Luke:            In the fifteenth year of the reign of Emperor Tiberius,
Echo:           In the seventh year of the presidency of George W. Bush
Luke:            when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea,
Echo:           and Mit Romney was governor of Massachusetts
Luke:            and Herod was ruler of Galilee,
Echo:           and Thomas Menino was mayor of Boston
Luke:            and his brother Philip ruler of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis,
Echo:           and Edward F. Davis III was named Boston's new police commissioner
Luke:            during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas,
Echo:           during the ministry of Nancy, Quinn, and Tadd;
Luke:            The word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness.
Echo:           The word of God came to Jahmol Norfleet in the wilderness of Humbolt Ave.
Luke:            John went into all the region around the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins,
Echo:           Jahmol Norfleet went into al the region around Roxbury, proclaiming a gospel of, truces among gangs and non-violent conflict resolution.
Luke:            As it is written in the book of the words of the prophet Isaiah,

All:              “The voice of one crying out in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways made smooth; and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.’”

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Scandalous! Scandalous! The story Luke presents is scandalous. It is outrageous.  

Luke claims that God – God, mind you, God, the Creator of the whirling stars; the source of life and breath – that God bypassed Emperor Tiberius, ignored the Governor of Judea, skipped right over the ruler of Galilee and dodged the high priests! Luke claims that God took a detour around the palaces, skirted the halls of power, and shunned the high holy places. Luke claims that God eluded the great and powerful, the mighty and majestic, the religious and sanctimonious and aimed for a water-logged baptizer name John, somewhere out in the wilderness who was, to be frank, a tad mad … what with his animal skins and diet of honey and locusts.

Moreover, Luke claims that the One whom John announced, the One Christians hail as the Savior of the world was poor and an outlaw and, God forgive him, a sinner … or at least that is how he was described by his contemporaries and it is why he was killed. 

As if that is not enough, Jesus hung around with the wrong sort. He seems to have actually enjoyed the company of sinners! After all he ate with them and he had a habit of forgiving sinners without exacting remorse or administering punishment. He told stories about prodigals showered with gifts and stories about laborers who worked different numbers of hours all being paid as if they had worked the same full day. Moreover, he was dismissive of both social and religious etiquette. He gave the best seat at the banquet to the humblest and he humbled the mighty by suggesting they sit at the foot of the table. He wasn’t as observant of the Sabbath as one might expect from the Son of God.

You can see, can’t you, that we have a problem here. Or, perhaps we have Gospel, here. In any case, we have a scandal.

Part of the scandal of the Gospel is the audacious claim that God came to earth in the form of a person who was not, by worldly standards, among the great of the earth. He was not, frankly, who we’d been expecting, who we’d been waiting for. He had not one single, recognizable credential to his credit. He lived and died in poverty and obscurity; he ruled no nation, amassed no army and possessed no weapon. He was an unlikely vehicle for salvation: a curious Christ, a misfit Messiah, a shocking choice for a Savior. And yet, and yet, we not only remember him, we divide time by him.

The scandal of it is that God chose, chose mind you, to enter our world as a paltry peasant, as a nobody from Nazareth, as a religious renegade. The scandal is that God chooses what is foolish and weak to confound what is wise and mighty. The scandal of the Gospel is that the last are first, that resurrection follows execution and that grace is free.

Although the story of Advent and Christmas has been around for two millennia – and despite the fact that we have grown used to the annual reappearance of angels and shepherds and magi – this is a scandalous story … the story of a radical departure from the status quo.

As you may have guessed from the echo-effect in the scripture reading, there is another scandal, or two, to consider this morning.

First and foremost, there is the scandal and the tragedy of the death of Jahmol Norfleet. He was gunned down in the streets of Boston on November 28. He was twenty years old. It is scandalous that Jahmol’s death represents the 69^th homicide in Boston this year. It is scandalous that young men choose to settle disputes by shooting each other. It is scandalous that they can so easily lay their hands on guns.

Jahmol was one of the key figures in brokering a truce between the H-Block gang, which he had formerly headed, and the rival Heath gang. After having spent a year in jail, Jahmol was reforming himself and he was determined to turn his life around. He had joined Pleasant Hill Baptist Church and was working to secure the safety of other young people in his neighborhood.

Last week Old South Church in Boston hosted the press conference that announced the Jahmol Norfleet Hero’s Fund, a fund designed to teach peace and non-violent conflict resolution to youth in the city. 

So, why hold the press conference at Old South? Why hold the press conference here in the Back Bay when the vast majority of the 69 Boston homicides in 2006 occurred in Dorchester, Mattapan and Roxbury?

We held the press conference here to declare that violent deaths among our youth in Boston are not a Black problem and they are not a Roxbury problem. These violent, untimely deaths are a human problem. These deaths are our problem.

If it takes a village to raise a child, Jahmol Norfleet was everyone's brother and son. The village failed him. We failed him. Those in the Back Bay failed him just as surely as those in Roxbury.

It is scandalous that our children and youth are surrounded by media that is saturated in violence: crime shows, video games, music, movies, art, sports. Media today is so compelling, so all-pervasive and so drenched in violence that violence is presented as status quo rather than as the exception. Similarly, much of the media portrays young African American men as criminalized: they either shoot or get shot.

Whether they live in Wellesley or Roxbury, whether they are white or black or brown or yellow, our youth – like ourselves – are increasingly desensitized to violence and inundated with damaging and dehumanizing stereotypes. This is everyone’s problem.

It is a scandal that some young people choose to solve differences with violence. But maybe the real scandal is that they learn to do so from mainline media where violence is entertainment. And, maybe the really real scandal is that they learn violence from leaders of nations, from presidents and potentates who also believe they can solve differences with violence, with wars and weapons … who have not attended seriously to non-violent conflict resolution, and who have made violence the status quo rather than the exception.

In many ways Jahmol Norfleet was an unlikely peace-maker and truce broker. He was poor and black and adjudicated. He came from a world where it feels safer to be in a gang than on your own; where guns speak persuasively, if not eloquently; where being a man means possessing the capacity to intimidate and harm others.

Like John the Baptist (also an unlikely herald of peace) Jahmol defied expectations and broke free of the stereotypes with which others had saddled him. Having emerged from jail he joined the church and he chose the scandalous pursuit of peace-making in a violent world.

At Jahmol’s funeral three of the world’s great peacemakers were invoked: Martin Luther King, Jr., Mahatma Gandhi and Jesus of Nazareth. At the times they lived people thought King was a fool, Gandhi an idiot, and Jesus a trouble-maker. And, by the standards of the world, I suppose they were all those things.

Imagine the courage it took for Jahmol to turn from gang leader to truce broker. Imagine the ridicule and grief he took from his peers for standing with King, Gandhi and Jesus … for witnessing to peace in the gun-ridden streets of Roxbury. In the world of gangs, his was a scandalous and, in the end, a dangerous choice. John the Baptist was beheaded. Jesus was crucified. Gandhi was murdered. King was assassinated. Jahmol was executed.

The point is that following Jesus is hard work. It can be dangerous work. In a world where armies and violence are status quo, where might makes right, ours is a foolish and scandalous message.

The scandalous world of the Gospel which God inaugurates in Advent isn’t for the faint of heart. After all, waging peace threatens the status quo. If, however, we wish to be among those who, like John the Baptist and Jahmol the Truce Broker, prepare the way of the Lord, then let us gather our courage. Let us join in the chorus of those whose voices cry out in the wilderness: “Prepare the way of the Lord. Make his paths straight.”

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Tax free donations may be sent to the Jahmol A. Norfleet Hero’s Fund,

c/o City Mission Society, 14 Beacon Street, Suite 203, Boston, MA 02108.