Advent: Enter the Shepherds

Now to the Shepherds.

A story: In 1991, Shari (great with our first child) and I ventured to Romania as part of team sent to encourage a woman pastoring a new church. This was only two years after the “Velvet Revolution” in Eastern Europe. Our pastor friend had miraculously escaped the reigning terror by rafting the Danube. She made it across; her husband did not. He was caught and killed. She returned a widow to nurture the faith that had been so oppressed. As she educated us on the now visible church, we mentioned the gypsies we had seen by the roads on the way in. “Gypsies,” she spat, “are all thieves!” She went on to tell us that they try to come into church services to steal. She wouldn’t dare take the offering with them present. Not exactly the romantic figures of legend I’d imagined.

The shepherds of the Nativity were the gypsies of their day. They were all liars and thieves. They couldn’t be trusted with anything beyond sheep. The Temple, the synagogues, the townies were all suspicious of everything they said and did. As we point out in the guide, they couldn’t even testify in court. These are our spiritual guides for Week Two.

The shepherds move us to consider two themes in our own life. First, we consider simplicity. We look at the shepherd’s lifestyle and, yes, we will romanticize a bit. They were simple folks with simple needs.

Urban Skye Soul began three years ago in the same living room we meet in today. We began with Advent because I had begun to despise Christmas. Not the “reason for the season”, of course - I was a pastor after all. But, I despised the season of Christmas. I hated the rush. I hated the pressure to consume and accumulate even if we are doing so for a loved one. I couldn’t wait for it to be over. So, this week we consider a life more attune to holy simplicity.

Second, we consider the “outcast”. They represent so well our theme of “outside the camp”. We’ve been there and we know others who live there. We will turn our attention to the outcast in our midst. Like Van Gogh who found himself an outcast, our faith can be nurtured on the outside. And who knows, maybe such outcasts will be chosen once again to herald good news for the world!

I leave you with the prayer from our Guide (click here for the PDF). I’ve personalized it for our own Advent journey:

May I have the courage to befriend my longing for eternity,
May I have a sense of something absent to enlarge my life,
May I live in the neighborhood of wonder,
May I know that they I am ever embraced in the kind circle of God.

Blessings upon us as we simple shepherds find ourselves outside the camp but inside the kind circle of God.