Sunday School

Happy Birthday, Mr. Manning

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / 1 Comment

I realize that this is the third day in a row that I’ve blogged about Brennan Manning, but I also understand that this blog is called Ragamuffin Gospel Fan for a reason.

Today would have been Mr. Manning’s 81st birthday. He passed away over two years ago on April 12, 2013, at the age of 78.

I can think of no one who wrote about grace and the love of God better than he did. Perhaps it took someone who had wrecked his life through alcoholism and had hit rock bottom more than once to fully appreciate the grandness of the grace of God, but if anybody did, Brennan did.

I always think of this quote when I think of him and I want to share it with you again. It’s lengthy but worth the extra time it takes to read it:

“Because salvation is by grace through faith, I believe that among the countless number of people standing in front of the throne and in front of the Lamb, dressed in white robes and holding palms in their hands (see Revelation 7:9), I shall see the prostitute from the Kit-Kat Ranch in Carson City, Nevada, who tearfully told me that she could find no other employment to support her two-year-old son. I shall see the woman who had an abortion and is haunted by guilt and remorse but did the best she could faced with grueling alternatives; the businessman besieged with debt who sold his integrity in a series of desperate transactions; the insecure clergyman addicted to being liked, who never challenged his people from the pulpit and longed for unconditional love; the sexually abused teen molested by his father and now selling his body on the street, who, as he falls asleep each night after his last ‘trick’, whispers the name of the unknown God he learned about in Sunday school.

‘But how?’ we ask.

Then the voice says, ‘They have washed their robes and have made them white in the blood of the Lamb.’

There they are. There *we* are – the multitude who so wanted to be faithful, who at times got defeated, soiled by life, and bested by trials, wearing the bloodied garments of life’s tribulations, but through it all clung to faith.

My friends, if this is not good news to you, you have never understood the gospel of grace.'”
― Brennan Manning, The Ragamuffin Gospel: Good News for the Bedraggled, Beat-Up, and Burnt Out

 

To Every Zaccheus Out There

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / Leave a comment

Zacchaeus in the Scyamore Tree Luke 19:2-5

“ For the Son of Man came to seek and to liberate the lost” (Luke 19:10).

If you grew up going to Sunday School, you’ve heard the song that starts with “Zaccheus was a wee little man, and a wee little man was he . . .”

Zaccheus was more than just a vertically challenged man. He was also a crook and (according to the majority of his own people) a traitor. His job was collecting taxes for the Romans and he made a very comfortable living by hiking up the taxes and lining his own pockets with the extra profits.

No one wanted to be friends with Zaccheus. No one wanted him around. Certainly, no one ever invited Zaccheus over for dinner. Until Jesus came along.

Zaccheus had heard about this Jesus and wanted more than anything to meet Him. His desperation won out over his dignity and he found himself climbing a tree and hanging out of it like a schoolboy. I’m sure everyone around him thought his cheese had slid off his cracker or there were a few bats in his belfry. In other words, he’d gone nutty.

But Jesus didn’t think so. Jesus said to him, “Zaccheus, today I’m having dinner at your place!”

The rest is history. Zaccheus walks away from that dinner a changed man.

I wonder if you’ve ever felt like Zaccheus. Like you’ve made a train-wreck of your life and alienated everyone around you. Maybe you think even God won’t have anything to do with you anymore.

The good news is that just as Jesus came looking for Zaccheus, He’s looking for you. And it’s not like He can’t find you. He’s waiting on you to admit that you’re the one who’s lost.

Jesus didn’t say to Zaccheus, “Get your life cleaned up” or “Get your act together” before He showed up at his house. He didn’t throw Zaccheus’ past in his face or  let him have it for all his bad choices. Instead, He loved him as he was.

Jesus calls us to love the people around us like that. Regardless of whether they choose to follow Jesus or not, we’re still called to love them, not because of anything other than that’s the way Jesus loved us first.

PS I wonder if Zaccheus was really a leprechaun. He was short and loved his gold. Whaddya think?

 

A Good Weekend

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / Leave a comment

IMG_1175

As I stepped into my car to head home from a Sunday School class party, I could hear the hypnotic drone of cicadas and felt 10-years old again and ready for the next big adventure. That’s what life really is. At least for those who have their eyes open to appreciate the mystery and wonder in each gift God unwraps daily called life.

I still fondly remember running through the streets of downtown Nashville with my friend Katie to catch the next act at Live on the Green, Michael Franti. It was a moment I never imagined happening, yet if you were to ask what my all-time favorite moment was, this one would be climbing the charts. And no Gatorade ever tasted better than the ones from the Exxon convenience store on the way home.

How can I forget an impromptu Starbucks session of great conversation and good coffee drinks? I can’t remember two hours flying by that fast. It was yet another in a long line of unexpected treasures and blessings God has showered on me lately.

I remember Friday and Saturday in downtown Franklin, seeing some of my favorite McCreary’s people and savoring yet another beautiful summer night visiting my usual haunts and trekking my familiar path up and down Main Street. I especially recall how quiet it was in St. Paul’s Episcopal Church as I sat silent and still and expectant, waiting on a Word from God.

I finally fell asleep at 4:30 this morning after another night of tossing and turning. I think I’ll sleep better tonight. At least I hope I do. But even that time awake gave me time to reflect on all the little gifts that eucharisteo had opened my eyes to see.

I remember something my Sunday School teacher Derek Webster said. He said, “God believes in you even more than you do.”

I have to write that down somewhere. Oh yeah, I guess I just did. But I need it in a place where I can find it and see it every morning, because I know some mornings I’ll wake up and not be as excited to be alive. Those old self-doubts will creep in. The enemy will whisper, “See? Nobody really cares about you. No one would notice if you weren’t around. You don’t make one bit of difference to anybody.”

That’s when this Truth of God comes in. God says differently. To me. To you. To anyone who heard and followed the voice of Jesus. God said you do matter because I made you. Jesus said you matter because I thought you were to die for. You have a gift and a purpose that no one else ever in the history of mankind has ever had. Only you can play the part God wrote for you in the Great Romance He’s written out in history.

You being you makes God smile. You being who God created you is what the world around you needs to see more than any Billy Graham or Mother Teresa. You coming alive to your gifts and talents will be the ripple in the ocean whose effects will last far beyond your own lifetime.

Yep. All that from four days in August.