The Shepherd’s Voice

I grew up on a small farm about 35 miles southwest of Minneapolis, Minnesota. Our farm community was fairly close knit with the center of our community being our local Lutheran church. When I started school the first couple of years were in a local school house where all 8 grades were in one room. About the time I was to start 3rd grade the school boundary lines were redrawn and our family was to go to Bongards, a larger school but about 7 miles from our farm. When I began here, it was only k-8, 4 rooms and about 250 children.

Most of the children going here had been going for some time and they all seemed to know each other. None of the kids went to our local church or were in our 4-H club, or would even go to the same local stores my folks would go to. I felt out of place. I felt like an outsider looking in. I was not comfortable, I was not happy and I was afraid of the big boys who were definitely not very friendly.

Mary and Joseph were outsiders. They were from Nazareth and now they needed to go to Bethlehem to be counted by this new Emperor Augustus. Not only that, when they got there the place was crowded so they had no hotel or Inn to stay in, they had to stay in a barn.

For most of you city folk that may sound like it was pretty bad, but then you’d be an outsider looking at the life on a farm. To a farm boy I could at times get pretty comfortable in our dairy barn, even in winter. I have fond memories of laying in the hay next to a small calf, it was warm, and if I was tired from doing chores I could even fall asleep.

My point is most of us are outsiders looking in at some point or some place in our lives.
Being an outsider can sometimes make us feel like we don’t belong, like we aren’t part of that group or club and click. Sometimes churches can feel that way to visitors.

Notice the shepherds in this story? They were living in the fields with the sheep. They were not part of the mainstream. They were segregated by their occupation. Sometimes we need to live somewhere because of a certain job or occupation we have chosen. Perhaps you experience some of that even in your family.

Well, I wonder how our shepherds in our Gospel narrative felt. An angel of the Lord appeared to them and told them “Do not be afraid.” We accept this story at face value, but if you were to see an angel tonight how would you feel? Then suddenly there were many angels and they were singing, “Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace among those who he favors.”

If we were to look at the wisemen from the east we would see the same thing. They were outsiders, people unfamiliar with the traditions and customs to the people in this region.

Maybe you, coming here tonight feel a little like an outsider. Maybe you’re here with your family and thinking when is this guy going to stop talking so we can go home and open presents or go have some real fun.

Even being a member of this church does not guarantee you feel like an insider. Anyone not fully accepted by another person or group feels like an outsider.

Maybe the reason you may have come tonight is because God may want you to hear some very good news. Christmas is a time of surprises, a time of good news.

When you look at Mary’s situation you will see that God called here out of obscurity to become the mother of Jesus. She was afraid, she was concerned, but the angel Gabriel told her, do not be afraid and that nothing is impossible with God.

That’s good news even to the outsider Mary. Mary chose to embrace God’s call saying, “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior.” Obviously she saw something in this story of Jesus’ birth that lit a spark in her heart. God is good at sparking small flames that eventually burst into firestorms for Christ.

There was a professor who sat at his desk one evening working on the next day’s lectures. His housekeeper had laid that day’s mail and papers at his desk and he began to shuffle through them discarding most to the wastebasket. He then noticed a magazine, which was not even addressed to him but delivered to his office by mistake. It fell open to an article titled “The Needs of the Congo Mission”.

Casually, he began to read when he was suddenly consumed by these words: “The need is great here. We have no one to work the northern province of Gabon in the central Congo. And it is my prayer as I write this article that God will lay His hand on one – one on whom, already, the Master’s eyes have been cast – that he or she shall be called to this place to help us.” The Professor closed the magazine and wrote in his diary: “My search is over.” He gave himself to the Congo.

The rest of the story, as Paul Harvey would say is history. That little article, hidden in a periodical intended for someone else, was placed by accident in Albert Schweitzer’s mailbox. By chance he noticed the title. It leaped out at him. Chance, chance, perhaps, but some people may call this a God thing? A God surprise, an interruption by God in the life of a man who was hungry for change.

Schweitzer an outsider to Africa considered his work as a medical missionary in Africa to be his response to Jesus’ call to become “fishers of men.” God surprised this outsider with an unexpected opportunity.

God’s angel Gabriel surprised Mary an outsider with an unexpected opportunity. By Jewish law Joseph should have quietly divorced Mary, she was a virgin how could she become pregnant. Impossible – but remember with God nothing is impossible.

God surprised the shepherds, outsiders with an unexpected opportunity. After the angels left the shepherds said one to another, “Let us go now to Bethlehem and see this thing that has taken place, which the Lord has made known to us.”

God has surprised all of us, we are all outsiders, unworthy of God’s love or attention. The angel told the shepherds, “To you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord.” The shepherds, outsiders could have said, that’s none of our business, let’s not get involved, let’s just finish our shift and go home, but NO!

Chuck Swindol tells a story about a young fellow, an outsider who intends to rob a McDonalds. He’s got a gun, he’s tough. He comes up to the cashier and says give me all your money. The cashier, afraid, says I can’t open the cash drawer without a food order. So the tough guy says, ok I’ll have some onion rings. The cashier responds well we don’t serve onion rings for breakfast. You can see this outsider, this tough guy walking away mumbling to himself.

I don’t want you to walk away from this service mumbling, talking to your self because you didn’t fully understand how to access the cash, God’s present, God’s surprise for all of us outsiders.

In our case laws don’t determine who is rewarded by God. There was no cost to Mary. The shepherds were really “free rangers,” the angels told them to go see this thing that has taken place. They didn’t need to buy tickets. It was the work they were doing, God chose them.

Our God comes to us, outsiders, as a baby born in a manger. This baby is called Wonderful, Counselor, Almighty God, Prince of Peace.

Mary treasured all these things and pondered them in her heart. (Luke 2:19) Mary wondered what this child would become. The baby Jesus can fill us with wonder on Christmas Eve.

At one of our Advent services I had a good friend of mind come and sing some songs for us. One of them was titled He Didn’t Come to Lie in a Manger. The chorus goes like this:
He didn’t come to lay in a manger
He didn’t come to stay as a child
He came because He loves you and me
He came to be our sacrifice

He came to be our counselor, our personal companion, an intermediary, a connection with the Almighty God, the Prince of Peace.

Personally as an outsider looking in, I like what I see. When Joshua, one of our historical ancestors was confronted by some grumbling people, Joshua reminded Israel at Shechem of God’s covenant with them. Let’s face it, we all grumble, we all complain – he then reminded them that God keeps his promises. God preserves us, God comforts us and then he said to them, “choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served… or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you are living; but as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD.”

Our God of love, our God of forgiveness, our God who has given us this ultimate gift of a baby provides all of us outsiders with grace for the journey. A grace that goes beyond borders, beyond peoples, beyond languages, beyond families, and beyond church members.

This grace is free, even as an outsider looking in God’s grace is available to you and me –

Choose this day whom you shall serve! Amen