A Welcome Church [Advent 2A - Romans 15:4-13]
The Rev. Jeremiah Williamson Romans 15:4-13 A Welcome Church The wolf shall live with the lamb; the leopard shall lie down with the kid, the calf and the lion and fatling together, and a little child shall lead them. It is a pastel vision fit for a nursey wall. It is also unrealistic in a way that hurts, that stirs up a kind of desperate unfulfilled longing most often reserved for prayers we dare not say out loud. It is the kind of vision that makes one homesick for a place we’ve never known. Isaiah always finds a way to set our best dreams to poetry. His poetic visions are so fiercely beautiful that I named my son after him. Because I want my son, my Isaiah, to dream these impossible dreams and hope for a future that is entirely unreasonable. I want him to be the little child whose feet are firmly planted in the coming kingdom of God. I love poetry – for all the ways in which is stirs the sou...