Bungee Cord 12-16-13

Hello,

     I put snow tires on my car this year, and it has made all the difference in the world.

     Last winter I tried to traverse the winding, hilly roads of western Pennsylvania with regular tires.  They were high performance tires designed to carry my Mini Cooper with handling ease on dry roads, which they did well.  But they lacked the grip when trying to weave around snow covered corners or when facing a icy hill.  More than once last year when the daytime snow blanketed the dry roads on which I drove to work, the travel home was precarious at best and the lane up to our house was not passable.  So, I would have to park my car on the bottom of our hill and trudge through the snow in my suit and dress shoes, leaving my car there until the snow melted.

     But this year things are different.  With my snow tires gripping the road under my front tires nothing seems unconquerable.  My car holds the turns as I serpentine my way over the ridge, and up my lane I go as if I was going downhill instead of up.  It is an amazing thing that has happened to my little car, now clad in snow tires.

     The Bible says this in Galatians, “⁷As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.”….I don’t know if the Apostle Paul would be offended if I changed slightly his image a bit, but it certainly seems apropos to do so as I look out my window and see fields of snow, “As many of you as were baptized into Christ have been equipped with Christ-gripping snow tires.”

     So, slick icy turns over which you would slide out of control with regular tires, need not cause you to turn around in defeat, for Baptized into Christ and therefore equipped with Christ-gripping snow tires you can take on those turns confidently and carefully.  When you come upon a snow blanketed hill you don’t have to cry uncle to the hill’s slippery incline, but instead equipped with Christ-gripping snow tires you can turn onto the lane and victoriously yell, “Charge!”

     In the wintery days of life when the travelling is treacherous and nail biting, remember that you do not run on high performance tires, for as the Bible says, “As many of you were baptized into Christ have been equipped with Christ-gripping snow tires.”  It makes all the difference in the world.

Have a great week.

God’s grace and peace, (ggap)

Pastor Jerry Nuernberger

The Bungee Cord  12-9-13

Hello,

     Regular readers of the Bungee Cord know that each week it is formed by the events of my life, some trivial….some significant.  Today it is significant.

     Woke up this morning, turned to my Facebook page and saw that a very dear and old friend of mine had placed a post, a post to let his friends know of the unspeakable tragedy of the death of his 29 year old daughter in a car accident last night.  He and his wife, whose death to cancer in her early 50’s still stings sharply, enveloped us in their arms of friendship when my wife and I took our first steps into our adult lives.  They lived a short two blocks from us and we wove our lives together for the first four years of my career as a pastor thirty years ago.  We shared dinner.  We often shared a glass of wine.  He and I hunted a squirrel that had snuck its way into their basement, and he came over to our house to install a dishwasher in our kitchen (is that supposed to involve smoke coming from a circular saw?).  They gave birth to their daughter in the same year that our oldest son was born, and together we learned by experience the challenges of being a first time parent.  They invited us to their cabin in the north woods of Minnesota, and in the company of newborns, mice, mosquito’s and M&M’s our lives were sealed together.

     When I read his post…all I could post back was, “Oh no!”

     I don’t know how he found the strength to type the horrible news.

     To try and make any sense of such a tragedy seems to me to trivialize the pain and the anguish in a father’s heart, or in the hearts of any of us who love him and his daughter.  Although the news that greeted me this morning was shocking, those of us who have trudged our way through life know all to well that none of us is immune from this sort of thing befalling us and shredding our hearts, too.

     I don’t know when it was, maybe it was in those first four years of my ministry that I shared with these dear friends, when I stumbled onto a verse in the Bible that I call my focus verse – it stands before my eyes every time the phone rings, every time I do something that magnifies the wretch that I am, every time I do something that waters the weeds of presumptuous pride, every time that I see the blessings in my life that are well beyond my deserving, every time that I walk into the lives of others whom tragedy has tackled with unrepentant roughness…my focus verse: 1 John 3:1, “See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God, and that is what we are.”

That is what we are….period.

God’s grace and peace, (ggap)

Pastor Jerry Nuernberger

Bungee Cord 12-2-13

Hello,

     Driving home from church today, my wife and I got behind a rather beat up, old, silver Toyota.  Because we were making a small grocery pick-up we took the route that led us through Greensburg and Latrobe, Route 30…..four lanes with lots of stoplights.  Traffic was relatively light, but somehow we got stuck behind the well-worn car in front of us.  As we putted along behind it, I noticed that it bore reflectors bookjacketting the rear license plate.  When I saw them, I said to my wife, “Maybe I should get those for my car.”  She snickered when she also noticed them, matching reflective silhouettes of a reclining woman (I have seen them before on the mud flaps of semi-trucks.).  Somehow I don’t think those reflectors are what I would want to reflect to the world.

     Seeing them led me to remember some years ago when our high school youth were doing an evangelism project (i.e. getting the message of Jesus out), and the person in charge of the high school youth asked me if I had any ideas for a magnet that we could have made to put on the kids’ cars and give to the adults of the congregation to display on theirs.  I thought a moment…mom….what would I want to people who got caught behind me to catch their eyes?  “THERE IS HOPE”…..that is what I told her.  Who knows….maybe the person behind me may have just lost their job….maybe they dug a hole for themselves that has gobbled them up….maybe the person just left the doctor’s office carrying an ominous prognosis….maybe death has clamped down on them like a spring-rigged trap….maybe they feel their family crumbling apart in their hands….maybe they have been treated like dirt by the kids at school….maybe…..”THERE IS HOPE”.  No matter what the person in the car behind me might be dealing with, I would want them to know that THERE IS HOPE.

     So, that was the magnet that we had made, and around Sioux Falls people saw a round magnet with a blue silhouette of the earth, encompassing a cross and the words THERE IS HOPE written in a large prominent font affixed to the cars of the youth and adults of our church. 

     It is not an accident that the Christian church that was centered in the Northern Hemisphere decided to place the date of Jesus birth (the Bible does not give us a date) at a time of the year when the shortening days brought more and more darkness.  It was placed at this time of the year as a perpetual reflection to the world of what Christianity is about….THERE IS HOPE.  When the Bible, in the Gospel of John,  speaks of Jesus’ place in the universe it says speaking of Jesus, “and the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”

    I don’t know if those magnets are still catching the eyes of drivers in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, but no matter where you are in these darkening days of December I hope that this Bungee Cord has recreated those magnets and placed them in your vision.  And when you are caught behind some car or truck and all you can see is the trunk of the vehicle in front of you that amid whatever hopeless reflectors the driver has placed there you will see what God would want to be reflected into your vision…THERE IS HOPE.

     Have a great week.

God’s grace and peace, (ggap)

Pastor Jerry Nuernberger

The Bungee Cord  11-25-13

Hello,

     Even though this week is Thanksgiving, we served a Thanksgiving dinner last Wednesday to our guests of the weekly noon meal that we provide at our church.  Our usual crowd is between 80-100, and that is about the number who took their seats on Wednesday.  I don’t know if I have written about this ministry that was started at our downtown church years before I arrived, but just in case I haven’t here’s a picture of what happens in our fellowship hall every Wednesday.

     A crew of about 10 women….ranging from 50 years old to 97 years old, show up every Wednesday to prepare a home cooked meal for anyone who needs a good meal or some good company.  No questions are asked about a person’s need.  If they show up, we are glad to feed them, and the food that the women set before them is … well….the best lunch in town…home made soup, glazed chicken breast, ham and scalloped potatoes, and this past week all the Thanksgiving fixin’s…turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, corn,  cranberry sauce, pumpkin cake!

     The meal always begins at noon, and before we eat we take a few moments to talk about things…the Steelers, the Penguins, the weather.  We sing “Take Me Out to the Ball Park” on baseball’s opening day, patriotic songs on the 4^th of July, Christmas carols, and last week we sang a couple of Thanksgiving songs before our prayer.  As I was about to begin the singing one of the guests came up to me and told me that we had a person celebrating his birthday, and so I said, “Well, we’d better sing “Happy Birthday” then, too.”  Our crowd is not a gathering of trained singers, and we don’t sound like it.  But those who sing sing with gusto and delight….and that is all that matters.  So, we launched into “Come Ye Thankful People Come” and “Sing to the Lord of Harvest”, and then I said, “Hey!  I hear it’s someone’s birthday today….It’s Bill’s (not his real name) birthday!”

     Bill happened to be sitting at the table right next to where I was standing, and when I looked over at him there was a gleam in his eye carrying a look of “how did you know that?” 

     “Okay,” I said, “Let’s sing ‘Happy Birthday’ to Bill!” 

     “Happy Birthday to you.  Happy Birthday to you.  Happy birthday dear Bill….”

     And as we sang that phrase, I looked over at Bill and was surprised at what I saw.  Bill had pulled out his handkerchief and was wiping tears from his eyes.

     I don’t know much about Bill.  I know that he lives in a senior citizen residence by himself.  My guess is that he is in his 80’s.  I don’t know if he has family.  When I have eaten with him we have talked of the Pirates and Steelers.  He’s a quiet, soft spoken person, and he eats with us almost every week.  So, I don’t know what brought his tears.  Was it that he had thought no one would remember his birthday?  Was it that no one had sung  “Happy  Birthday” to him in years?  Was it that he had gotten used to being seen as invisible by the world, and he was moved by our notice of him and singing a spotlight of importance upon him?

     This Thanksgiving I am thankful that I was able to be part of a group who brought tears of joy to Bill…tears of joy that I find welling up in my eyes when I feel so small and insignificant, lost and confused, forgotten and lonely and someone reaches their hand out to me with a piece of bread saying, “This is the body of Christ given for you,” and then follows with a chalice saying, “This is the blood of Christ shed for you.”

     Remembered.  Noticed.  Loved………Grace!

Have a great week. 

God’s grace and peace, (ggap)

Pastor Jerry Nuernberger

The Bungee Cord  11-18-13

Hello,

As I have written before, my commute to my church is a 23 mile ride along a squiggly road over the ridge where there is not even one inch where passing is allowed.  It takes me about a half hour to travel, and generally behind the wheel of my Mini Cooper the ride is fun and the scenery is beautiful.

Once in a while I find myself caught  behind someone who is in no hurry and is captivated by the scenery extending the time of my journey 10 minutes or so.  This past week, though, it was not a tree gazer that slowed my pace and it wasn’t just 10 minutes that was added to my commute.

As I started my way over the ridge, I soon came up upon an appliance service truck that was travelling at a speed that made me think he was looking for an address.  “Be patient,” I told myself.  Then around one of the bends, we came upon warning signs telling us of a work area where a flagger was managing the traffic for the one lane road that was created.  Sure enough, the signs told the truth, and I found myself sitting behind my appliance truck friend at a site where the electric company was trimming trees away from its lines.  “Be patient,” I told myself as I waited permission from the flagger to pass.  Still creeping behind the service truck around a couple of bends, again we were greeted by a work zone sign, and again I found myself awaiting permission to pass tree trimmers.  “Be patient,” I told myself.  When the flagger flipped the sign from “stop” to “slow” we moved past the trimmers, but this time it seems that my appliance friend deemed to take the flagger’s word literally for now he was setting our pace at 15-20 miles an hours (in a 45 mile an hour zone).  “Be patient,”  I told myself as I assumed he was nearing his stop.  Riding my brakes down the slope, I painfully felt my brake pads eroding away, and when my appliance buddy took the fork in the road at the bottom of the hill, erasing my assumption that he was looking for an address, I felt the steam begin to accumulate in my ears.  “Be patient, “ I told myself.  Having lost my lumbering escort, I took a deep breath to calm  down, and set off to finish the last third of my commute.  But wouldn’t you know it, after a couple of more bends….there it was again…a orange work zone sign…..more tree trimmers!  “Be patient,”  I told myself.  Given my luck thus far, I guess that I should not have been surprised that within a mile of my third tree trimmers, I found myself behind a school bus making numerous stops gathering in the children who made their way onto the bus with the speed of a tree sloth.  “Be patient,” I told myself.  And then….as if someone was tracking me….every time I came upon a stop light, it turned red….5  of them.  “Be patient,” I told myself.  And when I finally arrived at work, I found the access to the parking lot blocked by a parent dropping their child off at our preschool (it’s where the parents are supposed to drop their kids off….).  “Be patient,”  I told myself.

By the time that I parked my car, my half hour commute had doubled in time.  As I walked into my office, a strange tune popped into my mind…a song from my youth.  “Slow down, you move too fast.  You gotta make the morning last.  Just kickin’ down the cobblestone.  Lookin’ for love and …..  feelin’ Groovy.”  Although Simon and Garfunkel sang it…..maybe it was a word from God that I needed to hear.

“Lord, soothe my soul with patience….grant me “grooviness.”

Have a great week.

God’s grace and peace, (ggap)

Pastor Jerry Nuernberger

The Bungee Cord   11-11-13

Hello,

Paul Bunyan, Big Joe Mufferaw, and now……me.

Some years from now when the annuls of western Pennsylvania are written there will be stories of the mighty lumberjacks that cleared the way for civilization….Paul Bunyan, Big Joe Mufferaw……and me.

When we built our house a couple of years ago, we situated it at the western edge of  the tree stand on the top of our hill.  During the summer the Maples trees, the Cherry trees, the Locus trees, and the Sasyphras (sp?) trees shelter our house from the heat of the sun and the gust of the wind.  In the fall they wrap it with a patchwork quilt of autumn colors.  In the winter they act as a break for the horizontally falling snow, and in the spring they bud up with life anew announced by the chirping of the birds who rebuild their nests in them.

The trees that surround our house are wonderful in many ways, but when one of them is hollowed out by ants and begins to slump toward our garage…..well, then it isn’t so wonderful.  Such was the case with a large maple tree that stood near our garage.  Over the years, the ants had dined on its core, turning the bottom several feet of it into a gigantic straw.  “This tree’s gotta come down,” said our friend Ralph who knows a thing or two about trees, “or it’s gonna come down….on your roof.”  So, promising to bring the cables over soon, he left the tree above our garage in hopes that we would not wake up some morning with a nature made sky light in our  garage.

Wouldn’t you know, a couple of days later the gusty winds of autumn hit our hill, pushing the air through the trees at 60 miles per hour.  Thankfully the tree stood stubborn against the wind….but not wanting to count too heavily on its hollowed out core, Ralph and his brother came up to our house on Saturday, ready to take the tree down.  The plan was to attach cables to it in order to have it land away from our garage and in a narrow opening between some other trees.  Ralph attached the first set of cables to the tree that we stretched to another tree in the direction that we hoped it would fall, and I (lumberjack that I am) climbed the ladder to attach the second cable to the tree to keep it from plopping down on my garage.  When everything was attached and taught, Ralph took his chain saw in hand and cut a notch in the base of the tree.  His brother and I began clicking the hand winches, causing the tree to lean and crackle.

“Click…click….click.” and the tree slowly began to lean away from vertical and away from my garage.  “Keep on clicking,” Ralph instructed, “I’m going to ‘tickle’ the tree.”  A bunch of clicks and tickles later, and although the tree was leaning, it wasn’t falling, being held up by branches from neighboring trees.  Putting his chainsaw down and walking toward his brother, Ralph leapt up like a gymnast reaching for the high bar and took hold of the cable, “Sometimes if you grab hold of the cable, the tree will come down.”  His brother of 60 years plus, joined him, and as they swang on the cable like monkeys on a vine,  and with a final crack the tree came crashing down.  As it did, Ralph and his brother immediately morphed into gazelles and ran for their lives, landing the tree within inches of where they had hoped.

     Mission accomplished.  Go ahead, wind, and blow.  That tree has lost its power to chill me with fear as it did when it loomed over my garage.  Thanks to three apt lumberjacks…Ralph, his brother….and me (!) I can lay my head down with ease at night, and wake up without looming fear.

     Got any looming trees hovering over you?  Every Sunday when we begin worship a trinity of divine lumberjacks stands ready to bring them down….not with chainsaws….but with forgiveness.  “In the mercy of Almighty God, Jesus Christ has been given to die for you, and for his sake, God forgives you all of your sins (looming trees).  As a called and ordained minister of the Church 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.  AMEN”

     Thanks to these triune lumberjacks who wield the power of forgiveness….The Father, The Son and The Holy Spirit….you can lay your head down with ease at night, and wake up without looming fear.  Come on Sunday and marvel at the grace with which the divine triune lumberjack can bring peace, hope and joy to your life.

Have a great week….TIMBER!

God’s grace and peace, (ggap)

Pastor Jerry Nuernberger

Bungee Cord 11-4-13

Hello,

     Oskeewowow!

     For those of you who do not follow college athletics, this odd word is the battle cry for the Fighting Illini of the University of Illinois.  I spent the first two years of my college career at the University of Illinois, and although I transferred out as a junior for career reasons, my heart stayed at the University of Illinois and with the friends that I had while I was there.  Even to this day….more years later than it seems….my U of I friends are still amongst my best friends even though I don’t see them very often.

     This weekend, thanks to the generosity of my brother-in-law who got some tickets, two of my Illinois friends came to my house to go to the Penn State/U of I game with Kate and me. We rendez-voused  at my house, here in enemy territory, on Friday night, laughed and joked with each other as if no time had passed since we had last been together, played ping-pong in my Illini Man Cave, and prepared ourselves to represent our team at the game.

     We woke up with the sun on Saturday, pumped!  Expecting a clog of traffic on our way to State College, Pa., we donned our orange and blue and left at 8:00 for the noon game.  The sun shone bright on the dimmed, but still beautiful colored ridges on our drive.  The drive didn’t seem like the 2 hours that Google had predicted for us as the four of us chatted all the way there like a bunch of squirrels gathering nuts.  Although the crowds of blue did not part like the Red Sea for us as we made our way onto the parking grounds, the trek to our parking space was not as arduous as we had planned.  Surprisingly enough, when we emerged from our car, the natives wearing blue and white greeted us with warmth and welcome.  And when we took our seats in the stands and the tide of blue began to rise all around us, we remained unscathed among the enemy.  There weren’t many wearing orange and blue at the game, but we did our best to cheer for our team when it made first downs, tackles and even a couple of touchdowns.  It was amazing the quiet that fell upon that stadium of 100,000+ when the Illini did something good, and somehow we hoped that our three voices filled the stillness of those moments.  We sang “Oskeewowow Illinois” when we scored, we groaned when our team fell apart (which it did far too often), we “questioned” the ref’s calls….we had a great time….a time just like we had years ago when we sat side by side in “Block I” in Memorial Stadium at the University of Illinois.

     Friends are a wonderful gift from God, often a gift from God that seems not to be effected by the passing of time, the paths life takes us on, or the bumps and bruises that we all gather along our separate ways.  I thank God for the blessing of friends.

     To spend time with dear friends magnifies, to me, the wonder of the blessing of the friendship that God has made with me in Jesus.  It magnifies the joy of joining our voices with Jesus, our friend,  in singing “Alleluia”.  It magnifies the hope in my heart when in my prayers I bring my successes and failures to Jesus’ ears, and sense the cheers and groans that we share.  It magnifies the despair that we, my friend Jesus and I, share at the injustice that goes uncalled, and the determination to make sure that it does not go un-noticed.   “What a friend we have in Jesus…..”, may not have the rousing tune of a college fight song, but it sure rings true to the depth and wonder of the friendship with Jesus that knows no passing of time, that remains no matter what path life takes, and doesn’t disappear when we become scarred by the battles that our sins stir up.

     Spending this past weekend with dear and long-time friends was wonderful!  And it opened my eyes again to the wonder and blessing of spending every moment of this life….and every moment of eternity….with one whose friendship is the greatest of all.

     By the way…..we lost the game….in overtime.  Ugh!

Have a great week.

God’s grace and peace, (ggap)

Pastor Jerry Nuernberger