Honor the Overlooked
Luke 2:8-20
This morning I want to consider the Shepherds that first heard of the birth of Jesus. I want us to give honor to those who are often overlooked.
Abraham Lincoln once said, "Die when I may, I want it said of me by those who know me best that I have always plucked a thistle and planted a rose when I thought a rose would grow." He said that after a brief visit from Laura Sue Jones on Christmas Day, 1864. Miss Jones was a 23-year-old young woman from the South trapped in Washington since the beginning of the war. She desired a pass to cross Union lines and travel to Richmond, where she planned to marry a Confederate soldier.
Moved by the emotional plea of this overlooked girl, President Lincoln nodded his head, picked up a pen, and wrote a special travel pass. Miss Jones was speechless. Falling on her knees before Lincoln, she grasped his hand in gratitude. He insisted she get up and thank God, not him. Rising, Miss Jones replied, "Good-bye, Mr. President, and may God bless you. I shall probably never again see you until we one day meet in heaven." Lincoln answered, "That you wish me to get there is, I believe, the best wish you could possibly make for me. Good-bye, Miss Jones." Mr. Lincoln honored this outcast thistle by re-planting her where she could bloom as a rose.
Serving as pastor often includes dealing with those who feel overlooked, outcast, and unappreciated. These may be people such as the elderly, homeless, or challenged in some way. God chose to honor some of low estate one night by sending to shepherds the first birth announcement of his Son. When a baby is born, the first to be called are usually the immediate family and closest friends--not strangers. Truly, the shepherds felt honored and surely asked, "Why us? Who are we? Shouldn’t the religious leaders know first?" Unlike the shepherds, most of the religious leaders were not of the right spiritual mind-set to receive such wonderful news.
Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians 12:23 urge us to especially honor the less honorable.
“The parts we think are less honorable we treat with special honor.”--1 Corinthians 12:23
Is there an overlooked person you could honor in some way this Christmas? You may be thinking: "I can’t add another thing to my schedule, I’m neglecting my family as it is." You might invite a recent widower to join you for dinner at a restaurant after the Christmas Eve service. The person will thank you for thinking of him during the holidays. You might take fresh baked bread or cookies and delivered them to shut-ins.
As we honor the overlooked this Sunday we want to look for ways to connect with the disadvantaged. Ask the Lord to show you in what way you can pluck a thistle and plant a rose.
God chose lowly Shepherds first to hear the good news of the birth of Jesus.
Being a shepherd is a hard job. During Bible times, shepherds had to watch carefully over their sheep to protect them from robbers and wild animals. They also had to search for good pasture with green grass and fresh water. Often they stayed out all night in the fields with the sheep to make sure that they were safe. But although they were hardworking, many thought their job was lowly and not very important. They might have been overlooked and forgotten by most people because they were always out in the fields.
On the night that Jesus was born, God himself honored the shepherds and showed the world how important they were to him.
Can you imagine that God would choose the shepherds and not the priests at the temple, or the rulers in the King’s court, or the rich leaders in the city to be the first ones to hear about Jesus?
Angels appeared to the shepherds to tell them the good news of the birth of Jesus, the Christ and Messiah.
Luke 2:8 “In the same country,” high pastureland near Bethlehem. The same pastures David watched his father’s sheep. Shepherds were living in the fields watching their sheep. Among the Jews Shepherds was one of the lowest occupations.
#I never watched sheep at night like a shepherd but for three summers I did sleep out under the stars. For three summers I worked on a harvesting crew driving a combine cutting wheat. We traveled from Texas, to Oklahoma, Kansas, Wyoming and Montana—June through August. Every night we put up our army cot and slept under the stars. When it rained we put up a tarp in the back of the truck and slept under the tarp.
During my second summer out God began to speak to me about becoming a full-time Christian Worker. God spoke to me through a chorus that kept running through me mind: “Rescue the perishing and care for the dying.” A scripture verse was also on my mind: Jesus said, “Say not there are four months and then the harvest, look on the fields they are already ripe unto harvest.” (John 4:35) I kept sensing God saying, “Ray the harvest is great won’t you help me in the harvest of helping people by being a Minister of the Gospel.
God often chooses to do his greatest work through people or things we normally think of as weak or unimportant.
The angels choose the shepherds to announce the good news. Shepherds were the lowest of the low. Shepherds were dirty, smelly, nomads, living in tents with no shower or bathrooms. The youngest boy in the family was chosen to watch sheep. When the youngest got older he would go to a higher level of responsibility. He would help his father with sowing, plowing, and harvesting crops.
David was the youngest of eight sons. He was responsible to care for and watch the sheep. Many of the Psalms he wrote illustrate a shepherd’s life. Psalm 23: “The Lord is my Shepherd I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside still waters…
God showed the world that the news of Jesus’ birth was for all people, even those who might be overlooked or forgotten. The shepherds also remind us of an important picture of Jesus. The Bible tells us that Jesus said he came to be our Good Shepherd--to love, care for, and protect us who are his sheep.
What a surprise to the shepherds when the angels announced that they were to go to Bethlehem and see the Christ child. They would find the baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger. The great company of angels sang out, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men on whom God’s favor rests.”
The shepherds made a spontaneous decision to leave their flocks and traveled to the stable and found Mary, Joseph, and the baby lying in a manger. The shepherds spread the news of the birth of Jesus. They went back to their fields praising God, back to the routine Job of watching sheep, but forever changed.
The headlines in newspapers last year seemed strangely ironic. “Bethlehem Cancels Christmas Celebration!” The story went on to describe the devastating impact the bloodshed between Israelis and Palestinians had on the most famous of West Bank communities. After years of planning and untold dollars invested, major celebrations planned for the first Christmas of the new millennium were scrapped. The risk for tourists and Christian pilgrims wanting to make their way to the city of David was too high. Streets were deserted. Shops closed. Unlike the first Christmas, the inns and hotels remained empty. Hopes for a peaceful settlement of centuries-long prejudice posed little if any promise. In the weeks leading up to this peace-less birthday of the Prince of Peace, 200 Palestinians were killed (seven from Bethlehem). Not only was it not safe, there was anything but a spirit of celebration in the air. This year the same thing may happen unless drastic changes take place soon.
What the newspaper account didn’t describe was the plight of the Palestinian Christians in Bethlehem. Dependent on tourism to market their olive wood figurines and other souvenirs, those believers struggling to eke out a living in the birthplace of their Savior had no recourse but to seek God’s help. For years, they had lived with the uncertainty of political unrest and the resulting instability of the economy. But Christmas 2000 was worse than any time in recent memory. Their plight was strangely similar to the words of that haunting carol we sometimes sing this time of year. “In the bleak midwinter, frosty wind made moan. Earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone. Snow had fallen, snow on snow, snow on snow. In the bleak midwinter, long ago.” Though not so very long ago for these Christian merchants in Bethlehem, the first Christmas of the new millennium was a bleak midwinter to be sure.
Tragically, these Palestinian Christians were forced to sell furniture and family heirlooms in order to buy food to feed their children. Not exactly the sentimental scene pictured on greeting cards. Consistent with the more familiar Christmas carol, the little town of Bethlehem lay still. No tourists. No business. No celebrations. But the silent stars moved across the black middle eastern sky to the occasional yet disruptive sounds of mortars and bomb blasts heard throughout the Promised Land.
American politicians typically campaign firmly standing on a platform that promises support to Israel (and by that they mostly mean the Jews). American Christians quote chapter and verse in an attempt to theologically explain why God wants the Israelis to have the Land of the Bible. But, what about the Palestinians who are followers of the baby born in Bethlehem? They are about as marginalized as the first century shepherds who tended sheep on the hills surrounding that same little town two millennia ago.
That’s right. In their day the shepherds were a fellowship of forgettable (if not forgotten) class of people. Maybe you thought of them as blue collared yet respected laborers. Think again. No blue collars or white collars. These harvesters of would-be wool wore no collars. They had no status. It’s possible they had Rambo-like tendencies as they tended their flocks by night. But by day they sheepishly made their way toward town. They were the overlooked of their society.
In the culture into which Jesus was born, shepherds had very little chance of ever doing anything different the rest of their life. Unlike David, (who also was born in Bethlehem) their chances of tending their father’s sheep and then growing up to become king were as remote as catching Chinook salmon in the Dead Sea. Times had changed in a thousand years. Shepherds were anything but waiting in the wings for a royal robe.
In Michael and Stormy Omartian’s Christmas musical “Child of the Promise” they’ve written a song that shatters our starry-eyed view of shepherdom. These shepherds were not George Clooney look-a-likes dressed in terrycloth bathrobes smelling Downy fresh. Listen to the realism in the Omartian’s song “Nothing Ever Happens to a Shepherd.” Men in the choir sang this morning:
“It’s cold outside in this God-forsaken place and we’re stuck here with a thousand sheep. While life is exciting everywhere else, the highlight of our day is sleep. Shepherds are notorious for making little profit we garner just enough for room and board. While everyone else wallows in their wealth we’re financially ignored. Cause nothing ever happens to a shepherd. Life is boring as can be. While exciting things occur all over the world, nothing ever happens to me. It’s lonely out here in this isolated job. Our position is without esteem. We’re socially challenged. We’re society’s scourged. We’re not exactly every woman’s dream. Shepherds have a humble purpose. Of our fate few people care. Sometimes I wonder if God knows we exist. If he does he’s forgotten where. Cause, nothing ever happens to a shepherd I’m common as common can be. While exciting things occur all over the world, nothing ever happens to me.” Shepherds are the lowest of the low. Our lives are void of mystery except for David killing Goliath no shepherd will go down in history.
What a poignant description of what it was like to be an overlooked member of first century Jewish society. No wonder it was unthinkable that God would choose a group of sheep herders to receive the first birth announcement pertaining to his Son’s arrival. By instructing the angels to “go tell it on the mountain” the Creator wasn’t just randomly selecting those who would be the first to hear. He knew what he was doing. He was making a statement. Nobodys are somebodys to God. Those who spend their nights and days caring for sheep with matted wool matter to him.
Let me read these familiar words from the second chapter of Luke’s gospel. “And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby keeping watch over their flocks by night. An angel of the Lord appeared to them and the glory of the Lord shone around them and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, Do not be afraid. I bring good news of a great joy that will be for all the people. Today in the town of David, a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord. This is a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger. Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel praising God and saying, Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace to men on whom his favor rests. When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, Let’s go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened which the Lord has told us about. So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph and the baby, who was lying in the manger. When they had seen him they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them.”
You’d better believe they were amazed. It wasn’t what the shepherds had to say that left the crowds amazed, it was the fact that the shepherds were the ones who were broadcasting such network-worthy news. Of all people who would be privy to this kind of late breaking developments, you’d expect a Dan Rather or Tom Brokaw or Peter Jennings. Anybody but unshaven, uneducated shepherds.
God intentionally chose the shepherds as those who would initially be entrusted with the message of Jesus’ birth. It wasn’t a random choice. By having the angels tell them, He was honoring their worth. And we have been called to do the same thing. When we share the good news of why Jesus Christ was born with those who are held hostage by prejudice, economic injustice or the consequences of bad choices in their past, we validate their worth in God’s sight. Paying attention to the overlooked and undervalued of our society is a debt we owe that is long overdue.
But let me take this a step further. When we honor the “shepherds” in our culture by sharing secrets about God’s love, we honor God by following his lead. That’s what Jesus did. When the Christ child grew up and began his itinerant ministry as an adult, he followed the model his Father had set in motion. He hung out with the outcasts. He touched the lepers. He elevated the status of sinners and women and children.
Jesus was born of a humble family. His parents were not wealthy. He was born in a stable in Bethlehem, not in an honorable home in Jerusalem. Jesus was the son of a carpenter and became a carpenter by trade.
Jesus understood the challenge of being poor. He had a special compassion for needy people. He said that he came to preach the gospel to the poor. Why the poor? Because, wealthy people often feel self-sufficient and create their own gods.
When Jesus attempted to draw a picture of his purpose in coming to earth, what did he sketch? An unmistakable image. He called himself a shepherd. “I am the good shepherd,” he said. “The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.” Jesus probably knew more than a few sheep herders by their first name. No matter their occupation, whoever was lonely out here in this isolated job whose position was without esteem, whoever was socially challenged or society’s scourge, those were the ones Jesus reached out to.
Touching the world with the love of God, Jesus identified with those who had little or no identity. He still does. In Matthew 25 Jesus tells the parable of the sheep and the goats. Jesus fast-forwards the tape to the end of time when he will return to earth, accompanied by his angels. The upshot of the story is this. Like it or not, we will be held accountable for the way we responded to the overlooked of society. What is even more remarkable is what Jesus implies. He suggests that he is so identified with these marginalized people that when we reach out to them (or resist them), we reach out (or resist) him.
This Advent Season think of ways you can give honor to those overlooked in our society.
1. Consider helping every person asking for help by giving them some help.
2. Take food or gifts to those who are struggling financially.
3. Think of people, like shepherds, those who are forgotten or overlooked that need to heard the good news of great joy that Jesus has been born – people in nursing homes, sick people in the hospital, homeless, those needing a helping hand. Do all you can to make sure Christmas is not cancelled in the hearts of those who are often overlooked.
