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A Sermon Preached at St. Christopher's Episcopal Church, Oak Park, IL
on the Second Sunday of Advent, December 9, 2007
by Seminarian Edmund Harris

Readings:
Isaiah 11:1-10, Psalm 72:1-7, 18-19, Romans 15:4-13, Matthew 3:1-12

"Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near." (Matt. 3:2) These are the words proclaimed by John the Baptist in the wilderness in this morning's Gospel.

Now you would think that a prophet like John would want to proclaim the coming of the kingdom of heaven in Jerusalem, the center of religious and political power. He certainly would have had a bigger audience there, including all of most important leaders who might have liked to know if there was going to be a sudden change in the way things were being run.

Not to mention, it would have been more convenient for people of Jerusalem who had busy lives to lead. How much easier it would've been if they could've stopped by to hear John's message on their lunch break or if they had time, on their way home from work.

But instead, they must go out to the wilderness, where they hear the kingdom of heaven proclaimed not by a polished temple priest, but by a unkempt man wearing clothing of camel's hair and a leather belt around his waste, and who, Matthew tells us, ate locusts and wild honey for his diet.

Even the Pharisees and Sadducees at the center of religious piety and authority in Jerusalem must leave the hustle and bustle of the city behind for the wilderness. And when they arrive, John doesn't exactly lay out the welcome mat for them.

*     *     *

This past summer, I found myself in a wilderness of my own. As I may have shared with some of you, I served as a chaplain at Lawrence Hall Youth Services, one of the largest child welfare agencies in Chicago. For ten weeks, I was assigned to two residential units of mostly African American teenage boys among whom I became known as "Pastor Edmund."

One of the two units was a temporary shelter for boys in South Shore, only a few miles from where I live in Hyde Park, yet at a world away. The Department of Child and Family Services would temporarily place clients at the shelter until a more permanent home could be found for them- if one could be found. The shelter was, for many of them, the end of the line. Most of the residents had a long litany of failed placements. Many of them had been abused or neglected by a parent, or abandoned. Some had gotten involved in gangs.

My first few weeks at the shelter were surprisingly calm. The residents were getting along, even participating in the weekly Bible study I was leading on the Joseph stories in the Old Testament. I was feeling pretty confident in my role as a chaplain.

But halfway through the summer, things changed when a new client named Maxwell arrived. Maxwell was from the West Side, where he'd been living with his grandmother until she threw him out of the house because she couldn't manage him anymore.

He was only fourteen and barely five feet tall, but he carried himself like a man, rarely letting down his guard. If there was a child left inside of him, it had been buried under so many calluses that it could no longer escape.

Maxwell would cuss at the staff and threaten them. He'd pick fights with the other residents. And when he didn't get his way, he'd go AWOL for days at time. "That boy won't live to see eighteen," a staff member at the shelter told me.

One day, on the way back from field trip with the residents, we decided to stop for lunch at a downtown Boston Market. It had been a long morning, and I had spent much of it trying to prevent Maxwell from provoking the other residents.

Just outside the door to the restaurant was a homeless man shaking his cup of coins. His legs were sprawled out across the sidewalk, but that didn't stop us from walking over them and avoiding eye contact so we could get into the restaurant. We ordered our food-more than any of us needed - and picked up our orders from the counter. But after we found a table, I realized that Maxwell had disappeared.

Presuming the worst, I panned the restaurant for him only to catch sight of him out of the corner of my eye leaving the restaurant with his plate of food. I got up from the table and began to chase after him, when watching through the window; I could only stop dead in my tracks. There was Maxwell kneeling down by the homeless man, taking his own plate of food and setting it gingerly on the man's lap.

*     *     *

The kingdom of heaven is proclaimed by unlikely prophets. They might not look like we'd expect a prophet to look. Their message might not sound like we'd expect it to sound - they might not proclaim the kingdom of heaven loudly, or even with words at all. They might not proclaim it in the places where we'd expect or at an hour that is particularly convenient to our busy lives.

But when they do proclaim it, we are given a glimpse of the prophet Isaiah's vision of the Peaceable Kingdom- of the day when the wolf shall live with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid, the calf and the lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them- and we realize that it is only our own stubbornness to repent that stands in the way of its coming.

During Advent, this season of prophets, let us listen for the prophets proclaiming the coming of the kingdom in our own midst. Let us hear their message, that along with the psalmist we may cry out for justice for the poor, and deliverance for the needy, that we may welcome one another as Christ welcomed us, abounding in hope until his kingdom comes.

Amen.