Spiritual Journey Thursday - Bedraggled Ragamuffins

 

 

Welcome back, friends!  Every Thursday, I explore my spiritual journey and invite you to link up your explorations here.  I love learning from all of you!

 

     On Sunday, my pastor, Peter Larson, from Lebanon Presbyterian Church, preached a sermon called "Hungry for God."  He opened it up by referring to the movie Slumdog Millionaire and how the characters are beggars in the streets of India.  He tells us that even though we may not be literal beggars, "the truth is, we are beggars at the throne of grace"  and read Luke 14:15-24, the parable of the Great Banquet.  At the end of the sermon, he talked about The Ragamuffin Gospel by Brennan Manning.  I haven't read this book, but I was so taken by the image of a ragamuffin Christian.  In the summary of the book on Goodreads, it quotes, "We come to Him as ragamuffins--dirty, bedraggled, and beat-up. And when we sit at His feet, He smiles upon us, the chosen objects of His 'furious love.'" Don't you just love that?  Haven't we all felt "bedraggled and beat up?"  We don't have to be perfect or even close to perfect to come to Him.  He doesn't need what Peter referred to as the "A List."  In fact, He doesn't need us at all, but He invites us to His party anyway.  In Manning's obituary, it says, “Suffering, failure, loneliness, sorrow, discouragement, and death will be part of your journey, but the Kingdom of God will conquer all these horrors. No evil can resist grace forever.”

 

     Last night, my daughter Libby, called from Miami U. to read me a poem she had written.  There was one part that struck me as relating to the sermon on Sunday.  The poem is written for an adventure theme for a friend's publication,  but I starting thinking about it in the spiritual sense of adventure as she was reading it to me.  That wasn't really the intention of the poem, but you'll see what I mean!  I'm just going to share part of her poem today:

 

This vacant heart
This restless soul
This empty cup.

See me
Wobbling on 
The horizon tightrope
Hands splayed
As the light fades,

I’m unqualified
And uncoordinated
And utterly unworthy
And still I set out.

I left behind
Expectations
That I thought were
My only choice
Left them lying
With my fear
A familiar voice
That speaks no more.

It’s just me.

- Libby Mueller

     Doesn't that sound like a bedraggled ragamuffin at the throne of God?  So today, if you're feeling "bedraggled and beat up" or "wobbling on the horizon tightrope, hands splayed," don't worry.  God will greet you at the door of the party.  And you're on the list.

     If you'd like to watch Peter's sermon (and I highly encourage you to), here is the video:

    

 

As usual, if you'd like to write about the theme, "bedraggled, ragamuffin Christian," please do, but if you're led to write about something else, feel free to do so and link up below!