"The Gift of Love"
Luke 2:1-20
One morning, when I was staying at my sister's house near Cincinnati, Ohio I heard strange noises outside.
So, I opened up the door and looked out.
It was garbage day, and overflowing trash cans and recycle bins were lined up and down the street in front of opulent, multi-million dollar mansions.
The noises were coming from several men who appeared to be homeless.
They were searching through the garbage cans of the rich, pulling out bottles and cans that they could take and get a few cents for.
As I watched this sight, I wondered to myself: "How do these men feel about themselves, having to dig through other people's garbage?
Do they feel as though they are less than human?
Do they feel invisible?
Do they feel kind of like garbage themselves?
What happened to them along the way to bring them to this point?"
They were clearly Americans.
They were born in the land of plenty; the place where, as most of us are told when we are children: "You can be anything you want to be when you grow up."
How did it come to be that they would be digging through the garbage cans of the filthy rich on a bright Friday morning in October?
And what kind of self-esteem do they have?
How do they feel about themselves?
And who made them feel this way?
Have you ever sat at a table or in a meeting and felt as if every idea or bit of input you have is just brushed away or ignored?
Or perhaps, every time you start to "tell your story" you are interrupted.
No one is listening.
It can make you feel small.
Have you ever seen people roll their eyes when you talk or nudge the person sitting next to them and make some snide remark?
How does that feel?
Have you ever felt as if people don't take you seriously?
Have you ever felt like the outsider, the rejected, the one who doesn't quite measure up to those who seem to have made it into "the in crowd"?
If so, you are not alone.
On the night that God came into the world in human form, there was no room for Him nor His parents in the opulent homes of the rich.
Mary and Joseph traveled from Nazareth to Bethlehem, and while they were there "the time came for Mary to have her baby."
There was no place for them, so they stayed in the animal stalls that night.
And when Jesus was born, Mary "wrapped him snugly, and laid him in a manger" which is a feeding trough for animals.
So, God came into this world as an "outsider;" a homeless child.
He had no power, no prestige.
In Philippians Chapter 2 we are told that Jesus Christ, "Though he was in the form of God, he did not consider being equal with God something to exploit.
But he emptied himself...
...he humbled himself..."
Why do you suppose that is?
Do you suppose God did this in order to let us know that when we feel less than human, when we find ourselves eating the leftovers from a rich person's table or garbage can, when we are cut-off or unheard during a conversation, when we are "left out"--we are not alone?
Is that love or what?
In our Gospel lesson we are told that when Jesus was born, "Nearby shepherds were living in the fields..."
One thing to remember about these shepherds is that they didn't own the sheep.
They were the hired hands.
The owners of the sheep were in their homes, asleep, along with their wives and children.
The shepherds lived in the fields.
In other words, the shepherds were homeless.
In Jesus' day, they were the poorest of the poor.
They owned nothing.
They couldn't get a decent paying daytime job, and most often, they had no family.
And why was that?
Well, think about it.
One of these shepherds might have had a limp in his left leg and no left arm.
Another of these shepherds might have been an old man, nearly blind, who had been around sheep all his life.
Another of these shepherds may have been a 16-year-old boy who was physically or mentally challenged, but was able to put a stick on the fire or hum a song between 2 and 3 in the morning.
These nighttime hired hands, minimum-salary shepherds, were considered, in that day and time, to be at the bottom of the social ladder.
No one would have taken them seriously.
If they had showed up at a synagogue-- the modern equivalent of a church in those days--in a wealthy or middle class part of town, they may have been shoo-d away or given a piece of bread and told to "hit the road."
How do you think they felt about themselves?
Do you think they sometimes felt unimportant, less than human?
What would their self-esteem have been like?
Would they have looked a "fine and respectable person" in the eyes if they had passed on the street?
Would people have moved to the other side of the road when they saw them coming?
Shepherds were so low on the totem pole of society that they were not allowed to give testimony in the courts of law because they were considered unreliable.
But, when the heavens opened up and a great assembly of the heavenly forces praised God saying, "Glory to God in heaven"...
...when God was announcing to the universe that the Savior of the world lay in a feeding trough in Bethlehem:
King Herod was asleep in his expensive bed.
The Roman generals were safe and warm in their homes.
The rich merchants, the lawyers, the scribes and the religious leaders were all snuggled in their beds...
...the shepherds were out in the fields...
And God chose to have the angels sing to these humble folk--these shepherds--the weakest of the weak, the loneliest of the lonely, the poorest of the poor, the people whom no one else would have anything to do with!!!
And as the "Lord's angel stood before them, the Lord's glory shone around them," and the shepherds were "terrified."
And who could blame them?
But the first word out of the angel's mouth was "Don't be afraid!"
How many times, throughout the Gospels, do we read about Jesus saying these very same words to His disciples?
"Don't be afraid."
"Don't be afraid."
"It is I, don't be afraid."
As Mary read earlier from 1 John Chapter 4: "God is love...There is no fear in love, but perfect love drives out fear..."
It that good news or what?
And so, "When the angels returned to heaven, the shepherds said to each other, 'Let's go right now to Bethlehem and see what's happened.
Let's confirm what the Lord has revealed to us.'
They went quickly and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby lying in the manger."
Some people would have laughed at the idea of the "Savior; Christ the Lord" being born in an animal stall.
But the shepherds hurried to the feeding trough.
Some folks avoid barns.
They don't like the hay and the dirt.
They don't want to smell cow dung and the other things that go along with that.
But the shepherds knew animal shelters.
They would have felt more at home with the smells of animals and dirt floors than they would have in fancy homes.
They weren't put off by the words that they would find the Savior of the World "wrapped snugly and lying in a manger."
What if we were told that we would find the Savior of the world "wrapped snuggly and lying in the dresser drawer of a crack house"?
Or how about "wrapped snuggly in a dirty sleeping bag in a tent behind the flea market"?
Or, "wrapped snuggly in grocery bags under a bridge"?
Would we believe it?
Would we run wildly with excitement toward that stinky place to see it for ourselves?
The shepherds were being invited into the presence of God, and they went eagerly.
Later, we are told that "The shepherds returned home, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen."
And isn't that what happens to all of us when we open our heart to Jesus?
There is something about humility and an experience with God that go hand in hand.
Those who are poor and feel lowly aren't as blocked by ego, prestige, wealth or any other devilish thing.
Stripped of everything earthly, they may be more open to the heavenly.
In Matthew Chapter 21 Jesus looked at the wealthy, the leaders, the self-righteous and said, "I assure you that tax collectors and prostitutes are entering God's kingdom ahead of you."
When you think about it, historically great Christian revival movements have started among the poor.
Saint Francis went to the poor in Italy.
And John Wesley went to the peasants and prisoners in England.
This sparked the Great Awakening, the Methodist Movement of which you and I are a part.
William Booth offered Christ to the down and out of London and started the Salvation Army.
And as one person writes, "the Christmas angels sang not to jeweled women in box seats, but to hired-hand shepherds who were so poor that they often had a bad reputation."
How does that make you feel?
Once when Jesus was eating with the religious leaders, the Hebrew lawyers, and the Pharisees He was noticing how they gave the most prestigious places of honor to the rich and beautiful.
Then he taught, "When you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind.
And you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you, for you will be repaid at the Resurrection of the righteous."
How much different would the world be if people knew that they were loved, unconditionally?
How much different would it be if we didn't roll our eyes when someone says something we think is stupid or annoying?
What if we listened to others as they spoke rather than cutting them off because someone "more important" or "more interesting" was at the table?
How much different would the world be if, instead of shoveling through the garbage cans of the rich, those persons out on the street had been invited into the homes of the rich in order to enjoy the party, the meal, just like all the other guests?
With healing hands, Jesus embraced people rejected or forgotten by society.
Jesus touched those who were shunned because of infectious diseases and put His hands on the eyes of the blind and on the ears of the deaf to heal them.
He welcomed and held little children in His arms, even while His disciples looked on disapprovingly.
He also made Himself vulnerable to people in the streets, allowing them to touch Him.
He invited the poor and oppressed into the community of hope and love.
Through the example of His life, Jesus invites us to follow His path of Love.
How can we love a God we cannot see?
By loving people we can see.
We follow Jesus by entering the struggle of those who are hungry, thirsty, lonely, naked, or in prison.
And in doing so, we are ultimately healed ourselves, as we step further into the power of the Kingdom of Love.
This Christmas season, let's remember that the angels sang first to the poorest of the poor.
The birth of Jesus ushers in a new world order.
It's a world not under the spell of Caesar, but under the direction of the God of Love.
And in God's world there is a place of importance for everyone--even shepherds.
There is a place even for me.
There is a place even for you.
