The Bungee Cord 7-1-24

Hello,

Do you know what an ophiophilist is? I am not one!

My wife and I were moving some wood that we had cut and split, preparing for the colder weather. The stack of wood had been there over a year, and so we were moving it into our woodshed to be accessible in the winter. About half-way down the stack, we picked up a couple of logs, and something moved…or should I say, slithered. It was a young snake, a garter snake, maybe a foot long. Although it did cause my wife and me to jump a little, due to its size our response was more of a twitch accompanied with a giggle, and we kept on working. However, after moving a couple more logs, there was another slither, and this time the snake was about three feet long. We deduced it was an adult girder snake, and after the snake moved further into the pile, we resumed our work. But that was not the end of it. We moved a couple more logs and “Hello”, another snake. This time it was not a garter snake but was patterned (see the picture that we took of the snake). Not being a herpetologist, a studier of snakes, we weren’t sure what kind of snake we had uncovered. We had heard that copperheads are in our area, so we looked “copperhead snake” on our phone, and sure enough, there was a strong resemblance. Thinking that it might be a copperhead, and not wanting to get it angry, we decided our wood moving was done. I am not an ophiophilist, a snake lover.

But I do know someone who is an ophiophilist: God. I know this about God because, I have found myself snake-like slithering in dark and decaying times of my life, and God has found me. He has found me when I have acted out with biting venom towards those with whom I am angered. He has found me when I have squeezed the life right out of those who are kicked in the teeth over and over again as I have done nothing to change the systemic sins of our world. He has found me when my mouth is a rattle that defensively shakes when my deeds have caused pain and hurt to those whom I love, and those whom I will never know. I, a snake, find myself being found over and over by God as God is at work in God’s world, and here’s the amazing thing: God does not flinch. Instead, God reaches down into the decay and rot that I have caused and takes ahold of me with transformational grace and mercy. That is exactly what God did in Jesus. God reached down into this world in order to gather into his grip all the slithery, sinful snakes and make them a new creation….children of God. You see, God is an ophiophilist, a snake lover….a lover of sinners.

People are often shocked when they see someone exhibit snake-like actions, saying,

“How could a person ever do such a thing?”, and they reflexively pull away from that person. They stop talking to them. They block them from their phone and internet. They walk to the other side of the street when they seem them coming. But in Jesus we have seen that God is not shocked when he finds us slithering, after all we are sinners/snakes, and more important than that we have seen that God does not reflexively distance himself from us, but instead embraces us, forgives us, and loves the snake right out of us.

God is an ophiophilist, a lover of snakes/sinners, an ophiophilist whose love for us is so great that he doesn’t leave us as snakes who spread venom and poison throughout the world, but transforms us snakes/sinners into children of God who wiggle through life spreading God’s grace and mercy.

I am not an ophiophilist….but thankfully, God is!

Have a great week.

God’s grace and peace, (ggap)

Pastor Jerry Nuernberger

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 The Bungee Cord 6-24-24

Hello,

I was a “supply preacher” this past weekend at a church in Johnstown, Pa. I have found myself filling pulpits about once or twice a month since I retired a year and a half ago. It feels good to get back in the saddle without all the pressures of everyday ministry. As I was thinking about what I would write in my Bungee Cord this week, it seemed to me that my sermon, which was based on Mark 4:35-41 when Jesus calmed the sea, was Bungee worthy. So, here it is.

Mark 4:35-41

June 2024

So, there they all were, the twelve of them, after a whole day of teaching at the seashore to large crowds, and Jesus said to them, “Let’s go across to the other side.” I am sure that some of the disciples must have thought to themselves, or even said it out loud, “Why can’t we just stay here for the night?” Why hop into a small boat and sail out into the darkness and risk dealing with the chaos that brewed in the sea?

I’ve seen the kind of boat that they were using (you can too if you look up “The Jesus Boat” on the internet). The boat was unearthed a couple of decades ago when there was a severe drought around the sea of Galilee, and it is displayed in a museum by the sea. The boat was about 30 feet long, 7 feet wide and 4 feet deep. No keel, but only a place for a sail in the middle of the boat and a rudder at the back of the boat. The sea of Galilee, which is really just a large lake, 11 miles long and 7 miles wide at its greatest width, could erupt into a hungry whirlpool as winds would sweep through the valley in which it lay, so travelling it was dangerous even in the day, but at night when you couldn’t see where you were going or couldn’t see approaching storms, and you had no keep to keep you going straight it could have been considered a death trap.

“Why can’t we just stay here until the morning, Jesus?” But since Jesus was the rabbi and they were his loyal students, they hopped into the boat and set sail for the 7-mile trip to the other side. The Bible doesn’t tell us how long it was that they were afloat before the mighty gust erupted and they found themselves being tossed around like Yatzee dice in their boat and the water was swamping it, but when that happened, we know this, the disciples feared for their lives. They went to Jesus and woke him up as he was asleep in the back of the boat. Remember this boat was less than10 yards long and was nearly packed to the gills with the 13 of them riding in it, so when the Bible says that they went to Jesus, it was only a matter of a foot or two that they had to go, and they said to him, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?”

“Do you not care?” “Do you not care?” After all, it was at Jesus who had decided to throw all caution to the wind and make that dangerous trip. And It was Jesus who seemed completely at ease with the pounding of the waves and the sinking of the boat. Did Jesus bring them out here in the middle of the Sea of Galilee that they would die? Did he want this boat to go down? Was this his plan that they, including him, would drown to death? “Teacher, do you not care?”

Ever find those words coming from your mouth as you take Jesus by the shoulders when the sea is crashing down on you? “Jesus, do you not care?” Do you not care that I have lost my job and I have all these bills to pay? Do you not care that my kid gets bullied from the time that she steps on the bus to the time she steps off and I have to watch her cry herself to sleep every night? Do you not care that my family is falling apart right before my very eyes? Do you not care that the darkness of depression is so thick that I can’t see where I am going, and I feel like I am drowning? “Jesus, do you not care?”

Many people who read this story think that this story is in the Bible to show how powerful Jesus is, that he has so much power that “even the wind and the sea obeys him. Certainly, that is true. The disciples certainly are amazed by the power he just wielded. But I think there is a greater reason that this story found its way into the Bible and into our ears, and that is this: to show us how much Jesus cares. “Do you not care?”, the disciples asked, and Jesus answered their question not with words directed at them, but words directed at the sea and the wind. Jesus did not just say that he cared….he showed them he cared. “Jesus, do you not care?” “You bet I care!”

To me, it is not so amazing that Jesus, who is God incarnate, might have the power to do incredible things…miraculous things….after all Jesus was the Son of God. What is amazing to me that Jesus, who the Gospel of John tells us ” was In the beginning with God, and was God. . All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being.” It is amazing to me that this one, would care at all about the 12 other microscopic specks of the universe who were in that boat with him, specks so small in the scope of the universe that even the most powerful atomic microscope could not see them….and to bring that to us, we who sit in this nave…this boat…that is what this room is called….that he would care about us…sub atomic specks in the universe. That is hard for me to believe.

So that is why, God didn’t just say “I care,” to us who venture into the darkness of the future, tossed about by the gusts of winds, waves of pressure pounding down on us and filling our lives with guilt and fear, and we find ourselves sinking in despair. No, Jesus rose up from the cushion of his life, was nailed to a cross and like a giant cosmic maelstrom gathered into himself everything and anything that might take us away from him, and with the yell, “It is finished!” Jesus took all of those things to the grave with him and left them there when he walked out on Easter morning. He left them there dead and in the grave, so that they might no longer have power over us. Jesus didn’t just say he cares….Jesus showed that he cares….with his very life, he showed that he cares.

I don’t know if you have noticed, but life is not a daily gentle cruise on a pontoon boat in a protected, glassy lake. Life is like a nighttime journey across the sea of Galilee, a journey where Jesus takes us. Jesus did not come so that we could sit on the seashore and watch life go by. He came so that we might have life and have it abundantly, and when Jesus says abundantly he isn’t talking about wealth and power and glory….he is talking about relationships that are so dear that it stabs your heart when they end…he is talking about hope so strong that you can say with courage to the world when you wake up, “hit me with your best shot”….he is talking about divine love so powerful that when you stand on the edge of your own grave, you can laugh at death and say, “Death be not proud. You won’t have me. God has me forever.”

So, when you get up from your pew today and step out into the gusty world around you, you who have received the very body and blood of Jesus and now holds on to you from the inside with divine strength… know this: Jesus cares…Jesus the one who has the power of the universe, the power to still wind and waves…Jesus, that one, cares about you!

Amen.

Have a great week.

God’s grace and peace (ggap),

Pastor Jerry Nuernberger

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 The Bungee Cord. 6-17-24

Hello,

A couple of weeks ago, I bought a new phone, because my old phone, which wasn’t that old, would no longer hold a charge. As the salesperson was transferring the data from my old phone to my new phone suddenly there was some sort of glitch, and the salesperson blurted out “W___ T__ F___!” I was surprised by his words, but they didn’t seem surprising at all to him as he continued to try and get the phone data transferred chatting about how this had never happened to him before.

I grew up in a home where swearing just wasn’t part of our vocabulary, as a matter of fact even the devil’s domain was dubbed “h…e…double toothpick”. I don’t know why my parents never swore but my suspicion is that as Christians, they thought they shouldn’t. I remember when I was in elementary school when many of the boys showed they were cool by swearing. They often tried to get me to swear, but it was too engrained in my brain that you just didn’t swear.

When I hit adulthood, I tried to understand why my parents and I did not swear, and I decided that those words were nothing more than verbal pollution. Many of them filled the air with filth and degradation, degrading people and degrading God’s creation. I came to see how using God’s name in vain was a blasphemous lie, because when a person uses God’s name in vain that person is telling the world that God is nothing…nothing more than an exclamation mark. In a world that clogs our ears with words of hate, of fear, of put-downs, of hard heartedness, of pressure and judgment…..I don’t swear because I don’t want to add to all that mess with verbal garbage.

Sometimes, however, it seems like my ears get clogged with such words like a drain gathering hair, clogged to the point that I can’t hear. I can’t hear the pain that is exploding in a teenager’s life who is trying my patience by their acting out. I can’t hear the soothing words of peace that are said to me when I am feeling crushed. I can’t hear the terror in the voice of a parent wondering if there will be food on the table tomorrow. I can’t hear the laughter from the lungs of one who has just heard “the cancer is gone”. I can’t hear the “wait for me” from the elderly person who just can’t keep up with the world. Living in a world that is constantly dumping buckets of verbal garbage into our ears, my ears get clogged, and I can’t hear.

But therein lies one reason why I attend worship at my church every week….to clean out my ears so I can hear. Once, when my ears were literally clogged with wax, and I literally could not hear, I went to the doctor who looked into my ears and said, “Your ears are completely clogged.” So, she went and got a bottle of clean water and attached a “squirter thing” that looked like a small gravy baster to it. She aimed it into my ear. I could feel the water gush into my ear canal, and suddenly, I could hear again! That is what happens to me when I worship on Sunday morning. Jesus, figuratively, looks into my ear and shoots his cleansing words into them…words that have the power to break up the world’s garbage clog. “I love you.” “I forgive you.” “You are the apple of my eye.” “I died and rose for you.” “Nothing in life or death will ever be able to separate you from me.”

Those words are powerful words, words containing the power that made and holds all of creation together. As those words are sprayed into my ears, I can feel them working like a pressure washer, and suddenly I find that I can hear again! And with the same joy that I felt as I left the doctor’s office, there is joy deep in my soul knowing that I will hear the most important things in life, and the sound of those things will reach my heart creating a volcanic eruption of love, compassion, hope, peace and abounding joy.

Let me invite you to church this Sunday so you can have your ears cleaned and hear again!

Have a great week.

God’s grace and peace, (ggap)

Pastor Jerry Nuernberger

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 The Bungee Cord. 5-9-24

Hello,

How to get to heaven.

It seems to me that for many people, that would be their answer to the question, “What is the purpose of the Christian faith?” In truth, I think, that answer is what the focus of the church’s teachings have been during many years of the life of the Christian faith. As a Lutheran in seminary, I learned that that was certainly the case in Martin Luther’s lifetime when people were being taught that the purchase of an indulgence would release a loved one into heaven.

I know that even for myself, that would have been my answer in my younger years. “If you want to go to heaven, be a Christian.”

That, however, would not be my answer today, nor has it been my answer for all of my ministry. It has become clear to me that God did not send his Son, Jesus, to be a guide in our steps to the grave, but rather Jesus came to demolish the grave and make every one of our steps a step out of the grave. (Romans 6) In my mind that is what Jesus was trying to tell Nicodemus who asked him, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?”, to which Jesus responded, “You must be born again (or literally, “from above”).” And Jesus was soon to make that happen for Nicodemus when Jesus escaped the womb of death by destroying death on Easter morning when he was resurrected, and it was a destruction that will remain forever.

For me, the Bible is not a road map leading to a treasure. It is, instead, a magnifying glass giving us sight to see what God is up to. And what is God up to? God is like a sculptor that takes a lump of clay and turns it into a beautiful work of art. God is and has been shaping his handiwork to be an awe-inspiring work of grace. It is a work of art that embodies in itself and elicits in the viewer hope, peace, joy, love and abundantly so much more. It is the kind of thing that when one sees it, one’s breath is taken away and the following breath that one takes in fills one’s lungs with new life. The Bible helps us see God doing this in each of our lives and in all of creation.

I hope that the Bungee Cord has been a similar magnifying glass, albeit quite scratched up by me, for you. I hope that when you read the Bungee Cord, you see with a little more clarity a bit of the artistic work that God is doing in you and in the world. You see, I do not believe that the Christian faith is meant to be a guidebook on how to get to heaven, but instead I believe that being a Christian is being part of the unfolding grace of God. And I hope that you, like I, when you get a glimpse of what God is doing in you and all of creation you will be awash in hope, peace, joy, loved and abundantly so much more, and with your lungs filled afresh with new life you will join me and say, “Wow!”

Have a great week.

God’s grace and peace, (ggap)

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