The Bungee Cord  1-15-18

Hello,

     What a difference a day makes in Western Pennsylvania.  Last Friday I was walking around outside in a t-shirt in 60 degree temperature, and then on Saturday I was out shoveling snow, all bundled up, the air plunging to 9 below.  Not alone, were we in Pennsylvania, because I believe that this rollercoaster ride in temperature made its way across the Midwest to the East coast.

     For me, the abrupt change in apparel need is a good reminder that life can likewise take us to unexpected balmy heights and then send us likewise unexpectedly to frigid depths in the blink of an eye.  Life is…not just might be…at times a wild ride, a ride that often creates a difficulty in seeing God’s presence, at least a difficulty for me.

     Some years ago I wrote a song (yes, another song….having tortured you with a couple of videos, this week, I’ll just pass along the lyrics) on the Psalm 139:7-12.

“Sittin’ on a mountain top, just taking in the air.

Everything looks great up here, ain’t got a care.

It’s hard to see you Lord, in all this glare.

But even when I climb the clouds….my God you’re there.

God you’re there…God you’re there.

Even when I climb the clouds, my God you’re there.”

I find it personally true that when life is as good as it gets, the goodness of life is a glow that captures my vision.  I can find myself basking in the wonder of the joy and beauty that sometimes are like mountain peaks, and even better yet are like high mesas.  Sometimes the spotlight of pride and accomplishment beams into my eyes, and it is easy to get lost in myself.  But even then, says the Psalmist, God does not abandon me.  “Even when I climb the clouds, my God you’re there.”  Thank you, God.

“Blinded in a lightless cave, fears everywhere.

Signs say don’t even look, don’t love or care.

It’s hard to see you Lord, in sorrow’s snare.

But even in the valleys, Lord….my God you’re there.

God you’re there….God you’re there.

Even in the valleys, Lord…my God you’re there.” 

I don’t know who said it, but someone named these miserable days…weeks…years…as “the dark night of the soul”.  To me, that is a very accurate name for those times, having found myself flushed, like water in a toilet bowl into them.  Sometimes it has been my hands that have initiated the flush….other times, I have simply gotten caught up in a flush not of my making.  Either way, it is terrible, and when it happens it is really easy to wallow in a pity party…a party that I have discovered no one else wants to come to (and I don’t blame them).  But even then, says the Psalmist, God does not abandon me.  “Even in the valleys, Lord, my God you’re there.”  Thank you, God.

     As the January weather reminds us of the herky-jerky, clicking, hurling, plunging ride that life is…not might be… but is, God says to us in Psalm 139, “I am with you.”

“Oh…oh…what love.

Oh…oh…what love.

Whether high or whether low…..

My God you’re there.”

Thank you, God.

Have a great week.

God’s grace and peace, (ggap)

Pastor Jerry Nuernberger

⁷ Where can I go from your spirit?
   Or where can I flee from your presence?
⁸ If I ascend to heaven, you are there;
   if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there.
⁹ If I take the wings of the morning
   and settle at the farthest limits of the sea,
¹⁰ even there your hand shall lead me,
   and your right hand shall hold me fast.
¹¹ If I say, ‘Surely the darkness shall cover me,
   and the light around me become night’,
¹² even the darkness is not dark to you;
   the night is as bright as the day,
   for darkness is as light to you. (Psalm 139)

The Bungee Cord 1-1-18

Hello,

Happy New Year!

Some years ago, I went to Cameroon to spend four weeks visiting Lutheran congregations in the northern part of the country.  It was a life and faith changing experience.  Our trip began in February, and after a rather harrowing plane ride from the main city to our destination in the north we experienced a life quite removed from what we were used to; a life untouched by electricity, plumbing, paved roads, and the regulation and pressure of time.

“You Americans,” they would say, “have all the watches.  We have all the time.”  Because time had so little power and regiment to their lives, there was something else that we regularly saw and heard that caught me by surprise.

“Happy New Year!” was a regular greeting, and large banners wishing the same were strung in large and small towns….even though by the time that we left nearly two months has passed since the change of the calendar.

Over and over again in this generally timeless world, there was a reminder that the new year had come.  It seemed odd, odd enough to ask why this ongoing reminder….but, the time we spent with our Cameroonian friends passed without me getting a chance to ask.  So, I can only guess…..and here is my guess….the past has a way of clinging on to us…..the good and the bad.   The successes and failures.  The disasters and the gains.  The joys and the sorrows.  Unfortunately, the good always seems to have a rather frail grip, but the bad’s grip is tenacious.  Truth is, the bad of the past has a way of clinging tightly no matter what kind of world one lives in, but for those whose lives are not insulated from the swirling winds of the world, the strength of the clinging power of the past’s bad is very obvious.

So, “Happy New Year!”…everywhere you go, everywhere you look in order to shake off the past as rigorously as possible.  “Happy New Year! No matter what has happened, at least we made it though.” “Happy New Year!  The calendar pages have been ripped off and we’re starting off brand new.”  “Happy New Year!  If life has been hard, who knows, maybe the upcoming year will be different.”  Like one of those machines that shakes a Christmas tree, hoping to knock off all the dead pines before you take it home, so the signs and welcomes of “Happy New Year!” are meant to rattle our lives.

Problem is, the past has the power of Gorilla Glue to hold on.  Debts … grief …. fears … hurts … shame … guilt … despair ………… a power that clings with super human might … a power that the wishes we offer with human hands and words cannot shake loose.  No matter where one lives.  No matter how often we say, “Happy New Year!”

But listen to this!  “SO IF ANYONE IS IN CHRIST, THERE IS A NEW CREATION;  EVERYTHING OLD HAS PASSED AWAY; SEE EVERYTHING IS NEW!” (2 Corinthians 5:17…capitals, bold, and underline intended.)  In Jesus Christ, God has shaken the universe with a power that nothing can withstand…nothing….not even death!   Making every year….every day…every moment brand new.  Even though the world still sees the past clinging onto us after the world shakes us, not so with God.  When God shakes us with his grace, the only thing from the past that God sees holding onto us is his hold of God’s love on us.  And with God’s love being the only thing that clings onto us, we are empowered to live in this world with newfound hope, courage, peace, and joy. “FOR I AM CONVINCED THAT NEITHER DEATH, NOR LIFE, NOR ANGELS, NOR RULERS, NOR THINGS PRESENT, NOR THINGS TO COME, NOR POWERS, NOR HEIGHT, NOR DEPTH, NOR ANYTHING ELSE IN ALL CREATION WILL BE ABLE TO SEPARATE US FROM THE LOVE OF GOD IN CHRIST JESUS OUR LORD.” (Romans 8:38,39)

So, as you step into this new year, this new month, this new day, this new moment do so with feeling the grip of God on your life and the power of his shaking and amazing grace.

Have a great day.

God’s grace and peace, (ggap)

Pastor Jerry Nuernberger

The Bungee Cord 12-25-17

Hello,

       Last week’s Bungee Cord was the beginning of a Christmas Story that I wrote in 2000.  (You can find it on my blog: 1johnthreeone.blogspot.com.  Here’s the rest….

   ….”I’ll just stay on the other side of the street, “ he told himself, and he kept on his path to the church

     His church had always had a living manger scene, and as it happened it was being displayed that evening as Jacob made his way to his church.  He stood across the street from his church, looked at the building that once felt so much like home, looked at the people who he used to sit next to in church dressed up like Mary, Joseph, angels, Wiseman and Shepherds – and tears began to well up in his eyes.  Tears that came as he stood there and saw so clearly the stinking stench that he had made of his life.  And the tears that came as he missed the warmth and love that he no longer could have because of the smelly mess he had made of his life.

     And as he stood there looking at that living manger scene, he felt a tug on his heart to cross the street and get closer.  So, slowly he plodded across the street and neared the living manger.  He got close enough that he could tell who the people were who were portraying the Christmas characters, and he pulled his hat down over his brow so that they couldn’t tell who he was.  He had not been there very long, looking at each of those Christmas characters – Mary, Joseph, Angels, shepherds, wisemen, and the baby Jesus – when tears again welled up in his eyes and trickled down his cheeks.  The tears also made his nose run a little bit, and so he sniffled – and when he sniffled he thought that the noticed something.  So, he sniffled again.  And this time he was sure that he noticed something.  What his sniffling noticed was – to put it politely – the animals (the sheep, the cows, and the donkey) had all done their business as they stood there in that living manger scene.  He couldn’t smell it when he was across the street, but there in that make-shift stable he could smell it as if he was standing in it.  It stunk.  It really stunk there at that manger.

     Jacob went back to his auto repair shop, and climbed into his cot that night and said, “This Christmas, I am going to church.”  And when Christmas rolled around, that is what Jacob did.  He felt like a kid as he ascended the stairs to the front door of the church, stairs that he had ascended countless times as a kid.  The handshakes of the ushers and greeters felt like well-fitting gloves. The music wrapped him up like a warm blanket the readings and the prayers landed softly on his soul.  It felt great.  It was great to be back in church. 

     When the service was over, he chatted with the people as he made his way to the door. When he got to the door, the pastor reach out his hand, shook Jacob’s hand, and said, “Jacob, great to see you.  We’ve missed you.”

     And Jacob, with a smile on his face, said back to the Pastor, “It was great to be here.  You know, I’ve made such a mess of my life, that I didn’t think I should come to church any more.  But thanks to that living manger, I found out that I was wrong.”

     “How’s that?” asked the pastor.

     Have you ever taken a whiff around that manger?”  Jacob said with a smile.

     From that day on, Jacob was back in church every Sunday with a new-found hope – the hope that the Lord who chose to enter this world in a smelly manger had also chosen to take his place in Jacob’s rancid life.  But more than that…..also with the hope that the Lord whose presence filled that grand and beautiful church would use his forgiving power Sunday after Sunday to transform Jacob’s life into a temple as beautiful and grand.

     Just like Jacob, you have a place….you belong…in church, too.  On Christmas….and every Sunday.  No matter what your life smells like.  And if you have a hard time believing that, next time you see a living manger scene, do what Jacob did.  Get close to it and take a whiff!

Merry Christmas.

Have a great week.

God’s grace and peace, (ggap)

Pastor Jerry Nuernberger