Thank You All Saints

Two weeks ago while planning our college trip for the end of the month, Sarah Katherine asked me if I knew who the Episcopal chaplains were at the schools we were visiting and if I knew who the Episcopal chaplain was at UVA. The answer was no to both--I could tell her where to get a great late night hamburger at UVA, good running routes, where the cute boys used to hang out, and many other things, but the name of the chaplain or even where his/her office would be I couldn't do. These were also not questions I even considered when I was looking at colleges. Academics and social were the only considerations for me. I can assure you both of these are important to her; nonetheless, she was serious in not only wanting to know who the chaplains were but whether we could meet them. And so as I've been trying to get the answers for her (thank you Ben Badgett, Candyce Loescher, and Wendy Claire Barrie for the names you've given me), I've also been reflecting on why this is important to her and wasn't to me. I don't know whether I have the whole answer, but here is what I've come up with as I think about Sarah Katherine and the youth of the Episcopal Diocese of Ky. These youth understand what it means to be a part of the capital c Church. And so my mind asks why, and although there are probably several reasons, the glaring answer is....

All Saints. These youth love All Saints, they "own" All Saints, and they have learned about life and faith, about a life of faith, about life, about love, about friendship, about loyalty, about forgiveness, about inclusivity, and about Church. At All Saints every summer, every weekend gathering, they are reunited with their friends from all across the Diocese from individual parishes, but it is together that they feel Church. These youth understand what we are all supposed to understand, our individual parishes are just that individual parishes--it is the Diocese that is the local church and the many Diocese that make up the Episcopal Church which is just a part of the Church. They understand Church to be beyond state borders and beyond denominational boundaries. They love their individual parishes, but they understand in a way I believe everybody should that the Church is made up of people, and one group of them, one congregation, one building is not it.

As I've reflected, what All Saints has given these youth goes beyond Church and into what it means to live a life of faith. All Saints under the leadership of Beth and now Kendall, provide these youth a place to explore their faiths and to figure out what being a Christian means Monday-Saturday and not just going to church on Sunday morning. They continually are trying to figure out how their faith impacts their lives in their schools, on the athletic field, in the ballet studios, at weekend parties, and in their families, and All Saints gives them a safe place to do this. All Saints has helped them to explore and to discover that their faith is not compartmentalized and only brought out on Sunday morning. One part isn't teased out from the rest--all these parts of their lives are simultaneously present informing one another, impacting one another, and supporting one another. These youth experience true Christian fellowship; fellowship that is equal and honest and open. Fellowship that has bumps and bruises, that has hurts, but that learns how to live through them and to come out on the other side with love and respect. These youth have learned that they are truly full members through their baptism and that membership extends beyond individual parishes. It has given them them the confidence to claim their faith, live their faith, and share their faith.

Last summer one of these youth went to church every week during her six weeks at GSP. When I asked her what it felt like to go to a church other than her own, her response, "It wasn't another church; Father Matt is the rector. I know him and tons of other people." It wasn't just another church, it was part of the family. Thank you All Saints.

Not two years ago, Beth and Mitch buried their daughter. There was no question in the mind of these youth that regardless of school work, sports, or any other obligation, they had to be there. A member of their family was hurting and they had to do whatever it took to be there. Phone calls were made, drivers were summoned, and they were there. Thank you All Saints.

A couple of months ago I got a frantic text from my daughter that a name needed to be added to the prayer list. A young developmentally delayed teen was missing, a teen who went to All Saints, and although they never saw her outside of All Saints, she was a member of the family and she needed them. The All Saints Youth Council lit up the text lines making sure everyone knew and everyone was praying. Thank you All Saints.

In two weeks we will have coffee with the chaplain at NYU and then later in the week we will meet up with the chaplain at Harvard. I am now facebook friends with the chaplain at UVA and we plan to meet the next time I'm in C'ville. These are people who know the chaplains at All Saints, and so already they are comfortable; they are friends; they are part of the Church; they are part of our lives. Thank you All Saints.

And so this is what I've discovered, SK will be leaving for college far more balanced than I was. She will go to a good academic school; she will join a sorority; she will go to football games; and she will participate in Canterbury Club. Her life of faith is as much a part of her as her academic life or social life. These parts of her life are intricately connected. And she is not confined to her local parish, to her local priest--she understands that the Church is so much more than that. She understands that one building, one priest is not better than another--only different, and she understands that her faith and the practice of her faith is not limited to one building or one priest. She understands in a way I wish we all could the capital C Church.

Thank you All Saints.

Polishing Our Hearts on Ash Wednesday

Psalm 51

Psalm 51 has often been described as a psalm of lament--it's one of the seven Penitential Psalms, a psalm used as a tool--as a prayer that helps us  to bemoan our sins and to beg for forgiveness.  And it does those things; it is a powerful psalm, but it does even more.  Psalm 51 offers us the chance to claim a new life, the chance to live a life birthed from repentance.  A life that is set on restoring relationships and repairing the wrongness in our lives, in the lives of our community, and in the lives of the world. 

Barbara Brown Taylor is a  brilliant, in my opinion, theologian and a person I greatly admire--in fact I stalk her--ask me about that after service--well she writes about the difference between remorse and repentance.  She writes, "most of us prefer remorse to repentance.  We would rather learn to live with guilt than face the hard work of new life." (64)  Although I'm not eager to agree with her, there is something inside me that wonders if she is onto something?  Is it possible that this psalm is sometimes  used only as a means for us to wallow in our sins, almost as a competition of who can seem the most broken; who can seem the most pious?   It seems to me that the language of the psalm not only asks us to lament our sins, to beg for God's forgiveness, but it also calls us to action.  We pray the words, "Create in me a clean heart O God, a put a new and right spirit within me." And I believe our prayer is heard, and answered,  but then what do we do with that new heart?

 I grew up in Georgia--in the Deep South full of its traditions, it's "rules" of hospitality, it's very way of being.  One of these ways of being was to always use your sterling silver--if you have it use it, but if you use it, well you know what that means, you have to polish it.  It would not be proper to set a table with tarnished silver, to fix a drink in a tarnished mint julip cup--heavens, you wouldn't be able to read the monogram.  So polishing silver was one of those jobs that happened on a regular basis.  And that job my friends often fell to me. Truth be told, I loved it; (ya'll don't know me well enough yet, but I have weird things I love to do like ironing).  Anyway, I would stand at the kitchen sink for hours polishing every piece--getting down in the groves, rinsing it, drying it and then inspecting it to make sure that every surface was perfectly shiny, and if it wasn't, I'd redo it.  When I finished, I would put the silver back in the cabinet, stand back and marvel and it's pure beauty.  Here's something I know about silver--a little helpful Heloise hint;  it sort of goes against what one would think, but if you don't use it often, it actually tarnishes faster--the more you use it the longer it stays shiny and polished.  Oh, it eventually needs to be polished again, but it has been used, it has served a purpose.  We used our silver every night; we used it as we sat around the dinner table and shared our days; we used it when we had friends over and we built relationships--friendships, and we used it when we celebrated holidays, celebrated birthdays and weddings, and even when we celebrated the life of someone who was no longer with us.  We used our silver; we exposed our silver to the world.  And then periodically it again needed to be taken out and  polished, brought back to its luster and used again, and so the cycle continued.

         We ask God to create in us a new heart--a new heart that believes there can be a better way, believes there is a better way.  A new created heart that strives to stop doing the same things over and over and a heart that accepts that it is forgiven.  There is a cliche "he/she wears his/her heart on her sleeve."  Most of the time it is used when we are talking about someone super sensitive, someone who is prone to be hurt--but I wonder, what would this world look like if we all wore our hearts on our sleeves?  Hearts that had been forgiven and transformed; hearts that forgave and worked for transformation.  Wore on our sleeves hearts that lived to restore right relationships with God and one another. Hearts that sometime were broken but hearts that could continually be polished and mended and used again and again as we participated in the renewal of the world.

        Barbara Brown Taylor has written an entire book on reclaiming the lost language of sin and salvation.  In it she answers the question why we should speak of sin anyore--why speak of it when it is so much better to speak about, preach about God's grace.  And here is what she says, "The only reason I can think of is because we believe that God means to redeem the world through us.  We have been chosen, in the language of Genesis, not only to be blessed but also to be a blessing to all the families of the earth.  Our participation in that high calling requires us to understand God's graces as something more than the infinite remission of our sins.  If we want to take part in the divine work of redemption, then we will also understand God's graces as the gift of regeneration--the very real possibility of new life right here on earth--complete with new vision, new values, and new behavior." (4)

        Today a cross will be placed upon your forehead.  A cross made from ashes--ashes that remind us that life is short and fragile, but a cross that reminds us that we are marked for always as God's beloved.  As you return to your seat look at the foreheads of all those around you; look at the foreheads of all those you may encounter today who also have ashes on their forehead (shoot go ahead and look at everyone's whether they have ashes or not), and  remind yourself as you gaze upon them that they too are God's beloved children.  Today as you live with that mark upon your forehead, as I live with that mark, I pray that we also learn to live with our newly polished hearts worn on our sleeves--for all the world to see, for all the world to feel.

Come Down from the Mountain

Last Epiphany
Luke 9:28-36
St. Andrews Church

        I have a confession to you before I start--you need to know that I am usually quite hard on the disciples.   They amuse me; they never quite seem to get it, and yet when I'm hard on them, I also know it's because I'm looking through a 21st century lens.  I already know if not the rest of the story, the story of the final and complete Kingdom of God, I do at least know the rest of the story through the death and resurrection of Jesus as well as the institution of the church.  Parts of the story they don't know.  Parts of the story they have yet to experience but about which they are being told. And so, I am often amused by if not embarassed for them.  You know that gland on the side of your neck that seems to throb when someone is doing something incredibly embarasssing and you see it by they have no idea?
        But today that's not exactly how I feel for them.  Today I think to myself, "I get it.  You're on a mountain top having an amazing experience of God, and you want to freeze it. You want to put it in a box and keep it safe and secure and not let anyone or anything distract you from it."  In fact, I want to do that, say that. I want to help them keep the experience intact and exact, but again through my 21 st century lens, I already know that's not what happens. That's not what can happen, they will come back down, they have to come back down the mountain.  This intense moment of being in the presence of God will end; it has to end.   Let's go back for a moment; let me explain to you why I feel so deeply for them; allow me tell you why I can understand their wanting to stay right where they are, why I want to stay there,  and then travel with me from what I want and what I believe the disciples want to what I believe God is actually asking of us.
        Indulge me for a moment-to really understand what is happening in this Gospel, I think it is important to know what has just happened.  We need to know about the conversation that took place 8 days ago.    It wasn't one of those moments we may cringe at for the disciples lack of getting it.  It wasn't one of those "pick me please as the best" moments one of those moments when they are fighting over who will sit next to Jesus in heaven moments, moments where we shake our heads at them.  No, this was a conversation in which Jesus asks his disciples who do people say I am, and then after that he asks who do you say I am.  And Peter, he answers; he confesses, “I say you are the Messiah.”  He has laid his faith on the line--professes his faith, and then Jesus tells him what that is going to mean for him.  Jesus tells them that he, Jesus, is going to "undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, chief priests, and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised." And he tells them that people who follow him are lso going to suffer, they are going to die.  That's the back knowledge--that is the exchange they have just had.  The words they have just heard; and then Jesus, Peter, John and James go up on the mountain to pray.   
        Jesus, Peter, James, and John go up on the mountain to pray and despite being weighed down with sleep, these three disciples witness the transfiguration of Jesus.  They see his glory; they hear the voice of God saying, affirming what Peter confessed before heading up the mountain, "This is my Son, my Chosen, listen to him." And I don't blame them for wanting to freeze this moment.  I understand their desire to build three booths for Moses, Elijah and Jesus and to just stay there in the intense moment and presence of God.  Somewhere in the back of their minds, I wonder if they are thinking about what Jesus had just told them about suffering and dying, and I wonder if they are thinking, "Hey I've got a good idea.  Let's just stay here and skip all that stuff.   Let's just stay here and bask in the glory of God.  This feels good.  Let’s just skip all that suffering and dying.”
        Have you ever thought like that? Have you ever in a deep moment of prayer or in a walk on the beach or watching a sunset or at the birth of a child or in some other moment or place felt the immense, powerful, extraordinary presence of God and just wanted to stay there?  I suspect some of the youth here today may have had this experience at All Saints.  I know my children have--they have felt so close to God there that they haven't wanted to come home. (One of them told me last night that's why she's so grumpy when she comes home, what we call the "renetry phase."  “It’s because,” she said, “I don’t want to leave.” When and if we have these moments, we want to bottle them, and keep them forever.  I once asked one of my children what it was he  loved so much about All Saints, and the response was, "I just really feel close to God there."  All Saints for many is a mountain top experience.  
        Unfortunately what many of us including our youth know is that life isn't made up of only mountain top experiences.   We have to come down from the mountain, we have to return to our ordinary lives and sometimes we even have to go through some valleys, some deep and painful valleys.  Sometimes we may not even feel the presence of God at all as we move through our days.  Perhaps there are times when we doubt that God exists or wonder if God cares.  So I get it; I understand why the disciples wanted to just stay there.  They knew what was waiting at the bottom of the mountain and they didn’t want it.  They wanted to stay.  And yet, they can't, we can't.  We must come down the mountain and live our faiths in our ordinary and sometimes broken lives, in this ordinary and broken world.  Living in the presence of God is not just mountain top experiences; it is not just professing our belief in Christ.  It is also living our belief, living our faith.  Thomas Groome a Christian educator in the Roman Catholic Church says, "lived Christian faith involves believing, trusting, and doing God's will."[1]
        I don't know about you, but I sometimes struggle with that.  How do I live my faith, how do I stay in the presence of God in the midst of dirty laundry, never ending carpools, and frantically moving from one thing to another.  Perhaps you wonder how to live out your faith, stay in the presence of God in long days of solitude or in your work or school or play.  I believe it takes intentionality.  Remember Jesus and the disciples went up the mountain to pray.  They intentionally sought a connection to God.  What I need to hear as well is that their prayers were not perfect; they didn't pay perfect attention and do it "right".  They didn't have the perfect formula, the perfect way, and they didn't even pay 100% attention.  No they were weighed down with sleep.  They were distracted by their exhaustion, and yet despite that, God showed up.
        God does show up in our ordinary every day messy chaotic broken lives.  Although what we want, what we deeply desire are the mountain top experiences, what we typically get are still small voices, small whispers that if we don't pay attention enough we miss.  Sometimes we have to look for God a little bit harder than the disciples did on that mountain.  And sometimes God shows up in places and in people we would never expect.  I challenge that sometimes God shows up in places and people we don't want God to be.  Maintaining a prayer life no matter how fragmented that may be, does help.  The power of prayer is that it mediates the presence of God.  Prayer moves us deeper and deeper into connection with God and it is from that connection that we are better able to see and hear God in the world.   But we have to look, to pay attention, to be open to the myriad ways God shows up in the world.  
        We can also help each other.  Gathering to worship, gathering to be together as a community is in and of itself a prayer.  It is a desire to find and feel the presence of God in the midst of us all.  Gathering at the altar rail for communion is also an intentional seeking of the presence of God.  We bring to the rail our brokenness, and our vulnerabilities, and we also bring our hopes and joys and dreams not just for ourselves but for the world.  We kneel next to each other; we kneel next to those we like and even sometimes next to those we don't.  We kneel next to those with whom we agree politically and theologically and even sometimes next to those we don't.  But in coming to the altar together, we are seeking to feel the presence of God; we are deliberately searching for God, and we are asking for renewal, for strength to return to our ordinary messy lives outside of the church--we are asking for strength to leave the mountain and to not only still encounter God in the world but also to bring God to the world.  It isn't easy; it takes practice and patience and forgiveness of ourselves and others.  It takes strength and humility; intentionality and desire.  
        I invite you to bring all these things and more.  Bring yourselves, your hopes, your dreams, your hurts and your fears and come and be fed.  Come to the altar, bask in the presence of God, and partake, dwell in Christ and have him dwell in you.  Come and partake of food for the journey.  Amen

---

[1] Thomas H. Groome, Sharing Faith:  A Comprehensive Approach to Religious Education and Pastoral Ministry, the Way of Shared Praxis (New York:  Harper Collins Publishers, 1991), 18.

Prophetic Voices--Will you be one?

Epiphany 4 Year C

Luke 4:21-30

        There are three things I must say as I begin this sermon, one, I'm grateful that Chris is the one from Louisville not me--this is not my hometown; two, I'm grateful that there are no cliffs here in Louisville or at least none in close proximity to Calvary, and three and most importantly I am grateful to stand before you today proclaiming the Gospel, and I want to stress that you are good people, we are good people.  We are people who I believe want to, deeply desire to, live faithful, productive, transformative lives.  We are people who are here today because we are striving to follow Jesus and to participate in the coming Kingdom of God. 

        I said three, but there is one more thing I must say before we look closely at the reading today from the Gospel of Luke and that is that this reading is but a part of the overall revelation of the Gospel of Luke-in fact the revelation that is carried through Acts.  New Testament scholar and theologian Luke Timothy Johnson writes that when Luke-Acts (the Gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles) is read as a literary unit it reveals a prophetic vision of both Jesus and the church; he goes onto say, "as part of canonical Scripture, the voice and vision of Luke-Acts has a prophetic function for the church in every age," and he finishes by challenging that, "if we in the church today choose to heed Luke’s challenge, we shall need to think of the church in more explicitly prophetic terms and find ways of embodying and enacting God’s vision for humans." [1]Keeping all that in the back of your mind, I invite you to delve with me into the Gospel appointed for today.

        Jesus has returned to his hometown and they are so proud.  He's the homegrown hero.  They spoke well of him; they were amazed by him, and remember they were in the synagogue. We have no reason to believe these are other than good people, faithful people--people who worship regularly; people who want to live Godly lives.

        Now let's be honest here--let's read what happens, it is Jesus who seems to pick the fight; it is Jesus who provokes them; it is Jesus who stops the love fest, the love fest that is based on the status quo, the known, the comfortable.  It is Jesus who calls them up short, upsets the apple cart, and in their eyes, ruins the feel good party.  Indeed it is Jesus, and that is because that's what prophets do, what they have always done.  The role of the Old Testament prophets was to tell the truth about the present and also to give hope to God's presence.  Prophets startle, they challenge--they name the reality of the world.  Prophets are those both on the inside and the outside.  Jesus, as the hometown boy, was on the inside, but Jesus as the Savior for all the world was and is also always on the outside.

        Jesus highlights for the people not the good they are doing; he doesn't give them a trophy for belonging to the team--for being the chosen ones of Israel.  No, Jesus reminds them of something perhaps they would have rather not have remembered.  By mentioning the widow in the time of Elijah and the leper Naaman in the time of Elisha, Jesus highlights that God chose not to use the "chosen people, the insiders", but rather the outsiders and by reminding them of this, the truth is in their faces--Jesus, their boy, is for everyone and God goes into places where God was not thought to be with people who are easily looked over--with people who are on the fringe and maybe with people we are more comfortable with leaving on the fringe.   God goes into places we don't necessarily want God to be.  Jesus points out to the people that God is working and present outside of the beautiful walls of their synagogue, outside of the container in which they have placed God with their liturgy and their laws, and outside of their chosenness.  Jesus points out a reality and they didn't like it.  It made them feel uncomfortable, let's face it, it makes us feel uncomfortable.  And what do we often want to do when something make us uncomfortable?  We want to make it go away.  And so they drove him out and to the cliffs.

        Let's go back for just a minute.  I want to remind you of something I said in the beginning.  These were not bad people; these were faithful church going (synagogue going) people.  But they felt threatened, their faith felt threatened, their heritage, their tradition felt threatened, their very way of being felt threatened and they exploded.  Jesus asserted a radical concept into their limited faith perspective, a concept that in its universality threatened their particularity.  And they did what so many people do when the status quo is threatened; they erupted and they did whatever they could to make it go away.

        I believe that today’s Gospel reading compels us to look at many things.  This reading illustrates that Scripture has been and continues to be fulfilled and we, us people here in this place and beyond, are invited into the process.  We are invited to participate in God’s continual revelation but in order to do so, in order to be 100% in, we must step out of our comfort zone.  We must listen to and perhaps even be a prophetic voice.  And I'm not talking about just listening to Jon and me.  We don't have all the answers.  We may not be the ones to name the reality of the present.  (I'm also not suggesting you ignore us)  We are priests, called to ordination and to be a part of the process, but so are you called to be a part of the process.  Perhaps yours is the prophetic voice that needs to be heard. 

        Last week I had the privilege of hearing a new friend preach on the Gospel of Luke, and she said this, "Children and prophets, women and elders. Luke wants us to know that everything in this story happens through the presence and power of God at work in human lives.  Luke’s pattern of prophecy and fulfillment is carried through Acts, and Luke Timothy Johnson reminds us that “if the spirit of God continues to work in every time, and if the spirit’s chosen instrument is the human body, then prophets are in fact in the world as God’s agents now.[2] There are prophets among us."[3]  And I believe with every fiber of my body, every piece of my heart and mind and soul that she is right. 

        And so the question is where is God's presence in the particularities of our lives, of our community, and where does it need to be?  Where are the prophets? What voices, whose voices will speak up?  Who is willing to be both on the inside and the outside--to name the reality of the world and place it within the context of faith?  Our world is more and more polarized around religions, politics, economic agendas (even sports teams)--who among us will name the realities and remind us that God is ever present even in these differences.   That God has, can and will bring healing and wholeness.  God is calling us to bear witness in all places, in this beautiful church and in the edgy sketchy places of the world.  Johnson says, "Without the prophetic challenge, the world quickly becomes structured along the lines of expediency and self-interest."[4]  If we don't seek out and hear prophetic voices, our world will simply continue to run in its normal, comfortable state--in a way in which we know it's not perfect but it’s easy and it doesn't take much thought and for most of us it's better than average.

        I have a UVA sweatshirt that I've had since college.  I love it--it's good and worn in, soft and comfortable, fringed sleeves, paint colors on it from almost every room I've ever painted, did I mention I love it?  Over the years, my daddy has given me new sweatshirts; he's seen this holey (and I don't mean sacred, okay maybe a little sacred), worn out, better not to be worn in public sweatshirt, and he's given me new ones.  They look almost identical, the change of them is not huge, and yet I continue to return again and again to the comfortable, the easy, the familiar, because it doesn’t take much thought and it feels good.

        Listening to prophetic voices doesn't always feel good.  These voices do not always tell us what we want to hear.  In fact, they probably tell us more things we don't want to hear, and they call us to take the steps towards transformation--to change.  Change is hard; even little changes.  We like the comfortable, the known, the cozy--even the yucky parts are bearable because at least we know what and where they are.  Sometimes we as Christians justify our resistance to change by saying that we are keeping the traditions, staying true to the faith, but I challenge that denies the power of and the inclusivity of God.  Brian McLaren says, "In religion as in parenthood, uncritical loyalty to our ancestors may implicate us in an injustice against our descendants; imprisoning them in the errors of our ancestors."[5]  We have the ancient prophets as models and as witnesses.  The sight and speech of prophets today must be formed by the words and deeds of earlier prophets.  

        The people in the synagogue were challenged, they were uncomfortable, frankly, they were stopped in their tracks.  Perhaps they had brief flickers of realization of the truth that Jesus was speaking, but that truth threatened them; it threatened their desire for normalcy.  Their desire for normalcy outweighed the need for change.  Hearing and receiving the message of Jesus--hearing the prophetic voices of the past threatened to destroy their status quo.  It challenged their stereotypes, the stereotypes that defined them.  The stereotypes that defined the religious and social boundaries of their world.  And they couldn't see past it; they couldn't see that the truth and the hope that Jesus was bringing was so much better.  Their desire for the status quo stopped them from seizing the moment, the moment of transformation, and it stopped them from moving forward.  They had the opportunity for complete transformation--the Savior of the world was in their very midst, but it terrified them.  Even living under the oppression of Rome was easier than accepting what Jesus was saying, and so they drove him out and  tried to throw him and with him all their fears and insecurities and pain over the cliff. They wanted to throw their dashed hopes, their pain and their insecurities bundled in with Jesus over the cliff so that they didn't have to see them, to feel them, to experience them. Isn't that what we still sometimes do? 

        What if instead we listened to and perhaps were the prophetic voices today; what if we walked to the edge of the cliff and then just kept walking? What if we kept walking shedding the status quo with each step?  What if instead of walking just to the edge of the cliff we walked through the discomfort, the unknown, and the pain?  Kept walking, walking and listening and believing--completely and fully believing we were walking into transformation, into healing and wholeness for us and for the world.  What would it look like if we just kept walking with Jesus?

---

[1] Luke Timothy Johnson, Prophetic  Jesus, Prophetic Church (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B Eerdman’s Publishing Company, 2011),

[2] Johnson, Prophetic Jesus, Prophetic Church

[3] Wendy Claire Barrie, Sermon delivered Feb. 1, 2013 (Albuquerque, NM—FORMA conference)

[4] Johnson, Prophetic Jesus, Prophetic Church

[5] Brian MacLaren, Why did Jesus Moses the Buddha and Mohammed Cross the Road (Jericho Books, 2012)