David Orendorff, Luke 2:8-20

After an elaborate introduction to Jesus’ genealogy, parents, family and church which establish that Jesus has impeccable Jewish credentials and is the messiah, Luke introduces us to those outside the family who get the good news first, the shepherds. The shepherds know of the messiah’s birth before he is circumcised, before he is presented in the temple for his dedication and naming, before Anna or Simeon prophesy his future.

The priority of giving the announcement first to the shepherds is consistent with Luke’s often repeated theme that the good news is first for the poor and the outcast.¹ The shepherds fit both categories.

Farming and sheep ranching were the fundamentals of the Palestinian economy. Most often shepherds were hired hands. The dry and barren nature of the land meant that shepherds were often far from civilization. Rustlers and wild animals made it dangerous work. Shepherds were often of a rough lot.

We have romanticized the image of shepherds watching their flocks by night, but in Jesus’ time shepherds were actually outcasts. Tending the flocks far from settled areas, there was a temptation to steal a few new lambs. Who would know? Shepherds were generally considered to be notorious robbers and cheats. They were lumped in with publicans and tax collectors to be despised.

Shepherds were hence deprived of many of their civil rights. They could not hold a judicial office and were not permitted to be witnesses in court. It was forbidden to buy wool, milk, or a kid from a shepherd on the assumption that it would be stolen property.²)

So strong was this negative caricature of shepherds that first century Rabbinic Judaism was bothered by how often the scriptures refer to God as a shepherd. Some wondered aloud how God could be called “my shepherd” in the 23rd Psalm. It would be like saying, “The Lord is my thief.”

It is to despised outcasts, shepherds in the wilderness, that an angel of the Lord appeared. It is an important part of Luke’s experience and faith that Jesus comes for the prostitute, the insane, the leper, and all the socially and religiously untouchables. Luke’s gospel is framed with the image of outcast being loved in. First it is the shepherds. And then you remember that in Luke’s telling of the crucifixion Jesus is hung between two thieves, one of whom finds forgiveness as he dies.

It is easy to understand why the shepherds were at first afraid at the appearance of God’s messenger. For these ruffians God’s coming can only mean one thing-judgment and doom. The psychology of being an outcast is that your self-image is often framed by those casting you out. Shepherds who saw themselves as thieves, robbers, and unwanted sinners would be very afraid of meeting a righteous God.

Outcasts are still afraid of coming to close to God. Outcasts know they are outcasts. The hard-living people generally think of church as a place of judgment and condemnation. The hard-living and sometimes crude folks believe they are not wanted among we who are respectable. Only half jokingly have I heard that the roof would probably fall in.

Outcasts generally believe that if they come to church we will treat them with polite pity at best and that they will probably get a good dose of judgment, if not from the pulpit, from the eyes and shoulders of all the nice people.

And the outcasts, knowing they are not wanted, watch for the smallest bit of rejection, real or perceived. There are still folks afraid to shake hands with a victim of AIDS or a homosexual. And finding it (for it is there because our sins are always with us) they amplify it into the full message. Only good people go to church and the outcast is not “good people.”

When outcasts believe the press they get, when they believe that, indeed, they don’t belong, then they may act with self-fulfilling prophecy in ways that will cause them to be cast out. And we say, “I told you so.”

But the angel says to the shepherds and to all the misfits, robbers, near-do-wells, stained, sick and needy “Be not afraid; for behold, I bring you good news of a great joy (χαρα - which has the same root as χαρισ - grace) which will come to all the people, for to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.” The shepherds are then told how they can find this baby born to them. And then a whole choir of angels appears, singing, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among all with whom God is pleased!”

For a moment imagine yourself as the outcast. It isn’t that hard. There is in each of us a bit of not belonging, of looking in from the outside. We have a memory of rejection or we live with some rejection now. We have been in the group that didn’t want us. Some of us have lived in poverty and know the feelings of failure, inadequacy, and incompetence that come with that. Some of the women among us have been unwanted in the working world of men. Some of our children, especially around middle school, find it difficult to fit in. Though most of us have been born on the inside and to privilege, still we have known moments of being cast out. Find that place of being rejected in you and be the outcast for this moment and hear this great promise of hope from God: “Be not afraid; for behold, I bring you good news of a great joy…” This is the good news of Jesus’ birth. God is with us when no one else will be. God is for us when the world seems lined against us.

The other side of this imagination is thinking of those who live outcast lives among us-the folks of tent city who face legal battles wherever they go; the folks of color viewed with suspicion; the children who are a little or a lot different; those born into deprivation; the thieves and ruffians; all those who make us nervous.

To them the angel announces, “Be not afraid” and the angelic choir sings to them, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among all with whom God is pleased!” Those who live on the outside are now brought inside by the love of God born in this baby Jesus.

We are made to be angels to each other at Bear Creek. I know we are not perfect. But I also know that with only a little forgiveness we work hard at inviting all those who feel outside to come in. We are doing a better job of welcoming those who have taken the risk of being with us. And with our varieties of small groups, we are making a way for each of us to belong to each other.

And as a congregation we are angels to the world, announcing the end of fear and the beginning of salvation. Here, too, we are not perfect. But we are striving to be the angels of God’s good news with our community program classes that address the real and fundamental needs of our neighbors. Through the Missions Committee and others, we reach the homeless at Tent City 4, street youth at Country Doc, prisoners and their families at Monroe House, the residents of the White Swan reservation and this summer the mountain peoples of Honduras. There is more but you get the idea.

And as individuals we sometimes are given the blessing of being angels by how we volunteer, how we listen, how we comfort, how we hold the one who is feeling alone and outcast close to us.

In this time of discerning our future as Bear Creek, I know the big picture of who we are and are becoming. We are the angels saying, “Be not afraid; for behold, I bring you good news of a great joy which will come to all the people; for to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.” And after we tell how we found this baby savior and how others too might find Jesus, we will sing, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among all with whom God is pleased!”

Shalom and amen.

1. See Mary’s Song of Praise - Luke 1:46-55 [↩]
2. Joachim Jeremias has an extensive and excellent article in The Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, VI, p. 485-502, (Eerdmans, Grand Rapids, 1975 [↩]