Shepherds: Connecting the Human with the Divine

The story around the Nativity of Jesus is both common and other-worldly, brimming with mystery that unites elements that sound, at the same time, familiar and unique.

The narrative includes elements that are extraordinary, signifying that this birth has cosmic consequences, that it is heavenly and bears the mark of God’s design. The signs of God’s activity are everywhere: angels appearing to a virgin . . . a mysterious, “spiritual” conception . . . an angel chorus singing over shepherds and sheep . . . a supernatural star guiding foreign mystics, who notice a new alignment in the celestial realm . . . dreams and visions sent by God and mediated by angels.

The Christmas story is also common and ordinary: a couple is expecting a child . . . a baby is born . . . a small town is bustling with crowds at census time . . . people are going about their normal work as this birth takes place, including sheep-herders who are tending their flocks of sheep in the countryside. This is everyday life.

So the story is a co-mingling of divinity and humanity, an intertwining of the heavenly and the earthly. This is especially true of the encounter of angels and shepherds in the field.

It is no accident that the angels and shepherds show up in the same story, at the same time in the Nativity. We must hold them together . . . our weakness, poverty, lack, and need (shepherds), held together with our goodness, beauty, and sense of being created in God’s image (angels), even “a little higher than the angels,” as the psalmist says.

Joan Chittister (in The Rule of Benedict: Insight for the Ages) says the rabbis teach that we each live out of two pockets. In one pocket there is a message that says, “You are the dust of the earth.” In the other pocket is a message that says, “For you the stars were made.”

To live out of only one pocket or the other is to live out of balance. If we only live out of the “dust” pocket, we are overwhelmed with our humanity, our poverty, our incompleteness, our brokenness. We get stuck in guilt and shame. In the context of the Nativity, I would call this the “shepherd pocket.”

If we only live out of our “stars” pocket, we are easily inflated, self-interested, egocentric, and full of ourselves. In the context of this story, I would call this the “angel pocket.”

Humility is not a shuffling, self-effacing, putting down of self. Humility is actually having an honest assessment of who you are . . . holding both of these pockets in balance . . . seeing both your strengths/gifts/abundance/angel in truth, AND seeing your weakness/shadow/poverty/shepherd in truth. Humility means to hold both simultaneously, without getting lost in either pocket. In that sense, humility is truly the meeting of humanity and divinity within every person.

I’m glad angels are in the story. I’m also glad shepherds are in the story. I need to find both of them within me.


For Reflection:

Spend a few minutes today on Christmas Eve to ponder the utter ordinariness of the Christmas story and its unfathomable mystery. See if you can hold both together, with space within you for both angels and shepherds.

The Third Tuesday of Advent -- December 14, 2010

Matthew 21:28 - 32

“What do you think? There was a man who had two sons. He went to the first and said, ‘Son, go and work today in the vineyard.’

“‘I will not,’ he answered, but later he changed his mind and went.

“Then the father went to the other son and said the same thing. He answered, ‘I will, sir,’ but he did not go.

“Which of the two did what his father wanted?”

“The first,” they answered.

Jesus said to them, “Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God ahead of you. For John came to you to show you the way of righteousness, and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes did. And even after you saw this, you did not repent and believe him."


When Jesus told this story about the two sons, I envision that everyone who heard the words thought someone else was the butt of the short tale. The scribes and Pharisees thought those immoral tax collectors and harlots were the one's who didn't respond to God's invitation.

And likely, the tax gatherers and prostitutes thought those self-righteous scribes and Pharisees were the subject of Jesus' talk.

That's how it goes for most of us. We hear or read the stories, and we think they are about someone else.

How many times, after hearing a sermon that stirred you, have you thought, "I wish _____ could hear this message! They could really use it!" Or you read a paragraph in a book and immediately thought of the person (friend, enemy or spouse) whose life would be straightened out if only they could read what you just read. (Hey, it's Christmas, and a great time to get that very book for them!!! Oops, I'm sorry . . . it's not the time for sarcasm, is it???)

It's our human nature to resist change, all the while noticing ways the people around us should change. Most persons live under the misguided thinking that their own life would be better if the people around them would change. Or they believe life would be grand if their own circumstances were different. We do life very externally that way. Too much of our happiness depends on what the situation around us looks like. We are so concerned with our external circumstances that we give little attention to our internal state.

In truth, Jesus' little parable is about all of us.

It's not an either-or story . . . either you say you're going to the field but you don't go . . . or you say you're not going to work, but you do go.

No, those are the extremes, the edges, but both sons described by Jesus live within each of us. We're not all good or all bad. We're not totally well-intentioned nor totally weak of will. Each of us are some strange and interesting mix of both edges. We are somewhere in between.

There is a part of me that says of both constructive and destructive things, "No, I'm not going to do that." But then I do them.

And there is a part of me that says of healthy and unhealthy things, "I think I'll partake of that," but then I don't.

Within any given decision, choice or life-direction, I can experience the push and pull both to and away from these extremes. They all reside within me. I'm no hero. And I'm no villain. This strange mix of motives and actions and promises lives within me.

And they also live within you.

This is the kind of authenticity we have been reticent to show in our faith communities. We've subtly and not-so-subtly communicated through the centuries that God causes some people to be morally superior by virtue of the words they say or the vows they take. We haven't admitted to the real that lives within us.

I come out of a faith tradition that is big on vows and professions of faith. The words you say and the belief system to which you give your assent are important in that system. But that doesn't mean there is no hatred among those in that camp. There is bigotry, jealousy, self-centeredness . . . you name it, and it's there . . . just as those things are present throughout the human family.

The stance, then, is not to deny they exist within us, but to name what truly lives inside us . . . to name it, and then have the courage to open up our lives for healing. Once we name the tax collector, harlot, scribe and Pharisee within ourselves, we've taken a giant step toward healing. It's a step that begins with honesty.

This seems to be the healing work God wants to do in you and me . . . and among the whole human family. I suspect it's why Jesus came to live among us.