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“My grace is sufficient for you”- II Corinthians 12:9
Grace does not come cheaply; not to God, not to Jesus, not to anyone, and certainly not to the one institution that is called to be the provider and distributor of grace in a world of un-grace. The “grace of God” in human form gave His very life because He absolutely refused to stop distributing the unconditional love of God!
In his book, The Ragamuffin Gospel, Brennan Manning states “Jesus turned the world upside down by bringing God’s grace to all ragamuffins.” Ragamuffins, then and now, means all human beings. By definition “ragamuffins” are defined as anybody who does not have it all together. Like me. Like you.
The Church is for ragamuffins. I have ragamuffined and fallen short of the glory of God. The late great American Baptist preacher and prophet, William Sloane Coffin, says this about the Church, “It is often said that the Church is a crutch. Of course, it’s a crutch. What makes you think you don’t limp!” Limping, in this sense, of course, refers to our humanness. One cannot be fully human and not limp in some fashion through the hills and valleys of our life.
We simply need to read the Holy Scriptures to know that God’s grace is a real threat to the way the world operates. The cost of grace is very high—it costs lives, sacrifices, and causes lots of inconvenience. For those who prefer vengeance to forgiveness, grace is downright stupid. For those who see the Christian faith as a reward-system, grace is quite disturbing and confounding. For those who sadly don’t know or trust the experience of unconditional love, grace is weird and foreign.
When I am pre-occupied by other seemingly important matters and lose my way, I have found that I simply need a hug from my wife or be greeted by our full-body-wagging Golden Retriever to be reminded of the power and the glory of God’s unconditional love for all us ragamuffins.
Like you, I am a ragamuffin with a crutch and grace to keep me going. Hallelujah!
Prayer: O Lord, my Crutch and my Redeemer, may your grace embrace the ragamuffin reading this with the certainty of your love and forgiveness and companionship, now and always. Amen.
Rev. Larry VanSpriell
Member
First Baptist Church
Boulder, CO |
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