If you are at all familiar with our lectionary, you know that the Advent readings are wildly out of sync with the season outside.  Our readings are about the wild and wooly prophet John the Baptizer, the end of times and coming apocalypse: sobering stuff.  Although there are some hopeful images, during Advent, we have to wait for the readings about peaceful animals in the stable, singing angels, and the Christ child in the manger.  It might seem a bit disorienting.  Last week, for instance, in our gospel reading from Matthew, a very grown up John the Baptizer called a bunch of respected leaders a brood of vipers and warned them of a reckoning to come.

In last week's gospel, we read again about John.  But this time, John's fearless preaching and baptizing have landed the prophet in prison.  In his heyday, he drew thousands of people longing to hear him preach; people lined up for hours in the hopes of being baptized and given the new beginning that can come from repentance and recommitment to God.  John's preaching and uncompromising message had earned him powerful enemies, including the ruler, Herod Antipas, and his wife (whom John had publicly accused of adultery).  In our gospel reading for the third Sunday of Advent, John has been arrested and is in prison.  

I picture him pacing up and down in a dark cell.  He must have known that he wouldn't leave that cell in anything other than the first century equivalent of a body bag--and he didn't.  From the beginning of his ministry, John predicted someone who would come after him, someone greater, the messiah.  John imagined fire and mighty power, a messiah who would be willing to engage in a kind of sorting--rewarding the righteous and punishing unrepentant sinners.  He had high hopes for what that would mean.  John preached justice, liberation from oppression, and a deeper relationship with God.  Watching Jesus, John began to believe that Jesus might be that messiah. But in that cell, maybe finding himself beginning to doubt, wondering if his work had all been in vain, John needed to know for sure.

John sent disciples to ask straight out: "Are you the one, or should we wait for another?"  Those are, to me, among the saddest words in scripture.  "Was I wrong?  Was it all for nothing?"  I can't imagine Jesus' response was totally reassuring.  "Tell him what you see and hear: the blind see,  the paralyzed walk, lepers are healed, dead people are brought to life, the poor have good news brought to them."  Surely that sounds like good news.  But from John's perspective, maybe that wasn't how he imagined the messiah at all.  If you were a prophet who had promised fire and power and might, does individual healing and siding with the poor sound like good news?  John had to face the fact that the messiah he promised was not the mighty force that he had, perhaps, imagined.

Jesus sent the disciples back to John with this request, phrased as a promise: "Blessed are those who take no offense at me."  He was really saying, I think, "Please don't be disappointed."  Why in the world would anyone take offense at someone healing the sick and blessing the poor?  Why would anyone take offense at someone standing on the side of the oppressed, who refused to condemn even those whom society called sinners and outcasts.  Well, the powers of Jesus' time took enormous offense.  Sometimes it seems to me that people still do.  I hear people on the news all the time, leaders both secular and religious, take offense at the poor, the sick--uninsured, immigrants, unemployed--and offense at those who try to help them.  Jesus sided always with the poor, the oppressed, the folks who were thrown away and told they were useless.  He challenged those who did not.  It got him killed.  That's what we look at in Advent, before we celebrate the beautiful baby and the angels and the happy parents; we look at John and Jesus as grownups, and we remember what they came to do.

Advent is challenging.  John begs us to repent and to turn our lives around.  Jesus asks us to love and to welcome without qualification or judgment.  Jesus was the One.  I hope so much that John was not disappointed.  But Jesus brings not a reckoning in fire, but rather an invitation with water.  At baptism, we are invited into a place where we are not so comfortable.  We are invited to be with the poor, the oppressed, the sick: we are invited to bring the good news of Christ to the world.  We are invited to proclaim: He is the one.

We want to thank the Reverend Liz Steinhauser, our guest preacher last Sunday, for her visit and her inspiring sermon about the life-altering work being done in our diocese with at-risk youth in Boston.  Because of last Sunday's snowstorm 

many people missed this great experience, although Liz was able to spend some time with the 28 children who made it here on Sunday morning for pageant practice!  Liz's sermon is available on our website by clicking here.  We hope to have Liz return sometime on a warmer day.

 Reverend Liz Steinhauser with Gail Newton and Marty Wishart

Profiles: El Hogar Technical Institute and El Hogar Agricultural School

  

After completing the elementary school program, boys at El Hogar have the option of attending either the El Hogar Technical Institute or the El Hogar Agricultural School for grades 7-9. 

  

The Technical Institute, located on eight acres of land in the Amarateca Valley about 30 minutes from Tegucigalpa, is home to about 75 boys.  Under the supervision of Director Lazaro Juarez, the boys study a full academic curriculum and attend workshops specializing in one of three areas:  carpentry, welding, and electrical work, including appliance repair.  There is room to grow into a fourth workshop area which is earmarked for automobile repair and possibly refrigeration - in the future.  At least half of the incoming 7th grade class are boys from the El Hogar elementary program.  The Institute also takes young men directly into the program, if they meet the criteria of coming from the poorest of the poor situations and pass an entrance exam. The boys live together in a large, modern dorm.  Students produce items such as furniture, metal window and gate grills and other small items, which are available for sale, mostly to the other centers and to volunteers. 

  

 

The Agricultural School, located one hour outside of Tegucigalpa in Talanga, is home to 60 boys. The 240-acre farm is a very quiet and pastoral setting, with views of rolling mountains. Here the boys study sustainable agriculture.  After graduation, some continue on with schooling or get jobs, and some go back to their own communities to teach sustainable principles to other local farmers.  Each year, a few boys come from El Hogar's elementary program, but most enter the program in 7th grade.  All students must pass an academic exam to be admitted, and must come from the poorest of the poor, whether rural or urban.  Days begin very early on the Farm - before 5am.  The boys spend the mornings doing their farm chores and in workshops, then spend the afternoons in academic classes.  Students focus their studies on either plant and crop production or animal care.  In crop production, they learn relevant farming techniques, such as terrace farming, drip irrigation, and crop rotation.  In animal care, the boys work with chickens, goats, sheep, pigs, cows and tilapia.  Fresh food raised at the Agricultural School helps feed students at all four El Hogar campuses.

 

 

Our Good Shepherd outreach project for the season of Advent is an Adopt-A-Child program to benefit El Hogar.  So far, 46 of the 88 elementary school children featured on our bulletin boards have been adopted for the season by Good Shepherd families!  Here is how the program works:

1. Choose a child to "adopt" from the photos on the bulletin boards in the hallway outside the office.  Each photo is numbered.
2. Select the envelope with the corresponding number from the box on the table in the hallway.  The photo inside is yours to keep.
3. Place a star with the word "adopted" on your child's photo on the bulletin board.
4. Return the envelope with your donation to the office or the offering plate by January 5th.  Checks should be made payable to Church of the Good Shepherd with "El Hogar" in the memo line.

Christine Camper, Kevin Cellucci, Betty Fraser, Bernice Herrick, Scott Johnnene, Thomas and Henrietta Kane, Debra Katt-Lloyd, Tony Lopes, Lynn McDonald, Rheta McKinley, Ken Nowakunski, Elsie Saunders, Bishop Thomas Shaw, Kevin Smith, Jake Torrisi, Ralph Ventola, Stephen Wagner, Michael Webb and Nicki Zitoli.