Patsy Manning Part 4

What happened to Patsy. Here is what she said. My real life began that day. I had a hunger for God’s word that has never gone away. I felt that I loved everyone (that lasted for 6 months and then God began to bring people into my life to love) But God continued to draw me and convict me and change me even to the extent that the relationship in my family that had caused so much pain and bitterness was healed that I could truly love this person.

Her relationship with her step mom that had been so difficult and painful, that had estranged her from her father, was healed. She found that God gave her forgiveness and peace and joy. He brought healing to a relationship that no one else could heal.

Now just to give you an idea how deep that healing went, God had also done a deep work in the heart of Patsy Dad and Stepmom so that they had embraced Jesus Christ, and when the reconciliation began to take place, Patsy let her kids begin to spend time with their grandparents. During one of these visits Patsy’s stepmom led her son Bill to that same place of rest at the foot of the cross of Jesus Christ.

Disney can create great stories about wicked stepmothers but only God can create true stories about step mothers becoming beautiful mothers and friends.

Two things let me say in closing: Today if you truly wish to put Patsy to rest, the best thing you can do is find your rest in the same place she has found her rest, in her Lord. I’d love nothing more than to talk with you today about finding that rest.

Second, we labor for the moment in our grief and sorrow. It is very hard to think that she is gone. Sometimes the grief will feel like it is going to overwhelm you and that’s OK. Her influence on us has no correlation to her size. She will leave very large shoes to fill behind her. But as a wise woman once told me, grief is like the tide, when it comes it sometimes it feels like it is going to overwhelm us, but when it goes out it leaves lots of little treasures in the sand behind, lots of beautiful memories which you will cherish forever. Let ‘s pray.

Patsy Manning Part 3

How did she find herself in the Lord? She describes it from Hebrews 11:6 where it says the Lord rewards those who earnestly seek him.” She says, “I did not always earnestly seek the Lord.” So you say, she discovered church.

If you know anything about the Mississippi delta and the little farming communities living off the fertile soil there, you know that every town is rich with churches and you know that it is rich with people who go to church. Everyone goes to Church in Mississippi. But here is what you may not know, going to church and trying to do lots of things for God may make you look good outwardly but it will do nothing to slake the dry thirsty soil inwardly. Here is how Patsy says it in her own words.

Although others may not have been able to see through the mask I wore. I had no faith to begin my journey to God—just a church habit that had not satisfied my inner longing—and I was so miserable that I began saying in my spirit “There has to be something more to it than what I have seen and experienced.”

So I’m wondering if you find yourself in the same place as Patsy. Working hard trying to do good, trying to please whatever benevolent being might be out there and finding it empty and meaningless. Do find your labor all pain and struggle with little or no reward? Then I would invite you to find what Patsy found to be true. She found that she didn’t have to labor that God had done it all already through his son, Jesus Christ.

Let me explain: Take forgiveness. We all know we are supposed to forgive, even people who treat us poorly. But when someone takes something from you when already you have very little. When you already have very little love and appreciation from those who are supposed to give you love and appreciation, and instead they are mean spirited and ugly toward you, then forgiveness is a complete impossibility. It doesn’t seem right. It doesn’t feel right. Instead it feels like a terrible painful labor with no fruit, no reward.

Here is what the scripture says in response to our inability to labor for the right thing.

But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things that have come, then through the greater and more perfect tent (not made with hands, that is, not of this creation) 12 he entered once for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves but by means of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption.

For those of us who grew up on a farm or have been around farm work like Patsy you know what happens when you put your hand to a shovel or a hoe. When you put yourself to the task of hard labor what comes out? Sweat and blood. It gives us a measure with which to test the intensity of Jesus labor, what came out? Sweat and blood upon the cross for you. He poured out his life in the ultimate labor for you so that you could rest. No more struggle to please God, just simply resting in his struggle for you. No more trying to do for God, simply realizing and receiving what he has done for you.

Patsy Manning Part 2

It says, the voice commanded John to write, to put down in black and white, to make this event an indelible part of history; to write so that none will ever forget what God has to say from heaven. “Write this.”the voice from heaven said. “Blessed are the dead, the ones who have died in the Lord…”

“Blessed are the dead,” says the voice and then quickly explains. The ones who have died in the Lord. For it seems pretty clear that there are many who are not blessed in death just as there are many who are not blessed in this life. There are many for whom this life is a dry rocky shore and there is no hope for the life to come. There is no hope for a voice from heaven.

It is a sad tragic day when people die apart from the Lord. It is a sad and tragic day when people live apart from the Lord. And yet believe it or not there were many such days in the life of Patsy Sloan Manning. She was born on the Louisiana side of the Mississippi delta in 1933. Although the soil in the delta is rich the people there are not always, and life can be difficult. Patsy mother died when she was nine years old and her father quickly remarried, perhaps too quickly. The woman he remarried didn’t care much for the two precious little girls left behind in the passing of Hazel Weisner Sloan. The difficult relationship with her stepmom, combined with the emotional distance of her father left Patsy on a dry rocky shore of deep bitterness and resentment. Her own marriage to Douglas Bowden Manning instead of helping only compounded the problem of her bitterness as she spent much of her life and energy nursing him through several major health issues. By the way I’m not just saying this. I’m actually just parroting Patsy’s own description of her life before discovering the blessedness of being in the Lord.

Why are those who die in the Lord blessed? “Because says the Spirit from that time on they rest from their labors and their works follow after them.”

Just a little note of explanation about these two words "labor" and "works". There is a difference between the two. "Labor" speaks of the trouble, the pain, the agony, the toil and "works" speaks of the finished product, the joy, the satisfaction, the completion.

Let me illustrate it this way. If you've never dined at Patsy's table you've missed out on one of the truly great experiences of glorious southern hospitality. As her hairdresser described Patsy, a classy southern lady with a little tobasco, that was what eating at her table was like. Sumptuous southern fare spiced up with rousing conversation. She wasn’t afraid to talk about anything and if you didn’t bring up the subject she would, her contagious laughter echoing like bells down the halls of her home.

So let me explain these two words from Patsy’s hospitality. There is a deceptive amount of hard labor that goes into the perfect pecan pie. It takes a great deal of effort to create something that goes down so effortlessly. There is a long tedious process that goes into the perfectly tender, precisely crispy piece of Southern fried chicken. But the long hard labor is worth it for the end. Because Patsy knew the end of her labor meant joy, laughter, and delight in good food and good company. She knew the magic of making a home. She had the gift to take the common things of life and turn them into the uncommon. She somehow, in the midst of bitterness of resentment found joy. Where? Well it says it right here. In the Lord.

I Heard a Voice From Heaven

Patsy Sloan Manning September 14, 1933 – December 30, 2011


And I heard a voice out of heaven… The apostle John was incarcerated on the Isle of Patmos, a spare rocky Island off the coast of modern day Turkey right where the Agean sea opens into the Mediterranean. A sparse dry lonely shore, the kind of place that certainly could use a voice from heaven. John, near the end of his very long life, was longing for home. Not the bustling streets of Jerusalem nor the sandy shores of Galilee, or the green valleys of Nazareth, but a place far from his home, a place far from this rocky shore John was longing for his eternal home. There was no better time or place to hear a voice from heaven.

Here we are gathered today to mourn the loss of a dear dear lady who has gone to her eternal home. As many of you know life had been sliding down hill for this classy southern lady. A horrific fall a couple of years ago, a stroke, in the last year had rendered this beautiful articulate woman a shell of her former self. For some time she had been standing on a sparse dry rocky shore longing for home. Not the lush foliage and rich soil of the Mississippi delta where she grew up and raised her own family, nor the quaint little house on Brighton Avenue, but the long wide streets and eternally comfortable rooms of God’s house.

Death is such a strange experience for those of us who remain, we are thankful and grateful for a life well lived, for the shortened time of debility, and yet the leaving can leave us wistfully wishing for a little more time, just a little more time to speak of love, and of life, a little more time to lay aside regrets, a little more time to draw closer to enjoy her presence one, maybe two more times.

Death has left us thinking about life, thinking about death, realizing that as good as life is there must be a better home far from this rocky shore, yes, yes, it is a good time and good place to hear a voice from heaven.

Rahab's family life

Sunday’s sermon did not do much speculating about Rahab’s life, but then the text of scripture does little speculating. However, it is kind of fascinating to think about family dynamics with a prostitute as a daughter. The text does use the word for “normal” prostitute as opposed to an official temple prostitute. To give you an idea about the general disposition of these fiercely independent types, I read an article written about the profession of prostitution in the Netherlands. The article said that those involved in prostitution were petitioning the government for official legal status. So I guess that means the profession was already legal as in, “look the other way” legal. Apparently the government did give them official legal status, but the ladies and gentlemen of the night were dismayed to find out that legal status carried more liabilities than it did benefits. They found that they were now required to pay income tax. Interestingly enough they immediately began to repetition the government to un-legalize their status since they didn’t want to have anything to do with paying taxes. That gives you a sense of the kind of person who would be in the “normal” profession of prostitution instead of the legal temple kind.

My guess is that due to this nature, Rahab was aware of everyone coming into and out of Jericho. And that this was not the first time someone rappelled down the wall outside of her house chased perhaps by an irate wife instead of a panic stricken king. Rahab knew fake love inside and out, which gave her great discernment when she saw true love from the God of heaven to His people.

Jim Martinson observed the intrigue of Rahab bringing her whole extended family along. Prostitutes are not known for having good relationships with their families and one wonders if this change in Rahab included a renewed relationship with her family as well. What is clear from scripture is that Rahab turned from the life of prostitution to a life of wife & mother, giving birth to the next one in the line of Jesus the Messiah.

Some time ago a lady came into my office wanting to ask me a serious question. She admitted to me that she was a professional escort, or in common terms, a prostitute. Then she asked me a very interesting question, “Is there any forgiveness for a woman such as me?” What she meant by that question was first she was tired of living with the guilt, and second she wanted to know if the consequences would follow her forever. Because of Rahab I was able to respond with a sincere “absolutely.”

Uncle Leroy and the Family Tree

And then there was uncle Leroy. He was the family black sheep, the family secret. He would call when he was drunk late in the night, after the alcohol made him feel guilty or homesick or just plain sick. We never talked about uncle Leroy much he was that blot on the family tree. In the gospel of Matthew, we see the blots on Jesus family tree. Normally one skips over the scandalous, and shameful limbs on the family tree, to highlight the noble and famous branches. The gospel of Matthew hangs it all out there for the world to see. Which makes me wonder did Jesus speak of his ancestors? Was he the one who parading them through his teaching for all of his followers to see? And if this is so, why might Jesus have drawn attention to the, less than savory characters in his genealogy?

I can think of a couple of reasons. Who would have greater reason than Jesus to point out how the gospel, before it was even articulated as the gospel, changed the lives of obviously flawed people, like Jacob or Judah or Rahab? Can you imagine sitting on the grass while this important Rabbi tells the story of a woman who fools her father-in-law into thinking she is a prostitute and then has his baby (Tamar in Genesis 38) and then the rabbi says, “I’m a direct descendant of that woman”? He would, of course, have told “the rest of the story” about how she preserved the line of David even when David’s forefather Judah had no interest in preserving his own line.

I can see how Jesus would want to point out how God was already blessing the nations directly through the seed of Abraham by bringing several of them into the Messianic family tree, like Rahab and Ruth. For the snooty and uppity Jesus was very clear about his family and proud of them because they came into the Kingdom, not by entitlement but by faith. I can see how Jesus might want to point out how life with God was lived by faith in the desperate days just as they were called to live by faith in the present day.

It’s not such a bad thing to have an uncle Leroy in the family. It reminds us that we all just as easily be in his place or ours. Perhaps we are the uncle Leroy of the family it is wonderful to know that Jesus opens his arms wide to both those who are way up in the family tree or way out on a limb.

So What really happened?

Genesis 38 intrigues me to no end. Such a strange placement of such a strange story keeps me guessing what Moses was thinking. What was he thinking?! The part of the story that I skimmed lightly over (the X-rated part) in my sermon is the part I want to address briefly here. The story intentionally avoids the more sordid details like motives. It assumes a great deal in the reader's knowledge, which in our case is very limited. When approaching a passage like this I always have to remind myself that they don't think like I do. When traveling in Africa I continually had to remember that they do not think like I do. When I talking with my teenagers I have to remember that they do not think like I do. Here in the Genesis 38 it is so important to know that they had an entirely different set of values. For example Tamar doesn't even know what a "career woman" is. She has no idea nor yet any possibility of wanting to do something other than being a mother and raising her children, assuming she gives birth to any.With this in mind I can see why Tamar is much more tenacious than I would be about the whole marriage thing. I would have given up after two bad ones.

The whole encounter with Judah begs explanation, yet little is given. It is not clear whether Tamar's dress is that of a prostitute other than the comment that prostitutes wore veils. Tamar's intentions are never given, whether she intended to prostitute herself or if Judah she decided to "go with it" when her father-in-law propositioned her. All we know for sure is that she was determined to bear a child in Judah's family. In her determination she ends up saving the Davidic line.

I am convinced by this story that God can redeem anyone, even someone as hardened as Judah apparently had become and even in spite of difficult circumstances, like Tamar's. I think God can pretty much handle anything.