INTRODUCTION
The title of this sermon was inspired by Brennon Manning's book of the same title. He got the idea from hearing a teenaged girl who, after reading the entire gospel of Luke, said, "Wow! Like Jesus had this totally intense thing for ragamuffins." Ragamuffins. It is a somewhat endearing term, isn't it? What is a Ragamuffin? A Ragamuffin is "a ragged often disreputable person; esp. a poorly clothed often dirty child." Our text today deals with Jesus' love for ragamuffins dirty snotty nosed kids.
But the word refers, like our young girl understood, to disheveled, disreputable people. In calling the gospel the Ragamuffin Gospel, we are saying that it is a gospel especially for spiritual ragamuffins you and me. Jesus hung out with ragamuffins. If we want Jesus to hang out with us, I think we need to realize, first off, just what spiritual ragamuffins we are.
Jesus spent lots of time with ragamuffins; the lepers, the hungry, sinners, prostitutes, tax collectors, the persecuted, downtrodden, the widows, the demon-possessed; general rabble. These are people with bleeding knuckles from their hard labors, people who knew the other side of the law, people who are the lost sheep of the house of
JESUS KIDS
In our text, Jesus picks up a child and says, "Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven." This all started when one of his disciples came up to Jesus and asked, "Lord, who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?" Jesus responds by calling a young child, standing the child among them, and saying, "Unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven."
It is important to remember the typical attitude toward children in Jesus' day. We think of kids as being very very special. We're baptizing a baby this afternoon Samuel Joseph Oakes at 2:00 pm. Be there. This is a celebration of life it speaks of the gift we consider children to be. We idealize childhood as the age of happy innocence and simple faith.
This was not particularly the case in the Greco-Roman world. Children were seen as being relatively worthless. Not only was abortion common, infanticide was not all that uncommon. In
When Jesus said that we were to humble ourselves like a little child in order to enter into the kingdom of heaven; or later, when he said, "See that you never despise any of these little ones," he was well aware of the low status and general worthlessness ascribed to children. Jesus gave these scorned children a place of privilege in the kingdom; they are models of Christian discipleship. We are to accept the kingdom in the same way a child accepts their allowance. Jesus took great pleasure in these children who were so worthless to others. Why? Because they could do nothing to deserve it; love wasn't sought or purchased, it was simply received without question.
Jesus says that these children had angels of God who continually looked at the face of God and for this reason they were not to be despised (v. 10). Implied is, "You might despise these kids, but God gives them personal attention. You had better not get on God's bad side by despising them."
In Luke's gospel, Jesus expresses the praise, "I bless you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, for hiding these things from the wise and clever and revealing them to mere children. Yes, Father, for that is what it pleased you to do." The scribes and Pharisees were treated with great deference and honor; they were the educated in the ways of God. They knew the Torah and could expound with finest detail the legal minutia of torah observance. But Jesus claims that God's grace falls upon children; not because of their knowledge and worth but because of their lack of it. He is saying that these mere children have an ability to embrace and even understand the gospel in a way that simply cannot be understood by those with greater education and piety. Their giftedness in God's eyes is based simply on God's radical self-giving love with no personal quality of their own which qualifies them for it. "Jesus deals a deathblow to any genuine distinction between the elite and ordinary in the Christian community (p. 56)."
Heaven will be filled with five year olds; hell with sophisticated cynical adults.
CHRISTIAN POKER?
We have no bargaining room with God. There is no such thing as "Christian poker" that is, a means of manipulating God's favor. We don't sit with God at a poker-table and say, "I'll raise your ante. If you do this for me, I'll do that for you or I've do this so you owe me that. If you make my business successful, I'll get back into church. If you want me to tithe, you're going to have to give me the money first." We simply do not bargain with God. We don't have the bargaining room to do it. Why? We don't have anything to bargain with! We have no real spiritual resources apart from grace. Kids know better. They don't know how to play Christian poker. Adults know the rules all too well. Kids live impulsively. Adults calculate and manipulate.
Jesus liked hanging out with people who knew better; and they were not the people that live on our side of the tracks. These people were sinners and that didn't mean that they had skipped their morning devotions. Jesus consorts with people who were real sinners and when he caught flack for this, his response was simple: "I've come to save the sinners, not the righteous." Sinners don't play poker because they don't have any chips and they know it. Jesus liked being around sinners because there was a simple honesty about them he appreciated. He knew that they came to him aware of their need, not aware of their spiritual resources. That is an attitude we all need to capture no matter how long we have walked with the master. And believe you me, it is easy to forget. Don't forget. Don't play poker with God. You don't have any chips, you don't have any money, you don't have any skill, and you don't have the time. Just be a child and get up in the master's lap.
TABLE FELLOWSHIP AND DIVINE ACCEPTANCE
It is hard for us to appreciate just what Jesus was communicating when he actually ate meals with tax collectors and sinners. The whole Pharisaic movement was a movement of increased separation; the word "Pharisees" means "separated ones." They were a sect with clear ideas of the character of life and conduct required to maintain covenant righteousness of the people of God. They essentially asked, "Why isn't the Messiah coming to deliver us? Because the people have not followed Torah laws in sufficient piety and perfection."
So they set up a secondary fence around the Torah to insure that legal accuracies would be kept and Messiah would come. According to one rabbinic tradition, if two Sabbaths were perfectly kept, Messiah would come. The Pharisees were a holiness movement that wanted to increase holiness and separation from sin and sinners in order to redeem
Frankly, we must remember that what we see in the NT of the Pharisees is something of a caricature. Caricatures have truth but they also have distortion. They were not bad people. They were a holiness movement that sought to be fiercely loyal to the covenant, to encourage nationwide loyalty, and to bring about the redemption of
From the perspective of the sinners, Jesus is proclaiming something with his deeds. Jesus proclaims that they are potentially accepted in God's kingdom. He not only critiques the social barriers, he proclaims that these persons with whom he eats have a place at the table of God's kingdom and grace just the way they are. It comes close to condoning sin since he accepts them as friends. He, in doing so, removes from them the cloak of shame and humiliation. He says that they matter to God just the way they are, that they have dignity just as they are, that they are released from captivity into the messianic kingdom. Because Jesus was seen as a man of God and a prophet, they would have interpreted his presence as God's approval upon them. Dangerous stuff. It got Jesus killed.
"For Jesus this fellowship at the table with those whom the devout had written off was not merely the expression of liberal tolerance and humanitarian sentiment. It was the expression of his mission and message: peace and reconciliation for all, without exception, even for the moral failures" (p. 61). By eating with tax collectors and sinners, Jesus visibly manifested the mercy and forgiveness of God, the potential of grace, the ragamuffin gospel.
CONTAGION OF JOY
I think we need to recapture this joyful, contagiously joyful, Jesus. Jesus message was great news! "The
I believe, to be real with God, you have to develop your simple-minded self. You have to let yourself stop playing games with God, stop trying to impress God or anyone else. Just joyfully receive God's acceptance. God wants you to play with him, to laugh and run through the fields of life. "Unless you become as little children . . . How joyfully open-minded are you? Have you figured it all out? That is too adult like. Be an exploring learner. A closed mind kills marriages and spoils relationships; a simplistic spirit of exploration flows directly from simple child-like faith. No agenda, no fixed-ideas and strict perimeters. God's truth cannot be comprised in simple pat-answers and small definitions. Explore the edges playfully with child-like faith in the Good Shepherd.
The ragamuffin gospel is the news that God forgives sinners all sinners who face up to it. God is comfortable with the less-than perfect; God shows compassion upon those who have blown it twenty-two times. Are you a ragamuffin? "Just as smart people know they are stupid, so a wide-awake believer knows he/she is a ragamuffin. Jesus doesn't want to be impressed; he wants to be faced honestly. He's looking for integrity and simple honesty.
You know what I've noticed. Successful men and women struggle with the gospel. They aren't ragamuffins. They have done well, have played by the rules, have worked hard, and expect to be paid what they are worth. The gospel doesn't play well in their world.
CONCLUDING ASSIGNMENT
This is a short assignment to do as one of your personal devotions.