Words of encouragement and support for those ministering "in the fields."

When Jesus was born all heaven broke loose.

You remember. The skies exploded with messengers who filled the night with songs that arced from the distant past into an incandescent future, “Glory to God in the highest heaven and on earth peace among those whom God favors.”

Just who are these folk whom God favors? In Luke’s Gospel it’s Shepherds. These aren’t a bunch of cute kids in bathrobes. They aren’t the romantic figures of 17th Century European art. These are 1st Century shepherds in Palestine. Nobody respects them. They graze the animals over other people’s land. They don’t wash. They don’t read. They smell bad. Because they don’t and can’t read, they aren’t able to observe religious practices—as the Pharisees do in such a spectacular way. And most everybody else thinks of them as stupid and lazy and shiftless. [uh huh] So here they are, on the edge of town, trying to keep warm and take care of their sheep, and there comes an angel. Next thing they know, a riot of angels fills the night skies. Peace to you whom God favors with this gift. You who are outcasts, not favorites. You who don’t dress right and don’t impress anyone. You who are nerdy or weak or ill-at-ease in the universe. You who don’t or won’t or can’t say or do what others expect of you. Don’t be afraid. Peace is here for you. Grace. Favor.

This is unsettling news for Caesar Augustus and for King Herod and for Simon the Pharisee and for some 21st Century television network executives but there it is in the Gospel. You are the ones whom God favors, to whom the heart of the universe opens with warmth and light and congenial companionship in the dark and cold of winter, of loneliness, of grief, of poverty, of oppression.

OK, but what about those of us who already are favored and blessed, who sometimes succeed and achieve and give honor to the Creator, inflict some justice upon the world’s granite heart, treat others with tenderness and compassion?

The great thing about that word “favor” is the disarming inversion of meaning it takes on when you imagine the shepherds kinda hulking around the manger, looking at the baby and at Joseph and at Mary, then back to Joseph again and finally one of them asks “Well, who do ya think the little guy favors?” meaning, whom does he resemble? And you recognize in a flash of light and a blanket of warmth that maybe what the angels have been racing around and shouting about is that there is peace on earth for those God favors……for those God looks like, ….for those who “take after” the all-embracing, reconciling, compassionate Love we know as God With Us. Whether scorned or honored, lost or leader, needy or nurtured, at odds or reconciled, all can rejoice in God’s favor.

                                                                                                          ~ Mary Susan

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