“My deepest awareness of myself is that I am deeply loved by Jesus Christ and I have done nothing to earn it or deserve it.”
—Brennan Manning, The Ragamuffin Gospel
I needed to hear the words Brennan Manning wrote in The Ragamuffin Gospel, “good news for the bedraggled, beat-up and burnt-out.” I trust that many Christians did. I needed someone to tell me I was loved. I mean really loved. I needed to know that if I failed out of college, embarrassed my family, and became every negative thing US society portrayed black men to be in the 1990s, that someone would love me anyway. I needed to know that even if I didn't live up to all that it meant to follow in the steps of Jesus that God would accept me. I suppose it's only those who have their proverbial "ducks in a row," those who've "got it all together," and are "destined for greatness" who don't.But I did. I was falling apart. I hadn't lost faith in God, but I was convinced that God had lost faith in me. Why wouldn't God have lost faith in me, everyone else had. It was my senior year at an Evangelical Christian liberal arts college. I was a leader of Bible studies, community activities, and well liked, when I received news that I would be a father. As a middle-aged man today, I know that many people rejoice over such news. As an unwed father at an Evangelical Christian college, however, I believed I had nothing to celebrate. At least that's what my years of Evangelical Christian camp, Bible studies, and higher education had taught me.
I had committed what felt like the "unforgivable sin." Of course, it was not the unforgivable sin, but at an institution that had students sign life-style statements upon which they agreed not to "smoke, drink, dance, or chew" sex was the most significant of things we contractually agreed not to do. Still, there were levels of sexual transgression. It was one thing to engage in sexual activity outside of marriage, many Christian college students did that. But those who had babies soon disappeared or were covered in shame in efforts to discourage anyone else from getting the faulty impression that we believed in "cheap grace" or the kind of grace that allows people to commit grievous sins and get away with it. And by get away with it, they meant to be loved, received, welcomed and embraced. Such a sinner couldn't receive the good gift of unmerited favor without understanding that grace was costly.
Evangelicals, I learned, loved the idea of "costly grace" that they found in Dietrich Bonhoeffer's The Cost of Discipleship because of it's affirmation of Christian obedience to the cross of Christ. They also loved Bonhoeffer because he lent some theological sophistication and validation to their form of spirituality that was often cast as unlearned and anti-intellectual. In Bonhoeffer many believed that they got an authoritative theologian to validate their holiness codes and their justification for enforcing them. I lost my role as a leader on campus, some students who knew sent me emails telling me that they no longer wanted to hear anything I had to say. Administrators looked for ways to discipline me and fix my behavior. I gained a new set of friends, friends whose choices, behavior, or looks had left them on the periphery of our Evangelical college campus. Shunned and ashamed, I never quite understood why the college chaplain permitted me to preach a sermon in chapel. I wonder if he had read The Ragamuffin Gospel as well...
It was around this time that I discovered Brennan Manning. His words shook the very foundations of my faith. If everything he said was right—and it certainly made more sense in light of the God who "demonstrated his own love for us in this, while we were still sinners Christ died for us."(Romans 5:8), than the gospel of grace by merit that I heard everywhere else—, then I too could receive grace. I struggled to accept Manning's interpretation, in spite of my insatiable desire to believe the words he spoke so powerfully:
"The God I’ve come to know by sheer grace, the Jesus I met in the grounds of my own self, has furiously loved me regardless of my state-grace or disgrace. For His love is never, never, never based on our performance, never conditioned by our moods-of elation or depression. The furious love of God knows no shadow of alteration or change. It is reliable. And always tender.”
It was just a few days after my first son was born, on Father's Day, that I received my first words of grace for being a father. A woman boarded a bus late one night while I was living in Chicago, but she couldn't find enough change for the ride. She may have had the change, but the bus driver didn't seem interested in waiting around long enough to find out. The woman looked tired, dressed in very tight champagne room attire that could have doubled for the thrift store's version of sexy clothing or the uniform of a struggling woman trying to piece together a living on the city streets after dark. Whatever her clothes signified, her caked on multicolored make-up didn't make her appear to be doing very well. I rose up from the back of the bus and decided to give her the extra change she required and a CTA transfer I had in my pocket. As I walked away from her, she asked me, "Are you a Father?" I turned and nodded shamefully. To which she responded in gratitude, "Happy Father's Day."
There we were, two ragamuffins on a bus trying to make our way home. I like to think that as we both sat there in our states of societal disgrace that Brennan Manning would have affirmed that we experienced a moment of grace that God never intended for either of us to go without. She didn't need to perform to receive the gift. I didn't need to be a married father for her to wish me well. We gave grace. We received grace. It wasn't cheap, it wasn't particularly costly. It was simply grace, the only kind there is, the only kind there has ever been, the only kind there will ever be—freely received, freely given, unmerited favor. Brennan Manning died this week. He is, no doubt, resting like a beloved child in the arms of the One whom he called Abba. I am struck by how deeply the news of his departure has affected me. Perhaps it's because I can think of no other writer who was able to convince me that the words of the Sunday School song, Jesus Loves Me, might actually be true. But I think it's more because I fear that his was a rare voice; one that dared to proclaim to Christians that value appearances over authenticity, reputations over mercy, and purity over God's passionate love for all, that unmerited favor is really as free as the word grace implies.
Thanks for loving me with your ragamuffin good news, Richard Francis Xavier Manning. The message of your life was a means of grace for me. Rest in Peace.
