Healing Religious Divisions

Healing Religious Divisions

Sermon preached by the Rev. Lowell E. Grisham, Rector

St. Paul's Episcopal Church, Fayetteville, Arkansas

January 26, 2014; 3 Epiphany, Year A

Episcopal Revised Common Lectionary

(1 Corinthians 1:10-17)  I appeal to you, brothers and sisters, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you be in agreement and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same purpose. For it has been reported to me by Chloe's people that there are quarrels among you, my brothers and sisters. What I mean is that each of you says, "I belong to Paul," or "I belong to Apollos," or "I belong to Cephas," or "I belong to Christ." Has Christ been divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul? I thank God that I baptized none of you except Crispus and Gaius, so that no one can say that you were baptized in my name. (I did baptize also the household of Stephanas; beyond that, I do not know whether I baptized anyone else.) For Christ did not send me to baptize but to proclaim the gospel, and not with eloquent wisdom, so that the cross of Christ might not be emptied of its power. For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. 

(Matthew 4:12-23)  When Jesus heard that John had been arrested, he withdrew to Galilee. He left Nazareth and made his home in Capernaum by the sea, in the territory of Zebulun and Naphtali, so that what had been spoken through the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled:

"Land of Zebulun, land of Naphtali,
on the road by the sea, across the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles--
the people who sat in darkness have seen a great light,
and for those who sat in the region and shadow of death light has dawned."

From that time Jesus began to proclaim, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near."

As he walked by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon, who is called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea-- for they were fishermen. And he said to them, "Follow me, and I will make you fish for people." Immediately they left their nets and followed him. As he went from there, he saw two other brothers, James son of Zebedee and his brother John, in the boat with their father Zebedee, mending their nets, and he called them. Immediately they left the boat and their father, and followed him.

Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and curing every disease and every sickness among the people.

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“It has been reported to me… that there are quarrels among you.”  It’s not hard to guess.  The topic is religion.  And those are words from our Christian scriptures.  “It has been reported to me… that there are quarrels among you.”  What do you know?  Disagreements about religion. 

It fills our news reports.  How many of the violent conflicts in the world today are partially if not primarily fueled by religious quarrels.  Human history is filled with stories of people killing in the name of God.  It happens between religions; it happens within religions.

Paul writes to the Christian church in Corinth where there is an open conflict between parties:  “I belong to Paul.”  “I belong to Apollos.”  “I belong to Cephas.”  “I belong to Christ.”  Each of these parties belongs to the same church.  They are sincere and committed followers of Jesus.  And they disagree enough to create identifiable parties that threaten their union and their mission.

There is also some significant division and conflict within today’s Gospel reading, though you need to know a little extra to actually see it.  The sentence “[Jesus] left Nazareth and made his home in Capernaum” is a loaded sentence.

Jesus’ hometown Nazareth was probably a village of a party of Natzrenes.  The name of the town comes from the Hebrew word netzer, meaning “shoot.”  Isaiah prophesizes, “A shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots.  The spirit of the Lord shall rest on him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and fear of the Lord.” (Isaiah 11:1-2)

Some scholars think that the clan of David, Jesse’s son, inhabited Natzareth to be a community of the “shoot” that “shall come out from the stump of Jesse.”  They would have been isolationists, marrying within the clan, inwardly-focused, acting with the outside world only when necessary – waiting for the Messiah that they expected would come from among their own.  They would have believed that they were the sole possessors of Divine truth and that all others were heretics.  It was groups like these that preserved genealogies such as we find in Matthew and in Luke.[i]

The village of Capernaum was situated on the Sea of Galilee, not far from a significant extension of the major east-west trade route, the Via Maris.  It was accessible to caravans from most of the known world.  The village synagogue was allied to the more moderate-liberal House (or School) of Hillel.  For Hillel, loving God and loving neighbor took precedence over all other laws, including the Sabbath.  We see Jesus quoting Hillel when he says, “The Sabbath was made for humankind, not humankind for the Sabbath.” (Mark 2:27)  That was a hot-button topic of religious debate between the more liberal House of Hillel and the more conservative House of Shammai.  Jesus took sides in that debate, and was attacked by conservatives for healing on the Sabbath.

So in this little vignette of today’s gospel, we have regional and theological divisions within the geography of the passage:  the rigid separatists of Nazareth, the Gentile influenced liberalism of Jesus’ new home Capernaum.  And we have the traditional powers of Jerusalem who always were looking over their shoulders at the odd things that tended to happen up north in Galilee, the people “who lived in a land of deep darkness.”  And just below the surface, we might wonder what John the Baptist is thinking.  He is under arrest.  His disciples like Andrew continue to leave his community to join Jesus.  Yet, there is no sign of what he hoped for from a Messiah:  the winnowing fork and fire that will burn the wrongdoers like chaff.

There is enough material in today’s readings to provoke centuries of war. 

Must it be so?

I have some firm beliefs.  I worship Jesus the Son of God, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity.  That sounds pretty exclusive, doesn’t it?

I believe that before time and forever, God the Holy Trinity has been pouring God’s Divine Life into the very matter of creation.  I believe that the Holy Spirit, immanent within creation from the beginning, became enfleshed in Jesus.  Enfleshed, but not exhausted in Jesus. 

For me, the Spirit of Christ is present everywhere, at all times.  Wherever there is an ounce of truth, goodness or beauty – there is what I know as the Spirit of Christ.  Wherever there is any wisdom, compassion or freedom – there is what I know as the Spirit of Christ.  Wherever people respond with faith, hope or love – they are breathing what I know as the Spirit of Christ.  Wherever people connect with the infinite depths of the Mystery of God – there is the dazzling darkness of the mystical Spirit of Christ that I believe in. 

I have become convinced that you do not have to believe in Jesus to follow him.  I know lots of people who are more faithful than I am to what I know as the Spirit of Christ, people who do not believe in Jesus as I do.  They experience and honor the infinite creative divine mystery.  They may call it the “Buddha-nature” or the “Shekhinah” or “Elohim” or “Shakti” or “Tao” or “Ch’i” or “Allah” or “Brahman” or have no name whatsoever.  I know people who honor what I call the Incarnation of God by their reverence for the mysterious spirit of the earth and for the holiness of humanity.

It’s a bit ironic, but I find I am often more comfortable with people who use entirely different names to speak of the mysterious loving energy I call Father, Son and Holy Spirit, than I am with some of my own brother and sister Christians who use our holy words to condemn, divide, judge and even curse.  When we see the ravages that religious division has wreaked upon our planet’s history, I find it impossible to condemn the skeptic who has given up religion and instead is nourished by “the beauty of nature, the mystery of music, the creativity of fresh thinking, the intimacies of personal relationship, and the courage with which [humans] have faced difficult times.”[ii]

When St. Paul says that “the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness and temperance” there is no implied Christian monopoly over such divine indwelling.  Paul declares, “There is no law against these things.”  (Galatians 5:22-23)

It seems to me that there is a great fraternity of large-hearted people who are able to recognize the web of spiritual interconnectedness between spiritual traditions and religions systems.  They approach each other with openness, eager to learn from one another, while moving deeper within their inheritance and growing more in their own tradition.  They are not alike, but they are kin.  And they recognize that God is greater than any particular human religion or revelation.  Their respect for the mystery of the ultimate humbles their particular claims.  They can be peacemakers.

In such a Spirit, divisions are opportunities for new understanding.  We are invited to see the Divine through other windows.  Two Saturdays from today, on February 8, we will host a gathering of these people on Interfaith Harmony Day. 

As a Christian, I believe that every human being is a child of God.  Everyone is created in the image and likeness of God.  It is our job to repent and to recognize that the kingdom of God has indeed come very near.  It is our calling to recognize the deeper unity that Paul urges upon the divided Corinthians. 

It is our job to fish for people – to search beneath the surface into the mystery below our vision, and to discover the teeming divine life that surrounds and supports us.

Be fishers of people.  Look below the quarrels that divide religious people.  Patiently wait, and watch.  Then set your hooks.  Set your hooks into whatever expression of wisdom, compassion and freedom you can catch.  Set your hooks into every expression of truth, goodness and beauty.  Bring forth to the surface every moment of faith, hope and love.  Let the perfect love of God cast out fear, especially fear of the stranger or the different one.

Wouldn't it be wonderful if those who are religious were known no more as quarrelers, but rather as peacemakers.

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[i] Charles Page, Jesus and the Land, Abingdon Press, Nashville, 1995, p. 33-38.

[ii] Jay, McDaniel, Living from the Center, Chalice Press, St. Louis, 2000, p. 27.

Being Christ

Being Christ

Sermon preached by the Rev. Lowell E. Grisham, Rector

St. Paul's Episcopal Church, Fayetteville, Arkansas

January 12, 2014; 1 Epiphany, The Baptism of Our Lord, Year A

Episcopal Revised Common Lectionary

(Matthew 3:13-17)  Jesus came from Galilee to John at the Jordan, to be baptized by him. John would have prevented him, saying, "I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?" But Jesus answered him, "Let it be so now; for it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness." Then he consented. And when Jesus had been baptized, just as he came up from the water, suddenly the heavens were opened to him and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him. And a voice from heaven said, "This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased."

______________________

We just celebrated Christmas, the Feast of the Incarnation, when we say that God has come to us as a child.  Fully human, vulnerable, humble.  God.

And today we bring three children to the waters of baptism, asking God to fill them with Holy Spirit that they also may be Christ’s presence in the world. 

We ask the parents and godparents to protect and nurture the divine presence dwelling in these children, just as they protect and nurture the vulnerable lives entrusted to their care.

In so many ways, growing the faith that is given to us in our baptism is very much like growing children.  Having a young grandchild living with me now reminds me every day what is necessary – necessary to protect and nurture the child, but also necessary to protect and nurture the divine presence within me. 

You have to pay attention.  We always want eyes on a baby.  Turn away for a moment, it seems, and crash.  Then tears.  Pay attention!  But there’s also a delightful expectancy.  Watch!  What funny thing will she say or do today?  What new thing will she discover?  And there is the regular business of diaper changes and baths.  And band-aids on bo-bos.  Underneath everything is love, unqualified love.  In that atmosphere, she will learn and grow.

The nurture of the faith given to us at baptism is a lot like that.  You have to pay attention.  Be awake.  We always want our eyes to be expecting God’s presence in every little thing.  Turn away for a moment from that discipline of seeing through the eyes of faith, and crash.  Stuck again.  Reactive and frustrated. 

When we nurture a delightful expectancy, wondering what funny or interesting thing God will bring to us today, we tend to discover new things and find that doors open.  Watch!

And there is the regular business of diaper changes and baths.  “Will you persevere in resisting evil, and whenever you fall into sin, repent and return to the Lord?”  And there are band-aids on bo-bos.  “Oh God, make speed to save us.  O Lord, make haste to help us.”

Underneath, everything is love, unqualified love. 

I’ve just finished reading a delightful novel John Duval gave me for Christmas, Kind of Kin by Rilla Askew.  One thing I like about the book is how many of the characters bring their faith into their lives.  Each seems to have a different way to pay attention, to hope, to ask for help and to repent.

The story starts with a respected, churchgoing granddad Bob Brown being arrested for hiding a barnful of migrant workers.  In the jail cell, Bob clings to the scripture for comfort.  During the fifth chorus of “I Have Decided to Follow Jesus,” another inmate takes offense and knuckles Bob’s head bloody.  But Bob has a sense of calling and of divine support.  He is vulnerable and powerless, accused as a criminal, behind bars.  But he is not alone.

Back home, Bob’s 10-year-old grandson Dustin decides to run away from the chaos and abuse he suffers there.  Gathering supplies at his grandfather’s barn, Dustin finds Luis, the only Mexican undiscovered in the raid on the barn.  Luis befriends the boy and helps him along a perilous journey. 

On bicycle, on foot they travel by night to avoid the authorities.  Luis keeps up a constant conversation with our Lady:  repeating the Our Father, the Hail Mary, the Glory Be over and over again.  When the boy Luis is protecting gets terribly sick, Luis remembers the many small miracles of passage given to him all his life from Our Lady of Guadalupe.  “Our lady will not withdraw her protection,” he affirms.

What is there to rely on, when a man must make choices?  Protection and guidance from heaven.  The blessings of the sacraments, if he is able to receive them.  Prayers.  Miracles and mercies.  Faith. [i]

In our Baptismal Covenant we are asked:  “Will you continue in the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of the bread, and in the prayers?”  These practices can uphold us.  They give us, Protection and guidance from heaven.  The blessings of the sacraments… Prayers.  Miracles and mercies.  Faith.

Just as we proclaimed at Christmas that God comes to us in the birth of the child Jesus, so we proclaim in baptism that God comes to us in every baptized child or adult.  God did not stop entering human life with Jesus; God enters human life in each of us as well.  We are to be Christ’s body in the world – Christ’s heart and hands and feet and voice.  We are to be Jesus’ public presence in our generation.

There is another whole world of this church’s ministry represented by our advocacy and activity in the political and economic sphere, and in public policy, in our supporting non-profits and our educational work on behalf of these same values of Jesus – to uphold the poor and the vulnerable.

The dramatic confrontation that comes toward the end of the novel Kind of Kin involves Bob Brown’s pastor, Oren Dudley.  How is he to deal with the crisis prompted by his parishioner’s arrest?  In good Baptist tradition, he searches the scripture.  When Bob Brown’s granddaughter and her undocumented husband take sanctuary inside Pastor Dudley’s church, Dudley stands at the church door, blocking the sheriff’s entrance, proclaiming:

’But the alien that dwells with you shall be as one born among you, and you shall love him as yourself,’ Leviticus nineteen, verse thirty four.

’What the –‘  The sheriff started around the other side, but Oren Dudley sidestepped again.

’Vex not a stranger, nor oppress him, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt,’ Exodus twenty-two, verse twenty-one.’

…[The sheriff ] pushed forward.  ‘I’m warning you, man.’

Eyes closed, combing over a few damp strands of hair with his fingers, Oren Dudley quoted on: ‘And to the strangers that sojourn among you, which shall beget children among you: they shall be unto you as born in the country,’ Ezekiel forty-seven, verse twenty-two.’

The sheriff was stymied; his hand twitched on his pistol grip.  You couldn’t just shoot a blamed Bible spouting Baptist preacher for standing in your path. [ii]  

Oren Dudley and Bob Brown, grounded in holy scripture, acted publicly as the body of Christ, the voice and hands and feet of Jesus, acting as Jesus did out of love for neighbor.  Luis courageously befriended little Dustin, relying on the protection of Our Lady, grounded in the sacrament and prayer. 

As I read the novel, I thought of our Baptismal Covenant:  Will you proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ?  Will you seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving your neighbor as yourself?  Will you strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being?

I thought about the ways we try to incarnate Christ’s body in our congregation and community.  We are doing the nurturing business of paying attention and watching expectantly.  We are also doing the necessary business of repentance – of changing diapers and cleansing wounds.  Like the characters in the novel, we are taking responsibility for the structural sin in our community, and responding in the Spirit of Christ. 

First we had to pay attention; to see.  When we saw that some are sick and ill, without access to medical care, we started the Community Clinic at St. Francis House, and we now bring Christ’s healing touch to 30,000 vulnerable neighbors.  When we saw that some are homeless and poor, we created 7hills Homeless Center, and we now bring Christ’s hope and support to hundreds who are displaced.  When we saw that some are hungry and insecure, we helped organize Community Meals to give nourishment to hungry bodies.  And now we have visited those in prison – we see them and know them – and we seek to create a Magdalene House, a home of healing and resurrection for them as they leave incarceration.

As Christ’s baptized people, we are called to recognize not only our personal sin, but also our social sin and injustice, to identify as Christ did with the plight of the sick, the homeless, the hungry and the prisoner, and to take responsibility for their care:  to seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving your neighbor as yourself.

Today we baptize three more children into this growing life of faith.  We pledge to nourish Christ's presence within them and within ourselves, as we, by our prayers and witness, seek to grow into the full stature of Christ.

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[i] Rilla Askew, Kind of Kin, HarperCollins, NY, 2013, p. 269

[ii] Ibid, p. 302-2

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Wise Men and Their Gifts

Wise Men and Their Gifts

Sermon preached by the Rev. Lowell E. Grisham, Rector

St. Paul's Episcopal Church, Fayetteville, Arkansas

January 5, 2014; The Feast of the Epiphany (tr.), Year A

Episcopal Revised Common Lectionary

(Matthew 2:1-12)  In the time of King Herod, after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem, asking, "Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews? For we observed his star at its rising, and have come to pay him homage." When King Herod heard this, he was frightened, and all Jerusalem with him; and calling together all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Messiah was to be born. They told him, "In Bethlehem of Judea; for so it has been written by the prophet:

`And you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah,
are by no means least among the rulers of Judah;
for from you shall come a ruler
who is to shepherd my people Israel.'"

Then Herod secretly called for the wise men and learned from them the exact time when the star had appeared. Then he sent them to Bethlehem, saying, "Go and search diligently for the child; and when you have found him, bring me word so that I may also go and pay him homage." When they had heard the king, they set out; and there, ahead of them, went the star that they had seen at its rising, until it stopped over the place where the child was. When they saw that the star had stopped, they were overwhelmed with joy. On entering the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother; and they knelt down and paid him homage. Then, opening their treasure chests, they offered him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. And having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they left for their own country by another road.

___________________________________

The story of the visit of the magi has captured the imagination and wonder of centuries of Christians.  Who were these wise men from the East?  What was the star that they followed?  What about the dangerous drama played out in their visitation with King Herod?  And… What is the meaning of their gifts:  gold, frankincense and myrrh?

Gold has long been a symbol of what we value.  In the earliest days of Israel, the Ark of the Covenant contained the presence of God, the throne of the Most High.  Moses covered the Ark of the Covenant with gold.  But when Moses left the people for a while and stayed away for many days talking with God on Mount Sinai, the people became insecure.  They fashioned a Golden Calf and worshipped the false idol. 

Every culture expresses its highest ethic with some form of the Golden Rule – “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”  And we regard those wealthy people who underwrite those values as honorable benefactors.

But there is a tension between the Golden Rule and the Golden Calf.  Sometimes it seems like an eternal tension.

Frankincense and myrrh were both forms of tree resin, prized for their fragrance, used as an offering in worship.  They were also used for medicinal purposes – for the treatment of wounds and intestinal disorders.  Myrrh was deemed to be particularly helpful for arthritis.  And myrrh was used in ancient times for embalming dead bodies. 

Gold, frankincense and myrrh were regarded as appropriate gifts for royalty. 

Christian commentators have also seen them as appropriate gifts for the peasant child of Bethlehem.  I particularly like St. Bernard’s interpretation:  “For they offered to Mary, the mother of the child, gold to relieve her poverty, incense against the stench of the stable and evil air, myrrh for to comfort the tender members of the child and to put away vermin.” [i]

Episcopal monk Martin Smith comments:  I always feel earthed by these touching words [of St. Bernard].  The Son of God appears as a poor child at risk in just those ways that millions of children are today.  The Magi's gifts are not exotic luxuries, but practical relief aid.  Mary and Joseph need financial help.  A cramped peasant's house, with animals crowded on the other side of the manger that divides the single room, stinks of their excrement.  The baby has a rash because the manger is crawling with fleas. The wise men are wise enough to offer money, fumigation, and medication.

Fr. Smith continues:  Epiphany is a manifestation of Christ present in all those children today who cry out for sustained and practical support, social reform that gives every family economic sufficiency, adequate sanitary housing, and basic health services.[ii]

Gold to relieve poverty; medicinal, antiseptic frankincense and myrrh to heal and cleanse, to bring a fresh, new fragrance of hope.  These wise men bring practical gifts that relieve the needs of this holy family.  But it all could have turned out so differently.

These wise men operated from a place of privilege.  They had the leisure to study the skies and to travel to pursue the star of a new king.  They had standing enough to receive a royal audience with King Herod the Great when they arrived in Judea.  According to Matthew, Herod heard their story of a newborn king with some concern.  Herod was not one to broach rivals.  During Herod’s reign he executed a wife, a brother-in-law, a mother-in-law, and three sons.  Caesar Augustus reportedly quipped about the Jewish king who supposedly followed a kosher diet, “It’s better to be Herod’s swine than Herod’s son.” 

Herod manipulated those aristocratic visitors to become his spies.  "Go and search diligently for the child; and when you have found him, bring me word so that I may also go and pay him homage."  Presumably they agreed to do so.

What was it about this child and his family that haunted their dreams so convincingly that they betrayed Herod’s request and returned home by another road?  They would have known that they risked Herod’s wrath by doing so.  But they saw there a poor, vulnerable child, born to humble peasants.  And they changed their loyalties.  They flipped their perspective. 

In seeing Jesus, they saw reality in a new way – from the bottom up rather than from the top down.  Then they acted in the interest of the poor and vulnerable ones rather than the wealthy and powerful.  And their gifts appropriate for a king, seemed equally appropriate for a peasant:  “gold to relieve… poverty, incense against the stench of the stable and evil air, myrrh for to comfort the tender members of the child and to put away vermin.”

It is characteristic of the wise that they are very good observers of reality, and that they are willing to adjust their perspective based on what they observe and learn. 

Like the magi, I grew up in a rather privileged world.  I was born in this wealthy, powerful country, to a secure family that gave me security, education and opportunity.  That’s the lens through which I saw reality.  For the most part, a top-down perspective.

But every once in a while, I get to see things from a different perspective.  The other day I helped someone reclaim their car which had been repossessed.  I’m not accustomed to being treated rudely and with condescension as I was on the phone with the woman who administers the towing company business.  I’ve never been told “we don’t take cash, credit card, or check.  You’ll have to pay with a money order.”  When I went to the bank, I didn’t know banks no longer issue money orders, you have to go to a grocery store or fast-foot market.  I’m shielded by my privilege from the complications, indignities and extra expenses that the poor face because they are poor.

I am late to the game of embracing a bottom-up perspective rather than the top-down orientation that I inherited.  But I’m learning. 

In Evelyn Waugh’s novel Helena, the author puts a prayer in the mouth of the famous mother of the great Emperor Constantine.  Helena prays to the wise men, calling them her “especial patrons.”  “You were late in coming,” she says.  “How laboriously you came, taking sights and calculations, where the shepherds had run barefoot!  …You came at length to the final stage of your pilgrimage…  What did you do?  You stopped to call on King Herod.  Deadly exchange of compliments in which there began that unended war of mobs and magistrates against the innocent!...

“You are my especial patrons, and patrons of all late-comers, of all who have had a tedious journey to make to the truth, of all who are confused with knowledge and speculation, of all who through politeness make themselves partners in guilt, of all who stand in danger by reason of their talents.

“Dear cousins, pray for me,” says Helena, “and for my poor overloaded Helen

son…  Pray for the great, lest they perish utterly…  For His sake who did not reject your curious gifts, pray always for the learned, the oblique, the delicate.  Let them not be quite forgotten at the Throne of God when the simple come into their kingdom.”

For those of us who might be wise, we are in need of a pilgrimage.  A pilgrimage out of our customary environs of privilege.  A pilgrimage that gives us a way of seeing from the bottom up, from the stable to the heavens.  We need wise people who will resist the temptations of Herod, the temptations of power.  We need wise people who will bring their gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh – “money, fumigation and medication.” 

Will our gold, frankincense and myrrh merely be more unnecessary luxuries for the honored and empowered, or will they be the wise gifts that bring new life, health and security for people like Mary, Joseph and Jesus.  Dear wise men, pray for us, and for all who have had  tedious journey to make to the truth.

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[i] As cited in Martin L. Smith, “Wiser Than We Think,” Sojourners Magazine (January, 2013), p. 48.  I found this quote in Dean Scotty McLennan’s sermon Gold and Frankincense, preached January 6, 2013 at Stanford Memorial Church:  http://stanford.io/1cQ8W1Q

[ii] Smith, Ibid. http://sojo.net/magazine/2013/01/let-jesus-be-cursed