Bungee Cord  12-23-14

The Bungee Cord  12-23-14

Hello,

Merry Christmas from me!  Going to try and give you a real Christmas treat.  I wrote a Christmas Carol some years ago called “Carol of the Holy Family”.  I recorded it on my Mac using Garage Band.  I hope that you can upload it to your computer, even if you’re using a PC….but if not, here’s the words….maybe it is better without my voice and just my pen!

Carol of the Holy Family

Jerry Nuernberger, copyright 2004

 

Jesus, Jesus lying in a midnight stable,

Though you’re tiny yet you’re able

To free us from all our sins.

                Gloria, Gloria

                Gloria in the highest.

                Gloria, Gloria

You will make us clean within

                You will make us clean within.

 

Mary, Mary with a child not conceived by a man

Though you’re mortal, yet it’s God’s plan

From your womb salvation bring

                Gloria, Gloria

                Gloria in the highest.

                Gloria, Gloria

Ponder in your heart these things.

                Ponder in your heart these things.

 

Joseph, Joseph father to this heavenly son

Though you’re humble, when his life’s done

God will right the world through him

                Gloria, Gloria

                Gloria in the highest

                Gloria, Gloria

Peace on earth from heaven break in

                Peace on earth from heaven break in.

 

Final chorus

                Gloria, Gloria

                Gloria in the highest

                Gloria, Gloria

Peace on earth from heaven break in

                Peace on earth from heaven break in.

Have a blessed Christmas.

God’s grace and peace, (GGAP)

Pastor Jerry Nuernberger

CAN'T SEEM TO ADD THE AUDIO.....I'll try later

The Bungee Cord  12-14-12

Hello,

     When I was 30 I looked like I was 16….maybe 18.

     It was when I was about 30 that I was a pastor in Toledo, and in my ministry there I found myself doing a lot of funerals for people I had never met.  So it was one day that I was asked to do such a funeral.  My practice for these kinds of funerals was to meet with the family at the funeral home before the visitation was to begin in order to get to know the relatives, how they were dealing with the death, and learn a bit about the one who had passed away.  As I came to the door of the funeral home, I was met by a short, stocky man whom I didn’t know.

     “I am Pastor Nuernberger,” I told the man, “and I will be doing Louie’s funeral.  Is Louie’s wife here?”

     I wondered if he heard me….maybe he had a hearing defect….because there wasn’t any reaction to my question in his face.  He just kind of stood there looking at me.

     So, I repeated my introduction, “I am Pastor Nuernberger, and I will be doing Louie’s funeral.  Is Louie’s wife here?”

     He sort of grunted as he waved for me to follow him into the funeral home.  He led me into the visitation room where about a dozen people where sitting in the wooden folding chairs that were lined up for services.  A small, fragile woman was sitting in the front row to whom he led me.

     He trudged up to her as if he was trudging through 10 inches of heavy snow and he said with a gruff voice, “Stella, I hate to tell ya, but this is the pastor.”

     Well, as you and I walk up to the Christmas manger there’s a gruff voice from the world directed at us that says, “Folks, I hate to tell ya, but this is the savior.”  After all…it is just a baby…a baby born in a dinky little dirt roaded town….a baby born in a remote mid-east country at a time in history when people knew little about the composition of the universe and what they knew we now know was wrong…..a baby of a tribe of people whose religion dealt in animal sacrifices and offerings of grain.

     Just like that elderly man who looked at me and saw a wet behind the ears, “16” year old, clerical collared kid come to do a funeral for his sister who was deep in grief and thought, “You have to be kidding me.”, there is a natural tendency for people in our day (maybe including you and me) to see a diaper dirtying, manger laid baby born of simple minded people heralded as the savior of the world and say, “You have to be kidding me.”

     In many ways, that disappointed man who greeted me at the funeral home was right.  I was young, not as young as I looked, though.  What did I know about the struggles of life?  What did I know about tragedy and loss? What did I know about emptiness and grief?

     I hope that I knew enough.  I hope that I knew enough so that I could help that widow as she walked through the valley of the shadow of death, facing a life ahead of her that was completely unlike the life she had lived for decades, wondering if the hole in her heart would be a drain to empty her of any joy.  Even though I may not have looked like it, I hope that my time with that family at that funeral proved to be what they needed and hoped for out of a pastor.  I hope that when she shook my hand and with tears in her eyes said to me, “Thank you, pastor,” that her words were heartfelt.

     I guess that it is the same thing with that Bethlehem born baby, heralded as the saviour of the world.  Did the words that this baby spoke in his adult years to the outcasts and unloved have the power to redirect the river of hope to the hopeless?  Did the hands that he stretched out to lift of those who the world had kicked and beaten down have the strength to push his way through the judgments of the world and stand up those who continue to be crushed by the mighty?  Did the arms that were nailed to a cross have the capacity to gather up all the failures, the disasters, the guilt, and the shame of all who have stumbled through life and lead them through the darkness of death.

     I can’t speak for everyone, but I can speak for myself…speak of whom this one who was Bethlehem born has walked into my life in a way that may not have been as visible as my time with that grieving wife in the funeral home, but just as present….and all I can say with heartfelt truth as I sense his loving embrace, “Thank you Lord.”

Have a great week.

God’s grace and peace, (ggap)

Pastor Jerry Nuernberger

The Bungee Cord 12-9-14

Hello,

     Just under a year ago I was in Bethlehem, the city of David, the Biblical birthplace of Jesus.  The Bible doesn’t give us much of a description of Bethlehem, which in Hebrew means “house of bread”.  Christmas song writers however have painted a picture with their lyrics of a quiet country town where cattle “low” (do any cattle tending Bungee readers know what that means?”) and babies sleep in heavenly peace.  Who knows for sure, but my suspicion is that the truth of life in Bethlehem was not so idyllic. Bethlehem, as was all of Israel, patrolled by Roman armies who kept the peace by ruthless fear.  Also, Bethlehem was under the thumb of King Herod who seems not to have had any hesitancy to spill the blood of his people.  Was all calm and bright in Bethlehem at the time of Jesus birth?  I don’t think so.

     And neither is all calm and bright in Bethlehem today as we near the anniversary of that birth.  Jerusalem is a divided city.  Huge 20 foot walls separate people, Jews from non-Jews.  These walls have become roadblocks, cutting family businesses off from their customers.  These walls have separated olive farmers from their groves, and thus their livelihood. The people of Bethlehem have painted artwork and graffiti on these walls.  One such painting that I saw was of a large purple ribbon, the sort of ribbon one gets for a prize cow at the fair, and inside the circle at the top which on fair ribbons might read “Grand Champion”, these words are painted, “With love and kisses nothing lasts forever”.

     Some of you may have heard of the questioning of the historical accuracy of Jesus’ birth in Bethlehem in a book called The Zealot.  This is not a new question.  For centuries some have spoken of the “unlikelihood” of making people return to the city of their ancestors for an enrollment, and the lack of extra-Biblical recounting of such an enrollment in Jesus’ day.  Of course, even these objections do not rule out the possibility of the historical accuracy of the birth story.

     But to me, the preoccupation with asserting or refuting the accuracy of the Biblical account superimposes a modern understanding of history on the Biblical story and misses the truth that the story is making.    The truth that Jesus was to have been born in Bethlehem, which he certainly may have been, has more to do with the revealing of who Jesus was and what Jesus would be.  The Bible tells us that God made a promise to his people that God would provide for them a King who would rule over them, a King who would descend from the stem of David (Bethlehem was the town in which David’s family of origin grew up).   Jesus was the fulfillment of that promise…God keeps his word.   Also, by locating Jesus’ birth in Bethlehem, instead of the palace in Jerusalem, we see the truth that God has come, and will come, into the ordinary and common places of life….places filled with manure, places filled with confusion, places filled with danger, places that are not calm, bright, and peaceful.

     In these Advent days, the four weeks before Christmas, if you wonder if you are important enough that God Almighty, the King of the Universe, would even have a flicker of a thought of you pass through his mind…remember Bethlehem.  If you wonder if you life is neat and clean enough that God would want to walk through your life with you…remember Bethlehem.  If you wonder if your life is together enough that God would want to settle in there…..remember Bethlehem.  If you look at your life and see the 20 foot walls that you have built to keep others away and even maybe keep God away…remember Bethlehem.  And on Christmas when you sing “O Little Town of Bethlehem”….remember Bethlehem….and although the picture that the song writer gives of Bethlehem may be a little inaccurate…the song writer got it absolutely, historically accurate….”The hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight.”

Have a great week.

God’s grace and peace, (ggap)

Pastor Jerry Nuernberger

The Bungee Cord 11-30-14

Hello,

Last week I was on vacation in San Antonio, Texas, thus the reason for no Bungee Cord. But I am back…and so is the Bungee Cord.

So, why San Antonio?  Well, in 1987 I went to San Antonio for my first time with 40 high school kids who went to attend the National Youth Gathering, a gathering of 20,000 kids (back then there were 2 gatherings of 20,000….so, we were there for the first week).  I remembered saying to myself that San Antonio seemed to be a beautiful city.  I said “seemed” because with 20,000 high school kids stirring around, it was hard to tell for sure.  Anyway, I said to myself back then that someday I should go to San Antonio with my wife and see if my appraisal was correct.  So, that is why my wife and I decided to take a pre-Thanksgiving vacation there.

To my delight, my appraisal was more than right.  The Riverwalk.  The warmth.  The history.  The relaxation.  It was wonderful.

As icing on the cake, my best friend from high school happens to live in the San Antonio area, and our itineraries worked out for us to spend Sunday together.  We worshipped together at the HUGE church that he and his wife go to.  We ate lunch at a restaurant owned by one of his friends.  We went to SeaWorld (free….because his daughter is a whale trainer).  And then we finished the day off with Supper.  It was wonderful…wonderful on several levels.  It was wonderful to have a native show us around.  It was wonderful to get an inside look at Seaworld.  But most wonderful was the chance to catch up with one another.

And we had a lot of catching up to do.  We hadn’t seen each other in 33 years.  He and I grew up in the same suburban Chicago church.  We both played baseball…he a catcher…me a pitcher.  We spent endless hours practicing baseball with each other, shooting pool in my basement, hanging out and goofing around.  He went to Texas to go to college and play baseball, I hung up my glove and stayed north.  He got drafted by the Cincinnati Reds.  I “got drafted” (actually we Lutherans say “got called”) by God to go to seminary in St. Paul, Minnesota.  My wife and I went to see him when he played for one of the Red’s farm teams in Connecticut….and we hadn’t seen each other since.  33 years!

But when we got together, you would have never known it.  We seemed to pick up right where we left off.  Remembering the same funny stories.  Recalling the time that I struck him out in an All Star game with a curve ball in the dirt (you know I had to include that!).  Hearing about parents, and sharing some of the bumps that we have had along the way.  It as great!  It was almost as if 33 years had been erased from the tape of time.

That is the way it is with friends, at least the friends that knew you and cared for you with a depth that was heart deep.

Let me remind you as you read this of one such friends of yours, Jesus.  In a way that only the Divine One can claim, Jesus is a friend that knows you in a heart deep way.  And in a way that only the Divine One can do, Jesus is a friend whose care for you is much deeper than heartfelt.  The cross is evidence of both.

For some of you, Jesus has been a lifetime friend with whom you have shared a lifetime neighborhood.  But others, it may have been years since you have had a rendez-vous  with Jesus. Either way of this I am certain, if you do reconnect with Jesus you will find that it will seem like no time has passed. Whether it has been hours, or years.  There is a distinct joy in being with one whose friendship is uniquely deep…one who knows you like none other, and one who likewise cares for you.

Let me pass on to you Jesus’ invite to reconnect with him this Sunday.  The good news is that you don’t have to go all the way to San Antonio to do so….just find a church….and Jesus will find you.

Have a great week.

God’s grace and peace,

Pastor Jerry Nuernberger

The Bungee Cord 11/17/14

Hello,

     Yesterday I had “brunch” at a Chinese restaurant in Flushing, New York.  I was visiting my son in NYC, and part of my visit was an experience of the Chinese culture.  It was a Sunday Brunch completely unlike any I have ever had.

     He, his girlfriend (who is Chinese), and I walked into the restaurant that had a dining hall the size of a basketball court.  The  “court” was filled with round tables that sat 8 per table.  Since we were only three, we shared the table with a young Chinese couple that seemed oblivious to our presence at their table.  We were directed to the table by a walkie-talkie holding “maitre d’” who waved us past the wall divider into the hall as if he were a traffic cop and we were car-dodging pedestrians.

     We might as well had been car-dodging pedestrians, because weaving in and around the tables were women pushing metal carts with the food.   Some of the food was on little plates, always in groups of three (and often undecipherable to my western eyes).  Other carts had covered vats with soups whose colors I had never seen in soup before.  And still other carts had food that was dipped out of large containers and place in a bowl for us to share.  The folks who shared our table asked for one such thing as a woman rolled by, a bowl full of sliced cow’s lung.

     To me, it felt like I was eating on a bumper car track.  The din of the conversation (all in Chinese) was so loud that I could barely hear my son’s girlfriend trying to tell me what I was eating (which may have been a blessing), and the women who pushed their carts around hawked their wares like concession sellers at baseball games.  Of course, there were no forks or spoons, only chopsticks, which I found exceptionally challenging to use when seeking to grasp one of the foods that was ….well…slimy. (I had to resort to spearing some of my food in order to lift it off my plate and bring it to my mouth.)

     Like I said, it was a brunch the likes of which I had never had before.  A brunch, however, I am very glad to have had.   I ate things that I had never eaten before, some of which I won’t be disappointed if I don’t eat again.  But more importantly around that brunch table, I experienced a culture that I had never experienced before.  Without having to go to China, I got a taste of the energy, the table fellowship, and the palate of a culture far different from the one that I daily experience.  It was a blessing which has broadened my life.

     Although I do it regularly, I feel like I experience the same sort of thing every time that I go to the Lord’s supper and receive Holy Communion.  That meal that comes with the promise of the body and blood of Jesus “in, with, and under the bread and wine” is of a sort that no human kitchen could concoct.  It is a unity with the Divine and with those who share this holy brunch with me that is beyond my human understanding, and the culture of forgiveness and mercy that permeates the meal gives me a taste of hope and love that is foreign to anything else in life.

     I was quickly filled as I ate my Chinese brunch, not only with food but also with a great appreciation for a different culture.  Let me extend to you the Lord’s invitation to come to his table on Sunday and see if you do not find yourself quickly and wonderfully filled….filled with the grace of God which far surpasses amazing, and filled with a new taste of hope that will flavor every encounter in life that you have with others and every challenge that you face.

     I am thankful for the invite given me to this past Sunday’s brunch.  Might I be so bold as to invite you to a wonderful brunch this Sunday…the Lord’s Supper.  It is a dining experience unlike any other.

Have a great week.

God’s grace and peace, (ggap)

Pastor Jerry Nuernberger

The Bungee Cord 11-10-14

Hello,

     Today, I am doing something different…..rather that writing the Bungee Cord, I am going to let you hear it!  It’s an audio Bungee Cord!

     Follow this link to my sermon for this Sunday, a sermon that was based on these words of Jesus, “Stay awake therefore, for you do not know the hour or time.”

            http://felchurch.org/sermons/

     Go to the sermon for Nov. 9…..Take a listen…..see what you think.

God’s grace and peace, (ggap)

Pastor Jerry Nuernberger

Bungee Cord 11/2/14

Hello,

     “Will you please pick up a box of these on your way to the wedding,” said my wife to me as I was getting ready to go out the door on Saturday.  The “box of these” was a box of vinyl gloves that she needed so she could apply some stain to a bench that she was refinishing.  Since I was giving myself about an extra half hour before the wedding party was to arrive, I said that I could do that, especially because the store was on the way to church.

     When I arrived at the store, one of those huge stores that has everything that you want and everything that you don’t need, the parking lot was full, as you would expect on a Saturday afternoon.  Stubbornly trying to find a spot close to the door, I drove up and down a number of lanes until I realized I was just going to have to walk, parking several lanes away from the door and quite a ways away from the door.

     My wife told me that I would be likely to find these vinyl gloves in the pharmacy area of the store.  Confessing to male blindness in shopping, I must have walked up and down every aisle of the pharmacy section four or five times, not finding the assigned gloves.  Fortunately, I found an employee of the store, decked out in her store’s vest, and so I asked her, “Do you happen to have vinyl gloves?”

     “Medical or cleaning gloves?” she asked me.

     “I don’t know.  My wife needs them to put some stain on a bench.”

     “Oh, then you can find them on the furthest aisle, next to the band-aides.”

     “Thanks,” I said, and ventured where I was directed, and behold boxes of gloves….all latex.

     To my surprise, I heard, “Sir, I am sorry, but I think that you’ll find the gloves that you want in the cleaning area in the back of the store.”  It was the woman who realized her error and had come to be of greater assistance.

     So, off I went to the back of the store, which was a football’s field away.  Unfortunately when I got there and wandered through the cleaning supplies area numerous times, male shopper’s blindness returned and I couldn’t find the gloves anywhere.  As my frustration was mounting, my eyes landed on something that brought peace to my boiling aggravation: another employee in his store vest coming my way.  “Sir,” I said, “I was told that I could find vinyl gloves in this section.”

     Without missing a step, and giving me only a slight glance, he said, “I am off the clock.  I can’t help you.”  And he walked right by me.  Immediately, my blood temperature soared!  So, I spent another ten minutes scouring the cleaning section aisles….and no gloves to be found.  With 20 minutes of hunting behind me, and a wedding parting soon to await me to open the church doors, I gave up, gloveless, and left with steam escaping from my ears.  “I am off the clock.  I can’t help you.”

     Of this, I am very glad:  I will never hear that from God.

Psalm 121

I lift up my eyes to the hills— from where will my help come? 
My help comes from the Lord,
who made heaven and earth.


He will not let your foot be moved;
he who keeps you will not slumber. 
He who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep.


The Lord is your keeper;
the Lord is your shade at your right hand. 
The sun shall not strike you by day,
nor the moon by night.


The Lord will keep you from all evil; he will keep your life. 
The Lord will keep
your going out and your coming in
from this time on and for evermore.

     Unlike some store employees, God is never off the clock, and good thing, because life is full of far more perplexing things than trying to find a box of vinyl gloves…things that you and I encounter every day…and every night.  When I am lost…when I am confused…when I am struggling…when I am scared…when I am overwhelmed…when I have blown it…when I can’t even stand to look at myself in the mirror……God, like that employee, comes to me…but unlike that employee, God doesn’t watch the clock, instead God sees the anxiety and frustration in my eyes, and he takes ahold of me and says, “Here, let me help you.”

Have a great week.

God’s grace and peace, (ggap)

Pastor Jerry Nuernberger