The Ragamuffin Gospel

   In a book by Brennan Manning called "The Ragamuffin Gospel", Brennan makes this statement "The American church today accepts grace in theory but denies it in practice. We say we believe that the fundamental structure of reality is grace, not works-but ou lives refute our faith. By and large, the gospel of grace is neither proclaimed, understood, nor lived." (Brennan, 1990, p.18).  Brennan goes on to say that Jesus spent most of his time on this earth with the ragamuffins.  Ragamuffins are the downtrodden, the tax collectors, the outcasts, the prostitutes, the burned out.  He spent time with them because they had no problem in seeing their need, their brokenness and had no self-righteous attitudes to overcome.   He spent time with and also made disciples of those who others rejected, men like Matthew and Zaccheus.

    In Luke 19, the story of Zaccheus is told where Jesus is walking by and looks up and sees Zaccheus in a tree.  He says, "Zaccheus, hurry and come down, for today I must stay at your house."  Brennan goes on to point out that in modern times we lose the shock waves this caused through the crowd on that day.  It surely tested the faith of many in the crowd.  For to eat with someone in those days, as is the case today in the Middle East in many case, is to say that you are at peace with or in fellowship with this person.  And Zaccheus was the despised tax collector, hated by Jews and rejected from public worship.  He was a cheat and a person who had sold out to the Romans.  And now, Jesus wants to have a meal with him.

     This is the gospel of grace.  This is the point that Brennan wants to get across in his book.  It is an important point, that many of us ignore.  The grace means "unmerited favor".  It is unmerited because we didn't come close to earning salvation and fall a little short, like small change that we need to make up at the cash register.  No, the Bible says that we were dead in our trespasses and sins.  There was no hope of earning anything on our own.  Until that truth hits the heart we don't truly understand what grace is.  Even as a believer, my faith, my deeds, my words and my actions, do not earn one little bit to get me into heaven apart from what Jesus did on the cross.  It is a gift and not something earned.

     And why was this grace given to you and me?  It was given because of the radical and furious love of God.  A love that knows no depth and no width and is beyond comprehension.  "But God demonstrated His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." Romans 5:8.  One of the stories and things I think about when I read about the love of God is the story of the prodigal son.  At the end of the story, the father is watching for the son to return when he sees him from a distance.  He loses all sense of dignity in a desire to reach out and embrace his son.  God loves is like that for us.  He longs to embrace us, to have a relationship with us because he loves each of us.