Unimportant people

That night when Jesus was born, there were shepherds in the open country watching their sheep. If they were asleep they must have become fully awake when the darkness of night exploded with light. An angel appeared to them "and the glory of the Lord shone around them" (Luke 2).

Their reaction was natural: fear. They became terribly afraid. The angel reassured them: "Don’t be afraid. I bring you wonderful news." As St. Luke puts it, "glad tidings of great joy for all the people."

What was this great news? Some marvelous event? Did some wealthy merchant die childless and leave all his wealth to the shepherds, so that they were now very rich?

Nothing like that. Only the birth of a baby.

But a very special baby: "This day in the city of David is born to you a Savior who is the Messiah, the Lord."

The shepherds were being invited to go and visit the Child. But how were they to recognize which child it was? By two signs: First, the Infant would be wrapped in swaddling clothes. Second, it would be lying in a manger.

The swaddling clothes meant that this Baby was being treated with special care. Swaddling clothes were not ordinary sheets. They were narrow strips of cloth wrapped around the arms and legs of an infant to keep them straight. It means that the mother had prepared carefully for this Child’s birth. She had made the swaddling clothes in advance and brought them along on the journey to Bethlehem. This Child was a well-loved and well-cared-for infant.

But lying in a manger? The box where hay and oats were put for the animals to eat? What a place for a new-born baby! Why the manger? Luke gives the answer: "Because there was no room for them in the inn."

As St. John’s Gospel says in the Prologue: "The world was made by him but the world knew him not. He came into his own, but his own received him not." (John 1)

But the other mystery is equally puzzling: why the shepherds, why did God choose these poor, ignorant, smelly shepherds to be the first visitors for the Messiah?

There is a phrase commonly used in Tagalog: "walang kwenta yan." A cousin of mine now dead used an expression to indicate that a person had no political influence: "No pinta nada." That applied to these shepherds. They were nobodies. Unimportant. Negligible. In men’s estimation, they did not count.

Jesus had a different evaluation of people. John the Baptist (already in prison) sent his disciples to Jesus to ask him, "Are you the one who is to come? Or look we for another?" (Meaning, Are you the expected Messiah?) Jesus answered, quoting a prophecy by Isaiah: "Go and tell John what you have seen: the lame walk, the deaf hear, the blind see, and the poor have the Gospel preached to them."

In recent years we have heard much about "a preferential option for the poor." It does not mean that we should neglect the rich, much less despise them. It merely means that we should give as much attention to the poor; in fact, more, since they need it more.

In God’s sight, everyone is equal, rich or poor, wise or ignorant, powerful or powerless. No one is unimportant. No one is negligible. Everyone counts. Even the shepherds.

Even you.

Even I.