I Always Wanted to be a Shepherd...Until

I Always Wanted to be a Shepherd

 

            When it came time for the children’s Christmas pageant I always wanted to be a shepherd.  First of all there were no speaking parts for shepherds.  An angel usually got to make the ancient announcement which sounded something like, “Unto you a child is born…go to Bethlehem and see the child in a manger who is Christ the Lord.”

            Then another angel might wave her hands like so many wings and announce, “Glory to God in the highest and peace among men.”  Back in my day we did have inclusive language so it seemed that the peace was just for men.  Modern translations accurately translate the angelic announcement so that the peace is for all “people.”  I wondered as a child why Jesus just came for the guys.

            Anyway I wanted to be a shepherd because they got to just stand there dressed in something that resembled a bathrobe and simply look and listen to the story without doing much of anything.  I hope that you are not going to do that this year?

            Are you going to listen to the Christmas proclamation and not do much of anything but observe a nice story?  It is true that in the original story the shepherds go to Bethlehem and check things out but you still better take another look at wanting to be a shepherd.

            Shepherds in Jesus’ day were the in the lowest social class of people.  They were considered to be untrustworthy and often grazed their sheep on other people’s land.  From that day long before when David recounted his own days of being a shepherd and wrote the words, “The Lord is my Shepherd I shall not want,” the life of shepherding ended up being looked down upon.

            As the people of God settled down into towns the nomadic life of a shepherd was out of place.  Shepherds were often accused of stealing and sometimes the accusations were true, but even if they were not the people thought of them as roaming band of people with no ties to the families in most towns.                                                                                                                               Shepherds were considered unclean by the religious leaders so they were not allowed to participate in any religious ritual or practice.  In one religious code it said that if you came upon a shepherd who had fallen in a pit you did not have to help him get out.

            According to Jewish guidelines a shepherd could not testify in court because they had no civil rights.  So why in the world would God pick shepherds to be the first witnesses of the event in Bethlehem?  I mean who would believe their story?  The witness of a shepherd does not count.

            But according to Luke shepherds are picked to hear the angel’s song of “Glory to God in the highest.  To you is born a savior.”  The lowest are picked to hear about the highest.

            So here is the good news. Life is a wonderful gift but we cannot avoid the lowest parts of life.  This week I looked into the eyes of a person battling cancer and heard a testimony of how it felt to be low.  We were brought to unimaginable lows this week as we heard the news of innocent children being gunned down at a school.  We collectively felt lost for any words to describe how low those parents must feel.

            We who so desire to have guns to protect ourselves live in a culture of violence where the right to possess such weapons so often leads to the access to rage that misuses the right.  But when it comes to ways to control and prevent such horror we seem to be low in ability.  So we continue to be brought low as a people not only by the rage of those we do not understand but also by our own inability to know what to do about our rights and power.

            Each of us today can describe a time when we were brought low by life.  In those moments of illness or loss or unfairness we realize that when it comes to control our status is rather low.  We fool ourselves into thinking we have control in order to give ourselves security.  In so doing we build a life around us full of material things and titles and money.  But when the unfairness of freedom breaks down our walls and breaches our damns of control we find ourselves awash in what might be termed the lowliness of life.

            So now do you see why God picks shepherds to hear the news?  Listen; life is wonderful.  Let’s not sit here today and get all down and out because of he inevitable low points in life.  After all we need to remember that we never asked for life and life is a gift from God even with all the unfair things that happen.  Gratitude is the antidote for the sadness and darkness because it is gratitude that reminds us of the joy, the light, and the gift that life is.  We need to say thank you every chance we get and not forget that all of life is a grace-given gift of God.

            But the Christmas story reminds us that God first comes to the low places and the low people.  Shepherds hear the news and discover a couple huddled in a barn. The shepherds then down into the town where they were not really welcome to discover a child laying in a feeding trough for animals.  God comes to our low places to say and even to sing, “Glory to this world…my child is born in a barn and yes the first witnesses are lowly shepherds…get it!!  I have come for you on days when you can sing ‘gloria’…and I have come on days when you cannot think you can sing….but on any day you can sing even if its hard because I have come for all your low times…so sing…you are not alone…Christ is still your savior.”

            So I share with you my Christmas poem since I always wanted to be a shepherd and now find myself working for the great shepherd of the sheep as one of his assistant shepherds.  So this is for you…

Now It’s Time for You to Sing

 

Something so big has happened

but you must seek

it in small ways

 

Heaven has broken open

and stardust now fills

the vacant places

 

Words cannot contain this

encounter of earth and sky

but words must be used

 

Only angelic voices can

dare speak what

might be-  that now is

 

And so, “Gloria in Excelsis Deo”

Glory to God in the highest

fills the sky

where shepherds quake

 

Who are they to hear such

a shattering of all that is

for what shall be?

 

And yet to the lowly comes

that which will elevate all

who need to lift their heads

 

He is the child of the universe

born so meek that

some will pay him no mind

 

But listen to the song

of the stars-

They can’t help but sing,

“Gloria”

 

For you and all he has come

So that worship can now be

 of something other than

the little things we make big

 

 

 

Glory to God in the highest

so that the lowest will know

of love’s penetrating power

 

Twas not just the angels

that sang that night

but all creation felt a chorus

that shepherds found themselves

humming

so they went to a manger

 

Now it is time for

you to sing

for to do so is to worship a power

bigger than your small life

 

But for you and our world

God became a small life

that all might be lifted up

 

So lift your weary heads

O world that often feels

forgotten-

Christ is born

 

Gloria in Excelsis Deo

Glory to God in the highest

for

God became the lowest

for

you and for me

 

Jody-Christmas 2012