Shepherds: Advent Week Three
Please enjoy the blog version of Taylor & Whitney’s first collaboration, an Advent email series written by Taylor in 2020.
Image of a dark day in Norway by Whitney Leigh Carlson from her Advent Print Calendar that can be purchased on Etsy.
Take a deep breath and settle in.
Light a candle if you'd like.
Advent is arrival.
We wait in silence.
We wait in stillness.
We wait in darkness.
For our Light to come.
Scripture for reflection
6 While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, 7 and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no guest room available for them.
8 And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. 9 An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. 10 But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. 11 Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord. 12 This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.”
13 Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying,
14 “Glory to God in the highest heaven,
and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.”
15 When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let’s go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about.”
16 So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby, who was lying in the manger. 17 When they had seen him, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child, 18 and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them. 19 But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart. 20 The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen, which were just as they had been told.
-Luke 2:6-20
32 “Are you really showing true love by only loving those who love you back? Even those who don’t know God will do that. 33 Are you really showing compassion when you do good deeds only to those who do good deeds to you? Even those who don’t know God will do that.
34 “If you lend money only to those you know will repay you, what credit is that to your character? Even those who don’t know God do that. 35 But love your enemies and continue to treat them well. When you lend money, don’t despair if you are never paid back, for it is not lost. You will receive a rich reward and you will be known as true children of the Most High God."
-Luke 6: 32-35 (The Passion Translation)
26-27 Anyone who sets himself up as “religious” by talking a good game is self-deceived. This kind of religion is hot air and only hot air. Real religion, the kind that passes muster before God the Father, is this: Reach out to the homeless and loveless in their plight, and guard against corruption from the godless world.
-James 1:26-27 (The Message)
Image: Homeless Man and Dog by Leah Denbok, a photography student at Sheridan College, who began traveling to cities around the world as a teenager four years ago, photographing the homeless and chronicling their stories. Her dignifying portfolio of our unsheltered neighbors in places like NYC, Washington D.C., Brisbane, and Toronto can be viewed on her website, called Humanizing the Homeless.
Meditation: On the Shepards
Our first Christmas in Minnesota in December 2016, I was working with Karen refugee families and their littles. Christmas was always a beautiful, bustling time in Early Head Start, as we connected families to the annual Salvation Army toy drive. I picked up four women who hadn’t met each other but chattered and laughed in my car like old friends, in a language I could never understand. Once inside the church, we were standing together in line registering, when a well-intentioned worker asked that we be served one family at a time. To which another volunteer responded, “They are all family.” Though his assumption was inaccurate, this is the central story of Christmas, isn’t it? God incarnate teaching us to truly love each other. Because the slave is our brother. The refugee is now family. And a weary world rejoices.
Two thousand years ago, a trembling girl gave birth to a child born refugee, fleeing violence of an oppressive king. The Prince of Peace born in a war-torn town in the Middle East crashed into humanity in dust, and blood, and water. There was nothing spectacular about his birth, nothing even that should draw us to Him, and to confound things further, the good news was first announced to the shepherds. Shepherds in Near Eastern Palestinian culture, occupied the lowest rung of the social order. What was once a noble family business in King David's time, shepherds were now considered dirty, depraved, as lowly and as outcast as the tax collector. And yet God chose to reveal the good news of incarnational love first, to the most maligned and marginalized. God gave them a front row seat to the glories of heaven, a starlit sky breaking suddenly into song, “Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.”
And in a flash, they believed the ludicrous possibility, that in his Name, their oppression might cease. They sprinted to Bethlehem, a thrill of hope pounding in their hearts to witness this miraculous thing, a baby born to us! They found the face of God nestled in a manger, wrapped in clothing no different than theirs, a reflection of familiarity in this extraordinary king. The weight of love compelled them to bend down around him, get quiet and behold Him, a tiny finger wrapping itself around callused hands. Immanuel, God-with-us, here at last.
The message of the manger is that Jesus never fails to identify with the very people society believes are unredeemable. And so this Advent, we join in worship from the fringes, with the ones waiting in refugee camps and prison cells, in ICU beds and homeless shelters, in brothels and borderlands, on reservations and overcrowded apartments. We acknowledge the places Jesus too inhabits; we dignify the very people God delights in and champions. We marvel in amazement at what they have taught us, this good news preached to and by the poor; shadows scatter, a new and glorious morn. At the heart of our longing for justice and wholeness this Christmas is kinship.
Father Gregory Boyle, founder of Homeboy Industries, the largest gang intervention, rehabilitation, and re-entry program in the world, defines kinship as the anecdote to our failing systems, “Inching ourselves closer to creating a community of kinship such that God might recognize it. Soon we imagine, with God, this circle of compassion. Then we imagine no one standing outside of that circle, moving ourselves closer to the margins so that the margins themselves will be erased. We stand there with those whose dignity has been denied. We locate ourselves with the poor and the powerless and the voiceless. At the edges, we join the easily despised and the readily left out. We stand with the demonized so that the demonizing will stop. We situate ourselves right next to the disposable so that the day will come when we stop throwing people away.”
The table of God, this community of kinship, is much wider than we ever realized or dared to dream. Our Good Shepherd prepares a seat in the presence of our enemies. Perhaps Christ comes to us in the face of the one we love least, asking us to re-humanize that which we once despised. To declare their belovedness and Divinely-given goodness, to make sure their soul knows its worth. This is not what I signed up for when I swallowed my sanitized, gentrified gospel, but that is the work of repair that grace makes possible. The lines in the sand between ‘us’ and ‘them’ dissolve at last; a breathtaking tide rolls in, moonlit and thunderous.
I did not ask to sit across from the one I condemned I tell God, and yet here I am, partaking of the communal bread, walking this bridge tilting toward a fellow image bearer, an enemy-turned-neighbor, begging God to restore my sight of them. Along with the cynics, the Nathaniel in us asks, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” (John 1:46)
Can anything good come from the theology you deconstructed? The politics you disagree with? The home that harmed you? The faith community that shunned you? The parent who wronged you? The friend who misunderstands you? The neighbor who believes, worships, speaks, votes, looks, loves differently than you?
Can good news be spoken from the places we'd maybe least expect? From the mouths of the evicted, or addicted, the incarcerated or undocumented, the ones too often distrusted and discarded?
Can glad tidings be sung by shepherds, the refuse of society, displaced by a foreign, oppressive regime? An unwed mother? A baby born refugee seeking asylum in Egypt?
Can good stories of restoration and hope be told of those we love least? Can a masterpiece be made of the marring?
There is a Voice crying out in the wilderness, hiding out in the margins, hush, can you hear it?
Come and see.
Spoiler alert: This is not a traditional Christmas carol, or even on a Christmas album, but I promise these lyrics are the perfect accompaniment on this journey with the shepherds. Grab Kleenex. And if you do need Christmas music, I highly recommend Tori Kelly's version of O Holy Night.
Micah Bournes writes of his song Freakshow, "A former slave trader named John Newton became convicted of the horror of his business, quit the slave industry and wrote what is arguably the most popular Christian song in the English speaking world, “Amazing Grace”. The message of “Freakshow” reflects the same spirit of grace found in Newton’s story and lyrics. “Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me.” As a black American descendant of slaves, I would not rather have Newton burn in hell. I am so glad he was confronted with his sin and embraced the forgiveness and grace of God. I welcome him and others like him into the radical community of drunken poets, forgiven sinners, enemy lovers. I welcome everyone to join the freakshow."
Minnesota Children's Museum, St. Paul, MN
Welcome as spiritual practice
Welcome as spiritual practice
The work of welcome has been the most instrumental change agent of my faith. In my desire to welcome neighbors that are often labeled as "other," I unequivocally have been the one welcomed, the stranger for whom hospitality is extended to. And yet, it is harder to welcome those who have hurt us, those who have misused power, those who exploit the vulnerable, with grace and good boundaries and accountability. “I really only love God as much as I love the person I love the least," Dorothy Day writes. I wish this weren't true. But that person we judge is as worthy, as created, as human, as you. And the invitation extends past the ones we love to include the ones we fear or dismiss, and risk diminishing. Our sight is restored when we see our enemies as neighbors, as those created in image Dei, whose healing is integral to the flourishing of beloved community. What are some ways we can humanize the people we would rather not associate?
I would invite you to spend time also thinking about who in your community or city are given shepherd status. Maybe you know this already, or maybe this time invites us to examine and lament how we have contributed to a society of oppression toward the refugee, the immigrant, the poor and disenfranchised, the homeless, all of whom Jesus embodies. Or maybe depending on our social standing, the work is reclaiming, of looking in the mirror and proclaiming that you too are a child of God, no matter what someone tried to steal away. Think about some ways you might lift up and celebrate marginalized communities this Christmastime. Maybe you give a donation to the folks on the frontlines of peace and justice work. Maybe you buy Christmas presents made by refugees or fair trade artisan communities. Whatever it is, I pray that you would discover afresh the imago Dei in your neighbor, just as God did in the shepherd.
Prayer of petition
Boundary-crossing God, your very birth was holy subversion to the status quo. The Word of our Lord was not good news to the rich and powerful, to all who expected Messiah to show up and declare war. Instead, You came quiet, vulnerable, the Christ child born humble, entrusted somehow to our care. You inaugurated a Kingdom of the small and fragile, where children would be welcomed, the common sparrow valued, a tiny mustard seed moving mountains. Empty us Glorious One that we may be a people ready to amplify empathy and welcome without exception, to expand our nearsighted definitions of neighbor. May our lives be re-oriented toward those on the outskirts- may we learn from and receive the good news again from the ones we would least expect, and in the outcast, may we see the face of God. In You, who makes all things possible, our Hope of Glory, Mediator and Restorer of all. Amen.
*These closing prayers are written with similar structure and syntax as Black Liturgies, which would make a beautiful addition to your Insta feed.
