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Keeping Shepherds in Christmas

Did you know that there are two birth narratives of Jesus? One is in the Gospel of Matthew and one is in the Gospel of Luke. Time and tradition have merged many of the elements together, but if you take a look you'll see that they are two very distinct stories and mostly mutually exclusive. How did this happen?

Remember, the gospels were written for a purpose, so that people would come to believe in the Jesus story, in the impact he had on people, and then join the movement. Ancient writers weren’t terribly concerned with fact. It was more important to convey meaning. Scholars today ask the question, “Did it happen?” Whereas the ancient biblical writers were asking a completely different question: “What did it mean?”

It has been proposed that the birth narratives of Jesus came about through the process of midrash. In the words of John Shelby Spong in his book, Born of a Woman, “Midrash represented efforts on the part of the rabbis to probe, tease, and dissect the sacred story looking for hidden meanings, filing in blanks, and seeking clues to yet-to-be-revealed truth.”

The important thing in the Jesus story was not to write his autobiography, but to inspire faith, to explain the experience of being with Jesus. The birth narratives never would have been written if the experience of the adult Jesus didn’t cry out for an explanation. Who is this man? Where has he come from? It took years for these stories to coalesce, not appearing in written form until the 9th century, six decades after Jesus died. However, just because they aren’t factually true, doesn’t mean they don’t have meaning and import.

For the next few weeks, we’re going to examine the birth narratives of Jesus to understand why it was important for shepherds to be in the story. Why include the story of Herod when there is no such historical record of a census or babies being slaughtered? Why is Joseph’s role important? There is much richness here, much to ponder and explore. Messages to unpack even for today as we make the journey toward Christmas.

I borrowed from the cliché we hear everywhere: Keep Christ in Christmas. We’re going to talk about why it might be important today - even if the stories are merely parables - to keep the shepherds in Christmas, and Herod in Christmas, and Joseph in Christmas and more.

So, let’s start with shepherds. Say you are one of the few people who are literate and knows how to write in the first century. You’ve heard the stories of Jesus, the questions about Jesus, the experience of Jesus, and you’re determined to fill in some of the blanks regarding where he came from. But why shepherds? Shepherds were smelly, unclean by Jewish law, and the dredges of society. They were the third-shifters, the bottom-run on the social ladder. So, why would you put shepherds in the story of Jesus' birth as the very first people to hear the news? Why not kings and queens? Why not priests and the wealthy and powerful? What do we know about Jesus and his message that would lead us to make the shepherds the first to hear and follow?

The impact of a heavenly visitation to the wealthy and powerful would only have solidified the social structure, which would have completely contradicted Jesus’ ministry. Over and over again he stood with the outcast and the marginalized and the oppressed. This story of angels appearing to shepherds to share this very important news says that they, too, are important. And if those at the bottom of the hierarchy are important, then who could possibly be excluded from God’s favor and care? Who could be excluded from hope in a better future?

The shepherds also speak to me of ordinary folks like you and me. Most of us are just like shepherds on the hillside, we have enough to worry about day to day; therefore, we don’t particularly have the time, energy, or maybe even interest in being a star-follower, a dreamer and a seeker. We have all we can handle with life on the hillside – jobs, family, homes, health, bills. Oh, sure, we’ve heard rumor of stars, but we don’t put much stock in rumors, we’re not expecting angels in the fields, we’re expecting to work hard to make ends meet and hopefully to fall into a soft bed with a full stomach at the end of the day. If God cares enough about the ordinary shepherds to bring them such exciting news and hope, then maybe there is room at the manger for all of us, too.

If we don’t sanitize the birth stories into sweet little Christmas card scenes, we can recognize the radical nature of the inclusion of the shepherds not only for that time, but for now.

Who is on the lowest rung today? Is it the LGBT folks hanging out in a gay nightclub after a long week of work, hoping to have downtime with friends in a place safe to be themselves? Is it black and brown people who are constantly judged as lazy and stupid because of their skin? Is it the immigrant, alone in a foreign land, in fear of being deported, far from loved ones who may be in danger, hoping to make a few extra bucks to send home to make their lives better. Or perhaps it is the homeless and the veterans? These are modern day shepherds, and the world would do well to remember that the promise of light in the darkness includes them.

Yep, we need to keep the shepherds in Christmas!

Love & Light!

Kaye