There were some shepherds...

There were some shepherds in that part of the country who were spending the night in the fields, taking care of their flocks. (Luke 2:8 T.E.V.).

There were some shepherds. Not a group of synagogue lawyers feasting sumptuously on roast lamb and good wine but a bunch of shepherds doing one of the most menial tasks of their society—tending the animals which would be slaughtered for the feasts of the rich and the sacrifices of the temple. They were not important people. In their society, they counted for very little. On the pay scale of the time, they came near the bottom and in religious circles, they were considered to be ritually unclean and therefore to be despised.

In addition, they had a reputation for being vagabonds and thieves—itinerant workers with no roots. After all you never knew just what people like them would get up to out there in the wilderness with nothing but themselves and the sheep and the sky. In an Israel dominated by Roman legions, they were one of the mass of nobodies of their society.

But, it was these ones, these nobodies, this bunch of shepherds whom Luke remembers in the story of the birth of Jesus which he recounts.

It is not the local Roman officials and garrison, nor the synagogue officials, nor even the prominent business people of the town. There is not one mention of any of them in this story, only of these shepherds, despised and looked down upon by the more important and more influential members of their society.

It is true, Israelite society was born of people such as these. The nation's ancestors were nomadic herders who wandered from waterhole to waterhole searching for food for their animals. However, in a time when Israel had become a settled nation and had been for a short time a great settled nation, the story of their beginnings had become idealised into a romantic myth.

The shepherds of those days could not possibly have been anything like the shepherds which they now saw in their midst. Why, didn't David write that beautiful psalm "The Lord is my Shepherd"! How could he have said such a thing about God if he had known these shepherds!

Like many societies, as its structures had amassed, so its understanding of itself and its pilgrimage had been forgotten. There were rules and laws for everything and a strict hierarchy of social status and prestige for everybody. The shepherds were not at the top. Like many of their class, their brand of religion was different to that practised in the Temple at Jerusalem or even by the officials of the local synagogue. The rules of Judaism defined them as nobodies. God was a being who saw some people as clean and others as dirty. The rules for ritual cleansing were complex and tedious. Religion when practised was a duty, watching sheep a way of escape. They had learnt to honour religion and fear God. Is it any wonder that their first response to an angelic confrontation was to be afraid?

For them the image of being surrounded by angels would have been something like a bunch of street kids coming face to face with a car load of police. They were a symbol of all that told them that there were nobodies, that they didn't count for anything.

But this time the message is different. This time there are no added rules, list of duties or need for ritual cleansing. They have been met in their own environment and accepted as they are within it. "Don't be afraid! This news is good. A saviour is born—one who deliver you and your people from their oppression just as it was in the days of old when Moses led the people from Egypt. God meets you at the point of your need. God offers you freedom."

Now, as always with such things, there is a sign but not a clever trick like making a bush seem to burn when it does not. No, it is something much more wonderful than that. It is the miracle of a birth: the miracle of the birth of a child to a young mother in the midst of the stench of a stable in a town crawling with thousands of people after a long journey from her home all for the sake of the records of the Roman conquerors. That is the sign.

Then the message continues changing to a hymn of praise and a greeting to God's people in that place: “Glory to God in the highest heaven, and peace on earth to those with whom God is pleased.” (Luke 2:14 T.E.V.).

I have a vivid picture in my mind of a bunch of shepherds who thought themselves to be nobodies looking around themselves to see if a couple of synagogue officials have snuck in the back. "Peace on earth to those with whom God is pleased. But there's nobody here but us."

And slowly the realisation comes that the message has been to them, for them and that they have been entrusted with being witnesses to the sign. Well, the obvious thing is to go and see it for themselves and that's just what they do. But this time, there is no need for ritual cleansing, not even a change of clothes. This time, they go to this experience as the people that they are, hoping and then knowing that that is how they will be accepted.

“The shepherds went back, singing praises to God for all they had heard and seen; it had been just as the angel had told them” (Luke 2:20 T.E.V.). They had discovered that God's message was also or as Luke sees it, especially for them.

--oo0oo—

It is Christmas day 2009. We have passed the 2000th anniversary of that miracle of birth. Our society too has its systems and laws, its hierarchies of order, of prestige and power. We have our myths about our beginnings as individuals, as dwellers in this country and as members of the Christian faith. In looking back, it is very easy to idealise our histories: to honour brave people who did this, that or the other thing and in the process, to fail to really understand the time in which we live and who we are as God’s people..

We have developed our religion as well as our society into well-ordered institutions and we constantly tell ourselves that we can never be acceptable to those institutions, to ourselves, to each other, to our God. Most of all we are afraid, afraid of the future, afraid of living, afraid of being found out to be the people that we are. The message of Luke's Christmas story is a reminder that God is with us, is among us, in the ordinary things, in the despised ones, accepting all people as they are and offering them, offering us the message of peace which is a message of hope.

--oo0oo--

Meredith is 16. (She has a dozen other names.) Last night she slept in a squat with a 6 month old baby. When the baby was born, her mother wanted it adopted. Meredith lived in a one bedroom flat for awhile but it was lonely and she had trouble managing her budget. Here she lives with her friends. It feels like home. Today it is Christmas and the bunch of street kids which she hangs around with have tried to fix up the place a bit for the kid. One guy searched the gutters all day yesterday for aluminium cans and foil wrappers to make the brightly coloured chain which is strung around the wall. Sharon, Meredith's best friend, went out in the middle of the night to raid a city park for flowers and these stand in an open milk carton filled with water from the leaky tap outside. Meredith and her friends get money however they can—stealing, selling what little they have and themselves. Their lives held little hope for the future until Meredith had her kid. Now they have grand dreams to give the child all the opportunities which they never had, the most important of which is lots of love.

They know that they are the despised ones of our society. They have never thought much of themselves but now they have a reason to survive and the pain of living isn't quite as strong. Maybe tomorrow Children's Services will take the baby but today is a day to celebrate, to be bold and unafraid, to be strong. And Meredith commits all these things to her memory so that she can think about them when times are not so good.

--oo0oo--

An angel of the Lord appeared to them, [those shepherds, those despised ones] and the glory of the Lord shone over them. They were terribly afraid, but the angel said to them, "Don't be afraid! I am here with good news for you, which will bring great joy to all the people. This very day in David's town your Saviour was born - Christ the Lord! And this is what will prove it to you: you will find a baby wrapped in strips of cloth and lying in a manger." Suddenly a great army of heaven's angels appeared with the angel, singing praises to God: "Glory to God in the highest heaven, and peace on earth to those with whom God is pleased!" (Luke 2:9-14 T.E.V.).