Tuesday, November 29, 2016

The Shepherds and their Lamb


This sermon, part of a series on characters in Luke's nativity story, was preached at the weekly chapel service at Grand View University on November 29, 2016.


I have a soft spot in my heart for shepherds. This rough-and-tumble lot that the angels appeared to in the hills above Bethlehem are my kind of people. When my dad died a couple weeks ago out in western South Dakota, one thing I learned from relatives is that my Papa's first job when he was fourteen was as a sheep herder. He was so proud of that fact that they thought we'd have the Sheep Herders' National Anthem sung at the funeral. That didn't happen, but I hope you'll indulge me today by singing the first verse: “Mary had a little lamb, little lamb, little lamb. Mary had a little lamb. Its fleece was white as snow.”

So shepherds, we mostly think of them in this story because of all the Christmas pageants we've seen at church or at school. Little ones are dressed like donkeys and cows, as angels with halos and wise men in bathrobes and crowns, and of course a line of little replicas of Linus Van Pelt, like in A Charlie Brown Christmas, with a blanket on his head and a shepherd's crook in his hand, innocently reciting our scripture reading for today.


But the guys on the hillside weren't at all like the cuteness we're used to. Jesus called himself the good shepherd, but that implies that a good shepherd is an unusual thing and that most people in that vocation weren’t so good. Having been around sheep at my grandparents’ ranch on the Great Plains, I know that the job isn’t a clean one, much less an easy one. The shepherds were dealing with creatures prone to brucellosis that causes aborted lambs in ewes and lesions on the rams’ privates, frothy bloat and free gas bloat which do what they say, scabies that causes hair to fall out, and scours where the animals poop themselves to death. It might not be a good idea to shake hands with one of these men. The shepherds in the Christmas story in Luke had to wade through a lot of ick, and they didn’t have the luxury of doing quality craftsmanship like Joseph did. There was no precision or eye for beauty in sheep herding. In this story, these fellas were out in the meadows at night. They’d brought their flock up either to graze on new shoots or to chomp on the stubble from the spring harvest. By day they could see hyenas or jackals approaching and protect the sheep and could maybe spell each other for a nap. But under the stars they’d have had to stave off sleep, kind of like a college student pulling all-nighters to get things done at the end of the semester.

What’s more, shepherds didn’t have much reputation as reliable people. The bad reputation started with their affinity for sheep, which are the dirtiest, smelliest, dumbest, and most self-involved creatures human beings have ever domesticated. The kind of sheep they raised were the middle-Eastern broad-tailed variety, whose backside waggers were fat and meaty and regarded as a real dinnertime delicacy to set next to your figs and hummus. While the sheep tails were highly desired, it wasn’t so for the shepherds. They wore no clothes made of finely spun cloth. Instead they may have worn a rough tunic, and probably on these cool spring nights they had on some sheepskin with the wool turned in. And to stave off the cold, they might have been sampling some first-century warming liquid, if you know what I mean, while they stood near their fires. All of which makes the shepherds the most unlikely people to play the role the angels cast them in.

One of Luke’s big themes in the gospel is witnessing. The whole story of Jesus and his disciples is told to show what those chosen followers of Jesus witnessed. Usually what they witnessed was Jesus’ care for outsiders, for the disreputable, for the outcast, for people in society’s shadows. And the first witnesses in Luke’s story aren’t good guys like Peter, James, and John. No, Luke tells us the first witnesses were the last people you’d want testifying on your behalf. The first witnesses who heard the announcement that the infinite and almighty God has taken weak, human, and finite form were this bunch of half-snockered neck-beards, scratching their nether regions while telling tall tales around the fire to keep themselves entertained.

Suddenly they were surrounded by both angels and the glory of the Lord. And when we’re talking about that glory, we’re talking the presence of God, being wrapped up in God’s very being. Who woulda thunk it? It wasn’t kings and high priests who got the announcement. It was the shepherds. On the other hand, what better people could God have sent the heavenly messengers to? If you’re powerful and people jump at your command, you’ll only have ears for your own sweet voice. If you’ve got your act together, you don’t need a savior, who is Christ the Lord. If you’re perfectly snuggled in your warm bed with its 800-count Egyptian cotton sheets, you’re not going to run off to see anything born in a cold cattle stall. So God chose the ones most likely to hear and go and give witness. These guys were duly impressed and wanted to see the one whom the angel told them about and whom the heavenly host praised.

What they found when they went down into town to that stable out back of the inn’s “No Vacancy” sign was something they were perfectly familiar with. Mary had had a little lamb. Outside the sphere of good and upright people, the shepherds saw this woman and man, Mary and Joseph, with a baby who was the Lamb of God. When they stepped up next to the manger, the shepherds did the job they’d been chosen for. They became the first witnesses, handing on what they’d first been given. The angels had told them what God was up to here, and they passed on the news to this set of new parents. In their post-partum exhaustion, Mary and Joseph received the news that their baby, a far distant descendant of King David, was the messiah, the savior, the Lord.

And everyone who heard it either went “Whoa!” or pondered it in their hearts. But the shepherds did something utterly unexpected. They didn’t stand around gawking, trying to hold on to the magnificence of it all like we probably would have. Instead, they went back up the hill to work. They went back to their vocations. After all, there was a flock to pull together at the end of the night. Those shepherds were still the kind of people your mom and dad never wanted you to be friends with, but they were also changed. They’d seen the angels’ announcement come true. And as they walked, and watched, and worked, all they could say was, “Man, that was freakin’ cool.” They’d returned to the hillside pastures, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, as it had been told them.

During this Advent season, as we wait for Christmas and are steeped in all the work we need to do, we pray that God would come to us unlikely people, too. We pray that we’d also know this baby is for us and for salvation. And that we’d be moved to tell as well. If the shepherds can be witnesses, what’s preventing you? Amen.

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