To listen to the whole unabridged class: Wonder and Gratitude
Beyond Sunday School — The Ragamuffin Gospel, chapters 5 and 6
When was the last time something ordinary stopped you right in your tracks?
Not a polite “oh, that’s kind of cool,” but a real wow. You just had to stand there and take it in.
“Christ has no body but yours, No hands, no feet on earth but yours,Yours are the eyes with which he looks Compassion on this world,
Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good,
Yours are the hands, with which he blesses all the world.
Yours are the hands, yours are the feet,
Yours are the eyes, you are his body.
Christ has no body now but yours,
No hands, no feet on earth but yours,
Yours are the eyes with which he looks compassion on this world.
Christ has no body now on earth but yours."
- St. Teresa of Avila
Hat tip to Englewood Review of Books
An absolutely stunning boat ride today around Ford Lake in Ypsilanti, MI. I am so grateful for friends who invite me into deep conversation and time well spent.
Listen to the unabridged sermon here: Breakfast on the Beach
We are coming to the end now in our study of the Gospel of John. This is our penultimate message in the series. I just like saying penultimate. I think that’s a cool word.
So we’ve got this week and next, and then we will somehow have finished this entire Gospel in about nineteen weeks. Not too shabby, I suppose. And you have persevered well through it.
We pick it up in chapter 21, the last chapter — and scholars wrestle with it, because John’s Gospel really seems like it should have ended at chapter 20: “These are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.” Done. Finished. Great job, John.
A beautiful fall hike at Crosswinds Marsh on a perfect Saturday morning.
Fall golf in Michigan is truly stunning.
Watched: Lanterns S1E8, Dirt and Stars 🍿
This show was absolutely fantastic from start to finish. I hope we get many more like it.
I miss the days where we were on blogger/blogspot and we were interacting with each other’s blog posts in the comments and had blogrolls and even did those blog arounds where everyone blogged about an idea and built off one another’s blog posts.
Those were good days.
LIsten to the unabridged audio here: Tilted Halos
Beyond Sunday School — The Ragamuffin Gospel, chapters 3 and 4
I still crack up at where Brennan Manning says the phrase “ragamuffin gospel” came from.
He overheard some valley girls talking, and one of them said something like, “Like, Jesus is totally intense — dying for ragamuffins and all.”
I can hear it in my head. Maybe I have watched Legally Blonde too many times, but I can hear it.
And yet, for all the comedy in that, Manning is getting at something deadly serious. We are rooted — absolutely rooted — in the necessity of grace.
Listen to the unabridged sermon here: Believing is Seeing
Happy Easter.
Yes, I know it’s October. But here we are, in John chapter 20, on Easter morning — which is as good a reminder as any that you don’t need the church calendar to tell you to celebrate the risen Christ. Really, we should probably reorient ourselves to think of every Sunday as Easter Sunday. As Resurrection Sunday.
Currently reading: The Ragamuffin Gospel Good News for the Bedraggled, Beat-Up, and Burnt Out by Brennan Manning 📚
To be alive is to be broken; to be broken is to stand in need of grace. It is only through grace that any of us could dare to hope that we could become more like Christ.
That’s good news.
"Develop interest in life as you see it; in people, things, literature, music — the world is so rich, simply throbbing with rich treasures, beautiful souls and interesting people. Forget yourself." ~ Henry Miller, novelist
This really resonates with me. Being intentionally present is rooted in this perspective. As Ted Lasso said, “Be curious.”
Finished reading: How to Talk about Jesus by Sam Chan 📚
Read through this little book today at the recommendation of a colleague. It’s not earth shattering.
It provides some nice suggestions for folks trying to be a bit more open about their faith.
I still struggle with the transactional tenor of the text.
LIsten to the unabridged audio here: Grace, Drunk Straight
This week in Beyond Sunday School we dove into the first two chapters of Brennan Manning’s The Ragamuffin Gospel: chapter one, “Something Is Radically Wrong,” and chapter two, “The Magnificent Monotony.” I have to say, I deeply appreciate a preacher who can nail the alliteration. Magnificent monotony. That’s good work.
I opened the session with a question, and I’ll ask it of you too: When you hear the word grace, what do you know is true — and what is still hard to trust?
The room answered fast. It’s free. You don’t have to do anything to gain it. And that, frankly, is the part that’s hardest to accept. Someone else added: grace is for everybody. Which drew an honest nod, because if we’re telling the truth, most of us would prefer it weren’t.
Listen to the unabridged sermon here: Believing is Seeing and Believing is Life - The King We Need
Have you ever listened to a song or hymn that ends on an unresolved note? Unlike many traditional hymns that finish on a bright, major chord leaving you with a sense of simple happiness, certain songs refuse to resolve so easily. There is something profoundly honest about that. While the sacrifice of Christ is finished—once and for all—our daily walk in response to that salvation is ongoing, calling us into something deeper.
That unresolved tension is precisely what we encounter in John 18 and 19. As we trace the events of Jesus’ final night—from his betrayal in the garden to his trial and eventual execution—we come face-to-face with a stark reality: the King we need is rarely the King we want.
