God, Grace, and Gooseberry: 101 Brief Encounters with the Gospel

By Max Brennan

The author hopes to entertain you with these 101 short articles. You may laugh (or cry) at the stories about Gooseberry the cat, Max the dog, and a possum that was far too good at playing dead. But all of the articles in this book are essentially about the gospel. They push us to see that God is not just real, but accessible. There are numerous stories about people who have had what William James called business with God. You will read accounts of profound religious experiences, including near-death experiences. There are moving stories of conversion and dramatic accounts of divine intervention.

And there are articles here about the logic of faith and the relationship between science and religion. You will be told in these pages that faith makes sense and science and religion are ultimately one.

If you are a skeptic about God, or if you believe in a do-nothing God far removed from our lives, this book may challenge you. The cumulative impact of these 101 short articles could overwhelm your skepticism. You may come to agree with the author that God is not just realand accessiblebut obviously so.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Apr 30, 2015
• ISBN: 9781490859033

Max Brennan

Max Brennan is the long-time pastor of St. Matthew United Methodist Church in East Fort Worth. For over 25 years, he has published newspaper articles as “advertisements for the gospel.” These sometimes funny, always provocative short pieces have a devoted local following. With this collection, 101 selected articles are now available to a wider audience. Access Max Brennan’s sermons and blogs at saintmatthewumc.com e-mail: [e-mail] St. Matthew United Methodist Church 2414 Hitson Lane – Fort Worth, TX. 76112

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Copyright © 2015 Max Brennan.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Biblical quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989, by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Published by Thomas Nelson, Inc.

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

ISBN: 978-1-4908-5902-6 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4908-5901-9 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4908-5903-3 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2014919923

WestBow Press rev. date: 6/11/2015

CONTENTS

Introduction

I – Life Is Difficult

1 Petrified

2 I Hate to Buy Shoes

3 Gooseberry

4 Ash Wednesday

5 Love Pays a Price

6 The Price of Freedom

7 The Elbow Test

8 Slow to Care

9 He’s a Chore, but …

10 I Just Knew

II – God Is Real

11 Life Is Spooky

12 Missing Information

13 |Elaine’s Experience

14 Why We Believe

15 God Will Respond

16 Denying the Obvious

17 The Real Thing

18 How Do We Know?

19 Lost All My Doubt

III – Jesus Is Lord

20 Reason to Believe

21 The Stud Finder

22 A Resurrection—Kind of

23 Running from the Resurrection

24 Reality Bites

25 Still Appearing

26 And There Was Jesus

27 The Old Pulpit Cloth

28 God Stoops to Conquer

29 The Christmas Goat

30 She Never Had That

IV – God Loves Us Unconditionally

31 The Very First Truth

32 We’re Not Listening

33 Still Thinking Law

34 Messin’ with the Cross

35 Doing Time

36 What about Hell?

37 Love Counts

38 Children of God

39 The Narrow Way

40 Grace

41 It’s Me!

V – God Is with Us

42 Precious Memories

43 In Hard Times

44 The Rescue

45 Blessed Assurance

46 A Meddling God

47 God Provides—We Decide

48 An Angel Story

49 I Wonder

VI – God Speaks through Scripture

50 Just the Facts

51 Common Sense

52 The Quickened Word

53 Lord of Scripture

54 The Audacity of Jesus

55 Paul on Women

56 The Teachings of Jesus

57 Jesus Talks Pigs

58 Miracles Happen

VII – Life Is Eternal

59 Fear

60 Our Default Position

61 Reality Check

62 A Word from the Lord

63 Despair to Pure Joy

64 A Strand of Wool

65 I’m Back!

66 Forget Resting

67 Look Deep, Not Up

68 A Distinguished Visitor

69 The Archives Drawer

70 Gooseberry Is Dead

VIII – Prayer Works

71 I Heard You

72 Dirt and Prayer

73 The Mystery of Prayer

74 My Life Is Not My Own

75 God Works

76 A Fish Story

77 The Kindness of God

78 God Speaks

79 Awesome Wonder Trumps Depression

IX – Worship Makes a Difference

80 The Results Are in

81 The Work of the Spirit

82 The Power of Forgiveness

83 Bobbie’s Story

84 Barely Committed

85 Is That the Way?

86 It Pays to Be Inquisitive

87 Lyin’ Like a Possum

88 The Hour I First Believed

X – Life Is Beautiful

89 Surprised by Grace

90 Times Have Changed

91 A Passion for Reality

92 Just Do It!

93 Giving God Our Attention

94 The Power of Thanksgiving

95 Choose Your Pain

96 Max the Dog

97 Let God Serve You

98 What We Cannot Lose

99 Our Problem

100 The Gift

101 Our Response

A Closing Prayer

Introduction

My grandmother, Rosie Brennan, told the story of a visiting preacher who prided himself on being moderate in his praise. When a church member asked how he liked the meal she had prepared for him, he said, It’s mighty good, what there is of it.

That didn’t sound right, so he took another run at it.

There’s plenty of it, such as it is.

Here’s a book of short articles, and there are plenty of them. They have appeared in newspapers over the last twenty-five years as advertisements for the gospel. They are before you now because readers have pushed me to assemble a selection of my little articles as a book.

In the newspaper, these short pieces appeared in small print in a small box. I was surprised when I let them out of the box. They blossomed out to a couple of pages.

But getting 101 of these short pieces together between two covers was a challenge. It was hard finding an organizing principle for articles written about so many things over so many years.

I finally decided to group them under these ten statements, which cover much of what we need to know about life.

Life is difficult.

God is real.

Jesus is Lord.

God loves us unconditionally.

God is with us.

God speaks through scripture.

Life is eternal.

Prayer works.

Worship makes a difference.

Life is beautiful.

Each section ends with a prayer. I wrote the prayers to fill a blank page at the end of each section. Now, I sometimes choose one of them to begin my day.

But how do you read a book like this? An article a day? Three or four at a time?

Or will you plow through a whole section at a sitting?

Read it any way you want.

Use it for a personal devotional time or as a source for class devotionals. Ministers may mine it for jokes and illustrations. (I would!)

Use this book as you wish. Or don’t use it at all. Just read and enjoy. And I do hope you enjoy.

But let me confess that I have an agenda in every one of these short articles. Whether I’m talking about my old cat Gooseberry or how I hate to buy shoes or the three hours I spent in jail, I’ve always got an agenda.

I’m pushing the gospel.

I’m glad if I entertain, but above all, I want to encourage. I want you to know that God is real, that we are loved, and that life is more wonderful than most of us ever dare to dream.

If I can also give you a few laughs along the way, that’s okay, too.

God bless,

Max Brennan

Note: My next book, with the working title Discovering God, is mentioned in some of the articles. It will not be available until late 2015 or early 2016—and it may have a different title when published.

Life Is Difficult

1

Petrified

Scott Peck said it in the opening sentence of The Road Less Traveled: Life is difficult. But I learned a long time ago that we create a lot of our problems.

I was in the sixth grade when I won that essay contest. The grand prize was five bucks! As Martha Stewart says, That’s a good thing. But I had to stand on the stage in front of the whole school on awards night to get my money. That was a bad thing.

I was a country kid. This seemed like big-time show business to me. I was petrified. I knew I would make a mistake and look stupid. But I was a smart kid. (Hey—I won the contest!) I would devise some foolproof plan to get me through this.

The plan I came up with centered on the old pot-bellied wood stove in the school auditorium. (Am I dating myself?) It was right in the middle at the back. While I was on stage, I would focus on that stove, concentrating all of my attention on it. I would think about nothing but that stove. If I didn’t think about where I was, I wouldn’t be nervous.

So on awards night, I made my stage debut, seven or eight other kids around me, all of us getting prizes as our names were called. My family was there. The auditorium was filled. I had never seen so many people in one place at one time. And I was on display before them.

But I watched that stove.

I watched it like nothing else existed. And my plan was working. I wasn’t nervous. I was in another world—a world that was serene and quiet.

Absolutely quiet.

I heard nothing.

I didn’t hear the principal call my name. He was two feet from me, and he called my name several times. Some kid finally had to shake me.

I looked stupid—my worst fear!

I looked like a fool.

My reputation was shot.

My life was over.

On the way home, my family did all they could to argue me out of my despair. Nobody noticed, they said. Don’t worry about it.

But Linda Mae Harper, sitting behind me in first period the next day, could hardly wait to get the words out—the absolute and terrible truth as only a sixth-grader can tell it.

Max, I saw you last night. You looked so stupid.

And that was it. Just as I thought.

Life was over.

But it wasn’t.

That was half a century ago. I’m still here. The night I turned to stone in front of everybody I knew simply taught me one of life’s lessons.

Life goes on.

I needed to know that.

I needed to know it then, and I’ve needed to know it a hundred times since then. Sometimes we make a mess of things, but we live and we learn and life goes on.

Thanks be to God.

This one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining toward what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus (Philippians 3:14).

2

I Hate to Buy Shoes

I hate to buy shoes.

I really do.

I have a friend who loves buying shoes.

I look in his closet and see all these shoes—row on row of them. I wonder, How many feet does this guy have?

I have trouble buying shoes.

It’s hard to find shoes that fit, and when I do, they are always in some weird color, like maroon. So looking for a new pair of shoes can take me hours.

And shoes don’t last me.

My friend’s shoes—row on row—are all polished and shiny. Mine get scuffed as I carry them home from the shoe store in a box.

Because I hate to buy shoes, I do it as seldom as possible.

Look at the ones I’m wearing now. They are clearly far beyond their prime. And I wore one pair of Sunday-best till the nails in the heels came through the soles.

And I wore them for a few weeks after that!

Every step was a pain.

I finally had to give up and hobble my way to the shoe store. I told the clerk not to show me anything in maroon.

I also told him my feet were hard to fit or I was hard to please—or something.

An hour later, he began to agree with me.

I finally found some shoes I liked. In fact, they were perfect. They fit, they were a normal color, and they allowed me to walk without a limp.

I was delighted. I thanked the clerk for his patience and headed for the counter to pay. I reached for my wallet.

It wasn’t there.

It was back home on my dresser. But that was okay. I would use a check instead of a card.

But the clerk wouldn’t take my check without an ID.

I assured him I was an honest fellow—a minister, in fact—a Methodist. I would have claimed to be a Baptist, if that would have helped. But nothing could get me around the store rules.

No ID, no check.

I put on my old shoes and limped out of the store, back into the mall. I was tired, exasperated, and angry—angry at my own stupidity—angry at the nail in my shoe—angry at the whole world for being such a difficult place to live.

A mood was upon me!

Until she rolled by—a young girl, mid-teens, in a wheelchair. She was brimming with joy, talking and laughing with a friend who walked beside her.

I remembered the old saying, I cried because I had no shoes until I met a man who had no feet.

And I paused for a moment of prayer: Lord, give us grateful hearts.

Continue to live your lives in Christ Jesus, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving (Colossians 2:7).

3

Gooseberry

I got up a little early this morning.

Gooseberry, my big black cat, was hollering at me from downstairs well before dawn.

I love cats, but I didn’t want one when Gooseberry entered my life. He was just there in my yard when I got home from vacation a few years ago. I opened the door to carry in my bags and Gooseberry came in with me. He began a tour of my house to make sure it would serve him.

He didn’t ask me if I wanted a cat.

He just moved in.

And as I watched him snoop about, a bitter dessert called A Gooseberry Surprise which I had eaten on my trip suddenly came to mind.

Thus the name: Gooseberry.

Now—my Gooseberry

Gooseberry is an old cat. He was old when he walked in the door six years ago, and my guess is he’s sixteen or seventeen now.

He’s been sick. Gooseberry became ill just before I went on vacation this year. I hardly had time to get him to the animal hospital before my flight. I left him hooked up to an IV while being prepared for tests. (A cat scan, perhaps?)

I didn’t expect my cat to be alive when I returned from vacation. I called (from England!) a couple of times to check on him, but the receptionist was short on information. And she always got me confused with the cat.

Yes, Mr. Gooseberry, she would say, I’ll check on your cat.

Gooseberry lived. When I went to pick him up, the receptionist shouted toward the back, The owner is here to pick up Max Brennan!

She really said that!

And I don’t think she was joking.

And the bill she handed me was no joke either.

You can imagine—a cat—in the hospital for two weeks—with a heart problem!

Now Gooseberry is on medication.

Pills twice a day. I hide them in his food.

So far, so good.

But the medicine Gooseberry takes is a diuretic. That keeps him busy at the litter box.

It keeps me busy, too. Gooseberry is unusually fastidious. He wants that box changed after every use.

Otherwise, it’s the floor!

But I put up with all of this.

My old cat couldn’t survive without me.

He’s a dependent creature.

And he knows it. He knows who to come to when he wants something. He looks to me to change that litter box, to put out that food, to haul him inside when it rains.

You and I are dependent creatures, too. But we forget.

We forget the one who sustains us, the one who holds us in his grace—the one who guarantees our very existence.

Gooseberry knows who to turn to.

But you and I forget.

I’d hate to think my old cat is smarter than we are.

Lead me to the rock that is higher than I; for you are my refuge, a strong tower against the enemy. Let me abide in your tent forever, find refuge under the shelter of your wings (Psalm 61:2).

4

Ash Wednesday

We’ve had a few Ash Wednesday problems—adjustments, really.

When I was growing up, Protestants didn’t observe Ash Wednesday—or, for that matter, the season of Lent, that time of repentance and renewal between Ash Wednesday and Easter.