SERMON                                                                                                “Good News for the Ragamuffin”

Final sermon in a series,

titled, “The Ragamuffin Gospel”

Excerpts from The Ragamuffin Gospel by Brennan Manning
Multnomah Publishers

1)   Over a hundred years ago in the Deep South , a phrase so common in our Christian culture today, born again, was seldom or never used.  Rather, the phrase used to describe the breakthrough into a personal relationship with Jesus Christ was, “I was seized by the power of a great affection.”

      These words describe both the initiative of God and the explosion within the heart when Jesus, instead of being a face on a holy card with long hair and a robe with many folds, becomes real, alive, and Lord of one’s personal and professional life.

2)   In a world that is torn and tearing, it takes a touch of folly to believe that “even when our choices are destructive and their consequences hurtful, God’s love remains unwavering.  Thus, regardless of our own insulation and defensiveness, God is constantly open and vulnerable to us.”

3)   Though our Christian language pays lip-service to God, our way of functioning assumes that God is dead or in a coma.  Being seized by the power of a great affection does not seem to relate to the real world in which we live.  Does it not require a fair measure of lunacy to listen to the looney tunes of the ragamuffin gospel?

      Yes it does!  As Zorba the Greek said to his employer:  “It’s difficult, boss, very difficult.  You need a touch of folly to do it; folly, do you see?  You have to risk everything.”  In the final analysis, discipleship is a life of sublime madness.

4)   “If you do not believe that the Absolute passionately wants to be our friend and our lover, then by all means reject such a seemingly absurd notion … And if you think it is ridiculous to believe that life will triumph over death, then don’t bother with Christianity, because you can’t be a Christian unless you believe that.”

5)   Since the day that Jesus first appeared on the scene, we have developed vast theological systems, organized worldwide churches, filled libraries with brilliant Christological scholarship, engaged in earthshaking controversies and embarked on crusades, reforms, and renewals.  Yet there are still precious few of us with sufficient folly to make the mad exchange of everything for Christ; only a remnant with the confidence to risk everything on the gospel of grace; only a minority who stagger about with the delirious joy of the man who found the buried treasure.

6)   The secret of the mystery is:  God is always greater.  No matter how great we think Him to be, His love is always greater.

7)   The story goes that Thomas Aquinas, perhaps the world’s greatest theologian, toward the end of his life suddenly stopped writing.  When his secretary complained that his work was unfinished, Thomas replied:  “Brother Reginald, when I was at prayer a few months ago, I experienced something of the reality of Jesus Christ.  That day, I lost all appetite for writing.  In fact, all I have ever written about Christ seems now to me to be like straw.”

8)   The Bible is the love story of God with His people.  God calls, pursues, forgives, and heals.  Our response to His love is itself His gift.