This morning pastor Joe preached on the nativity story from Luke's gospel, focusing on the shepherds as the first recipients of the Good News that Christ was born. He reminded us that the shepherds were a rough and tumble bunch who if they walked in the door of the church would probably be preceded by an olfactory wave warning you of their arrival. He talked about what it meant to be chosen, and as he talked, my mind began to churn.
Every so often on social media someone will post a series of photographs entitled something like, "At Your Local Walmart." These are inevitably pictures of people in all sorts of weird clothing, people dressed in ways that had I tried it, my mother would never have allowed me to leave the house. Every imaginable state of dress or undress is represented in an internet-sponsored voyeuristic freak show. The way the photos are captioned, you know the purpose is to leave the not-so-subtle message that the people who frequent Walmart are somehow lesser than the rest of us, laughable caricatures of humanity that leave us like the pharisee looking down his nose at the publican, praying to himself, "I thank Thee that I am not as other men, particularly this (snort) publican."
I've looked at those posts, and have shook my head at the way people will appear in public, but today I saw things in a different light. Linda and I live in a small village that sports what amounts to a modern day General Store (gas pumps and diner included), a fire station, funeral home, lawyer's office, two churches, a second-hand clothing store, school, post office, library, and senior citizens' apartments. That's it! If you go into the store, you don't first encounter the produce section as in most groceries. You walk right into the hunting supplies; ammunition, gloves, boots, deer scent, bows and arrows, etc. If you walk past the deli to the far end of the store, you'll see a few tables and booths under the deer mounts hanging on the walls, where the locals gather for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, pour each other's coffee, and kibitz. You'll not find a single suit coat and tie, no fashionable skirts and heels. This is pure redneck country, modern day shepherds with whom Jesus would feel right at home.
We've sanitized the Gospel, made it Middle Class and respectable, and in the process have excluded the very people to whom the Message first came. The shepherds were those scratching out a living, just getting by, doing the best they could, but never breaking through to the "good life." Were they around today, they'd be listening to Hank Williams Jr or Beyonce on the radio, perhaps getting into an occasional fight, worrying about their teenager who might be getting high, and definitely wants to drop out of school, wondering if their marriage will survive this latest crisis.
And me? I must confess that sometimes I've been more like that Pharisee than I'd like to admit, looking at those Walmart pictures with not just a little condescension. I'm not comfortable around the high and mighty, but am not sure how well I fit into the "friends in low places" crowd. Someone who plays Baroque music on a bassoon isn't exactly invisible in such a gathering. And yet...it is to these very people that Jesus comes and says, "I choose you." As St. Paul said, "God chose what is low and despised in the world, what is regarded as nothing, to set aside what is regarded as something so that no once can boast in his presence." (1 Cor. 1:28-29). Today God showed me a part of myself that isn't very flattering. I'm grateful for the illumination, as ugly as it may be, and am even more grateful for the people he has placed all around me, ordinary folks who without even knowing it, for the past thirty four years have been my teachers in Christ. They are gold and diamonds, and I am a richer, and hopefully a better man for knowing them.
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