warning.  Also, interestingly enough, the 2 ½ miles left in the journey is far less winding than what came before…..the straightest parts come after the sign!

     In a strange way, the placement of this sign seems to mirror often what I find myself “signing” in life.  As a pastor, I find myself intersecting with people’s lives at various legs of their life’s trek, some at the very beginning, but most after they have travelled a good long ways.  Often I run into them where the road has taken a sharp turn, a turn that they have had difficulty negotiating.  Sometimes I find myself amid tragic circumstances and other times I need only be there to lend a hand to get them back on the road.  But whatever the situation, I get the feeling that God is using me like that yellow sign on the road forewarning, “WINDING ROAD AHEAD”.

     It is not like the road hasn’t been winding up to this point in their lives, but as can be the case for all of us, we can either get caught up in the scenery, or focused on where we are going that we haven’t really noticed how winding it has been.  We haven’t noticed how many sharp turns we have made, or how many times we have had to hit the breaks hard until the winding road makes itself known to us when we slide off.

     Sometimes I find people surprised when the road has won and they have slid off, but if we mapped the road of everyone’s life, we would see that no one travels the long and straight roads, like the ones in the plains of South Dakota.  The roads we all travel on are like Bethel Church Road, squiggling and winding.  Roads where turns come upon us out of nowhere, and deer do, too.

     The good news is that God knows the winding-ness of our roads.  He knows it because he has travelled them himself in Jesus.  He knows how easy it is to slide off of a hairpin turn that you didn’t know would be there, and he knows how often something leaps from the woods and crashes into you.  And so when those things happen, you won’t here Jesus reprimanding you for your bad driving.  Instead he will set you and me back on the road, lovingly forewarning you, “WINDING ROAD AHEAD”, and telling you as you put your hands on the steering wheel….”and I’ll be there for you at every turn.”

Have a great (winding) week.

God’s grace and peace, (ggap)

Pastor Jerry Nuernberger

Bungee Cord 7-16-13

Hello

Chicken Update:

Those of you who are weekly readers of the Bungee Cord will remember that a couple of months ago my wife brought four baby chicks into our lives and constructed a coop (the Taj ma Coop) for their habitation.  A couple of months have since passed, and I am glad to report that all four of the chicks have made their way into the second month of their lives, grown to near adult size, and have comfortably made their home in their classy coop.

     All this, however, has not been without peril, peril at the hands (or paws) of my dog, Duncan.  When they were small chicks living in our basement furnace room, Duncan would hear their peeping, and whine in hopes to be let in.  When we would let him in, he would take his place outside of their cage in an instinctual catatonic trance awaiting them to venture out and become his dinner.  Now that they have made their home outdoors in the Taj ma Coop, when we open the door of our house to let him out he scurries over to their penthouse and sleeks his way right up to the screened-in pen (porch) where they are scratching about.

     Like a New Orleans street artist who stands motionless wearing the attire of the Statue of Liberty, Duncan freezes in hunting pose, his nose pressed against the chicken wire.  The chickens walk unafraid around their pen, and sometimes come right up to where his nose is and give it a peck, but Duncan doesn’t move…ready to pounce….ready to clamp down….ready to eat.  But all for not.  So close that he can smell them.  So close that he can taste them.  So close that the saliva forms in his jowls.  So close….but so far away.   His frustration building like underground lava.

     When a man came up to Jesus and asked, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?”, and answered back to Jesus out of what he had been taught… “love the Lord your God with all of your heart, and mind, and strength and soul, and love your neighbor as yourself,” I can see this man taking on the pose of Duncan at the chicken’s screened-in pen.  Being a good man, a man who sought to do what was right, a man who hoped to justify (be right with God) himself by clarifying who his neighbor might be…being so close that he could smell heaven…so close that he could taste it…so close, but so far away.  Could he, or would he ever be able to love the Lord with all of his heart, mind, soul and strength….no.  Could he, or would he ever be able to love his neighbor as himself…no.  Like chicken wire, the commandments create a barrier between us and God, a barrier that is beyond our abilities to break through.  Like Duncan, we can get close…..close but so far away.

     But here’s the great news: we who could never justify ourselves, God justifies.  God, in Jesus, steps out from behind the chicken wire of commandments, and justifies us (makes us right with him)…not by what we could or would do….but by what God can and does do.  God transforms us by the claiming power of his love.  Stretching out his arms on the cross he silenced any other power that might claim a lien on our lives so that we might be wholly and holy God’s.  And when Jesus walked sure footed out of the Good Friday tomb God tore down the walls of both time and space so that we might be with him, now and forever.

     I wonder if that man who asked Jesus what he must do to inherit eternal life is still frozen in place at the chicken wire of heaven….so close and yet so far away.  Or has he come to life, eternal life, as heaven has broken into this world by the grace of God in Jesus, jolted out of his catatonic pose and following Jesus in a magnetically gathering parade of peace, hope, love and joy that marches on forever?

     Feeling a bit stuck yourself?  Jesus says, “Come to church this Sunday so that I might transform your life…..there’s a lot better things for you to do with your life than stand like a statue gazing into a chicken coop pen.”

Have a great week.

God’s grace and peace, (ggap)

Pastor Jerry Nuernberger

Bunge Cord 7-7-13

Hello,

     Another day of rain in western Pennsylvania.  We are caught in one of those weather patterns that clouds the skies day after day and drops sheets of rain upon the already saturated ground.  The mountain streams are swelled, the fields are waist high in lush grass, the wildflowers are full abloom, and the trees are an umbrella of shade over the soft, moss covered paths. 

     But not so in the mountains of Colorado where I recently spent a couple of weeks.  Rain has been rare and spotty. The ground crackles under your feet as you walk upon the grass that struggles for life.  Small flowers freckle the dry ground, yellow and purple and blue. Pine trees send their roots deep into the earth hunting for a sip of water and their needles pad the ground with firey danger, “NO OPEN FIRES”.

     It is amazing what water can do, and what the absence of it also can do. Out of water life springs, out of drought life struggles.      

     When Jesus said that he came that we might have life and have it abundantly, it seems to me that it is the abundance of a rain drenched Pennsylvania hillside, compared to a thirsty Colorado mountainside of which he was speaking. 

     When God sent his Son, Jesus, God held nothing back.  God did not just moisten our lives with a foggy mist of his love that the hot sun of this world would burn off as soon as it hit.  God did not just send a sprinkling shower that only would only wet the surface and leave our hearts dry and arid.  God did not send a short downpour of cats and dogs, that like cats and dogs would run off and do no good.  NO…when God sent Jesus, he ushered in a gentle, never ending rain (reign) of his grace a mercy – akin to what we have been experiencing here in Western Pennsylvania, rain-wise.  In Jesus, God sent a soaking rain that permeates deep into the hardest soil, that softens old and dry clay, and that turns the best soil into black gold.

     Life explodes out of cloud watered soil, and life explodes out of God watered lives.  Hope like grass, can’t be kept down.  Joy, like shoulder high flowers, soars our spirits high.  Love, as energy from the sun (Son) itself robs the night of it’s cooling pride.  Abundantly life flows out of watered lives.  Sure, hope and joy and love are found in the water strapped world, but just like  in the water strapped Rockies, these things struggle to stay alive, are easily dried up, and are fragile when trod upon.

     So if you feel a bit parched, and your life is arid let me invite you to come to church this Sunday.  Church, where you can get soaked in the grace of God and discover the wonder of life bursting forth.

Have a great week.

God’s grace and peace,

Pastor Jerry L. Nuernberger

     

The Bungee Cord 6-30-13

Hello,

An angel sat next to me at lunch the other day at the Biblical seminar, which I have been attending.    Actually this angel sat next to me three times, but the first two times I didn’t recognize my lunch neighbor to be an angel.  The reason for my blindness was the less than angelic behavior that I saw.

My lunch neighbor was a middle school boy who was attending the seminar with his mother, a pastor.  The seminar was designed for pastors to bring family along with them, and many did.  So, the presence of this middle school boy was not unusual, but his behavior was.  If you have ever spent time with middles school boys, you know that they live at an awkward age….an age between residual squirreliness and budding coolness.  This particular middle schooler was clearly leaning toward the squirrelly side of the continuum.

Smaller than most boys his age, I was surprised to hear that he was a middle schooler.  Partnered with his goofy (as in Disney’s Goofy) conversational skills, his unrefined eating habits (including stuffing large wads of food in his mouth and simultaneously laughing at his own jokes), and wriggling around in his chair like a rabbit trying to escape the grip of a trap I would have guessed him far younger than he was.

I don’t know how it happened that for the three lunches I ate at the lodge, I found myself sitting next to this boy.  I am not one of those who believe that God intricately controls every move of my life, but since I do believe that God steps with me in every movement of my life, I have a sneaky feeling that something divine was woven into what was going on.

I don’t remember anything particular that he said to me at the first two lunches, it all seemed to be a scrambled egg blending of silliness and tactlessness.  The third lunch began in the same way, but then something happened that opened my blurry visioned eyes.

We were just about to start eating, and when the cry went up, “Who would like to pray?”, my middle school neighbor raised his hand and let loose a shriek that I am sure echoed through the Rockies.  “I will,”

“Oh, no.” I thought to myself….this aught to be interesting.

And interesting it was.  A sudden calm came across him, and he folded his hands on the table and closed his eyes.  And with the reverence of a sagely grandfather, he said, “Lord, thank you for this food.  Thank you for the nice people who have carefully prepared it for us, and as we eat it, don’t let us forget those people who don’t have much food.  And help us also to remember those people who just need a little help each day to make it through.  Lord, put us in their paths.  Amen.”

There was silence.  An angel had just spoken.

The word “angel” comes from the Greek (it is even spelled the same way), and it means, “messenger”.  That young boy delivered a message, a divine message that sent shock waves to my heart…sock waves of guilt that I should have fallen prey to what the world thinks of squirrelly middle school boys…and shock waves of the divine compassion that God holds in God’s heart for those who serve in small ways and those who struggle in life.

Three times an angel sat next to me at lunch, and my life has been forever changed.

Have a great week.

God’s grace and peace, (ggap)

Pastor Jerry Nuernberger

The Bungee Cord  6-21-13

Hello,

     “It’s an easy hike,” so said the director of the continuing ed event that I am attending in the Rockies.  So, last Thursday I joined 16 others at the bottom of a mountain called “Twin Sisters”, ready to saunter my way from our beginning point of 9000 feet to the peak at 11,500.

     I was lied to.  It was not easy.  No further than the first five minutes, and I was feeling my lungs call for more oxygen.  But with the words, “It is an easy hike,” ringing in my ears, I figured that I had simply gotten off to a bad start.  Maybe I started off too fast.  Or maybe it was steepest at the beginning of the trail.  Unfortunately, as I pressed on, even at a slower pace, the incline did not diminish nor did my exhaustion.  So, for the next 2 ½ hours I plodded my way up the mountain side…along a rock strewn path that turned my ankles to the right and left, through pine trees infiltrated by swarms of mosquitoes who feasted on my oxygen deprived blood, and sipping small tastes of water out of my water bottle in hopes of fending off the effects of the altitude.

     Of the 17 of us who began the trek, 10 of us made it the 3-mile path to the top. Before you slap me too hard on my back with congratulations, you should know that the ones who did not reach the top were a couple of elementary aged kids and their mother, a pair of 65+ men, and a elderly couple.  I have to admit that the view from the top was breath taking, and rightfully so, because the air was extremely thin.  However, we were not allowed to spend much time capturing the view, because a wall of dark clouds was moving in and it would not have been in our best interest to be caught above the tree line with lightning blasting all around us.

     I did all I could to not gripe or whine as I started to retrace my footsteps down the mountain.  As promised the hike down was not as draining, but more than once I came close to spraining my ankle as I came down unpreparedly hard on my feet.  More than once, I found myself asking myself, “Why did I decide to tackle this mountain?”  Five hours after beginning our ascent we returned to the place where we started, and I was beat, oblivious to what would lead anyone to undertake what I just undertook.  What could possibly be fun or attractive of five straight hours of sheer exhaustion, five hours that provided a 5-minute view of the peaks and valleys around us?

     Of course, I had a choice to tackle that mountain, foolish as my choice may have been.  But for many, might I say all, there is no choice given when standing at the trail head of a high mountain path.  Maybe you are standing there today. 

     I will not lie to you.  It may not be an easy hike.  You may gasp for breath from the first step, and your exhaustion may last far longer than 5 hours.  But here’s the good news.  Unlike me and my mountain climbing troop who could only rely on our own strength and endurance, when you and I face the mountain paths of our lives we do so with the promise of God that he will see us through, Psalm 121.  The heat of the sun will not melt us, because the shade of God’s presence will cover us.  The chill of the dark will not strike us, because God’s ever present love with blanket us.  He will not slumber or sleep, but his attention will always be focused upon us.  Whether we are on our way up, or on our way down, God will watch over us…guiding us, protecting us, and even placing us upon his shoulders when we stumble and fall.

     That is God’s promise to you and to me when we look to the hills and mountains that we encounter.  God does not lie to you.  It may not be easy at all, but every step of the way God will be there with you and no mountain will claim you as its own, because God has staked his claim on you, a claim that God will not release….no matter what…no matter what!

     “I look to the mountains.  From where will my help come?

     My help comes from the LORD, the maker of heaven and earth.”

Have a great week.

God’s grace and peace, (ggap)

Pastor Jerry Nuernberger

Bungee Cord 6-17-13

Hello,

Now that summer is here, I like to travel over the ridge to work with my windows and sunroof open.  It may seem to some who I encounter on the morning road that I am a bit foolish to drive open windowed while the air is still chilled from the night, but I like the refreshing nip that the cool air slaps on my face.

The other wonderful thing about driving with windows and sun roof open is that I can gather in all the smells that waft around me: the smell of crisp pine, the sweet aroma of the honeysuckle, the smell of money flowing from the valley (that’s the smell of cow manure to farmers), and the smell of fresh cut grass that takes me back to my days of mowing lawns in high school.

Every once in a while, though, my open windows and sun roof let smells in to my cockpit that I would rather travel without: the pungent odor of a skunk, the fog of an old diesel truck chugging its way over the ridge, and the residual odor of decay from the raccoon who unsuccessfully tried to cross the road.

A couple of weeks ago the open windows and sunroof drew in a smell that I hadn’t smelled before.  It was a pleasant smell.  Sweet but not sappy.  Earthy but not acrid.  Subtle but not hidden.  Unlike most of the ridge smells that dissipate from my nostrils as I pass them, this smell did not.  It stayed with me, and as a matter of fact got stronger the further I drove.

About two-thirds the way to work as I tilted around one of the bends in the road, I discovered what was making this nose delectable smell and where it was coming from.  It was coming from an old dump truck which I had caught up to, an old dump truck loaded to its fill with a load of fresh mulch.  As I finished my drive to work, the dump truck turned off my road as I entered Greensburg, and as it turned away, so also it took its aroma with it.

You may not find the smell of fresh mulch to be as enchanting as I do, but as I road behind that dump truck, I found myself thinking about why I come to church every Sunday in a way that I had not thought before, and this is it: to fill my dump truck with fresh mulch and carry that aroma into the world.  Of course the mulch that I receive at worship is not ground up trees, but it is the forgiveness that came from the one who was hung on a Calvary tree.

The wind and weather has a way of damping the scent of mulch, and it also has a way of eroding the sweet smelling words of Jesus’ forgiveness.  So I come to church every Sunday, to dump the load of mulch from the week before, mulch whose aroma has been weakened, and to reload my dump truck with new mulch….mulch that reeks (in the best of ways) with Jesus forgiveness of me, and the forgiveness with which he means to permeate the world.  And permeate it he does as I drive around, in my dump truck (figuratively, of course, because as you know I drive a Mini Cooper which is far more fun to drive over the ridge), leaving in my wake the delightful aroma of a fresh load of the finest mulch that ever came from a tree….the forgiveness of Jesus.

There’s plenty to fill your dump truck with, too!

Have a great week.

God’s grace and peace, (ggap)

Pastor Jerry Nuernberger

Bungee Cord 6-9-13

Hello,

     Last week as I was taking my dog, Duncan, for his daily walk in the fields that lie around our house we ran into some deer. Actually, we ran into deer twice. Fortunately, Duncan was well attached to his leash, so he wasn’t able to chase down these intruders. 

     The first encounter happened as we came out from a forested area and we surprised two does and by it wobbly legs the third was apparently a newborn fawn.  The does, when they spotted us, took off leaping across the knee-high grass as if they were running a hurdles race.  The fawn, which could not have had enough life behind it to be taught, buckled its unsteady legs and dropped flat to the ground, hidden now by the tall grass.

     Duncan and my intended path would have taken us between the fawn and its mother and accompanying doe-friend, but having remembered the words of my mountain wise friend, Ralph, Duncan and I redirected our route in a different direction.  What Ralph had told me was that a mother doe was as dangerous as a mother bear if it felt its fawn in danger.  So, knowing that that fawn’s mother was undoubtedly just over the hill carefully surveying the safety of its child ready to come charging and trampling any threat, Duncan and I made sure that our revised path was a clear message to that doe, that she had no feed to worry.

     The new path that we took sent us around another hill, through another wooded area, and back into a tall-grassed field.  As we walked along the tall grass, we encountered our second group of deer.  At first we only saw one doe striding slowly through grass.  She didn’t see us, but she did see another doe coming out of a distant tree line.  Behind that doe the grass was moving, and every so often we could see the ears of the very small fawn that was following her.  The first deer sped up her gait and approached the second doe, and just when they were about nose to nose, the second deer rose up on her back legs and assumed the pose of a boxer with her front hoofs.  Soon the approaching deer did the same and a short-lived boxing match began that the mother doe apparently won as the encroaching deer put down her dukes and sprinted away.  Duncan and I watched from afar, but as we neared where the boxing ring was located, we did so wary of being challenged by the boxing mother doe to a fight of our own.  Fortunately, neither Duncan nor I found ourselves in that mother doe’s ring.

     It occurred to me after I got back home, that these two deer encounters might have helped me see in better detail how God keeps his promise to watch over you and me.  Sometimes it might be that when trouble draws near to me and I have instinctively fallen to my knees and I look around for God, and he doesn’t seem to be around….maybe God has responded like that first doe that Duncan and I ran into.  Maybe God has taken off, luring the trouble away from the tall grass that is hiding me.  Even though he may not be in sight, woe to any evil that might come upon me as God stands poised to come leaping and bounding ready to trample the enemy.

     Other times when trouble encroaches, God like that fawn-guarding doe, holds God’s ground, puts up God’s dukes, and says, “You’ve got to get through me if you think you’re going to get to my fawn!”  And woe to any evil that would want to try a round in the ring with God almighty!

     There is a hymn that goes, “Savior like a shepherd lead me much I need your gentle care…”.  After my walk with Duncan, I find myself singing instead, “Savior like a mother doe lead me….”

Have a great week.

God’s grace and peace, (ggap)

Pastor Jerry Nuernberger