My favorite part of the Christmas story is the angels hanging out with the shepherds.
It doesn’t make much sense that they would, other than it gave the Father joy. He wanted the dirty, poor, simple shepherds to know about the big happenings in town, and to participate in the celebration of Christ’s birth.
Luke’s gospel is the only one to include the shepherds in the fields by night. He also spends a lot of time focusing on Jesus’ interactions with the wrong people. Jesus found joy walking around and sitting at tables and eating with tax collectors, sinners, prostitutes and other “impure,” marginalized folks. You know the kind: the panhandler at the Southern Boulevard exit off Interstate 95, the Latino immigrants waiting for work at the gas station, the convict recently out on parole, the refugees whose clothes mark them as not from around here.
Jesus revealed His coming kingdom by hanging out with those people, the outsiders and the others. He redefined the membership rules. He berated the Pharisees for their failure to understand what He and His kingdom are all about. Beginning at His birth, and continuing throughout His ministry, Jesus displayed what true joy and service looks like. It’s not meant just for the ones who are similar enough to us that we feel comfortable, and it’s not meant to be done with an attitude of grudging obligation. Jesus served with joy.
Would our service be joyful if it looked more like the actions of the Father and His Son? What if serving this season meant we hung out with some not so clean people, and walked somewhere we don’t typically walk and experienced discomfort for the sake of seating the outsider at the most honored place at the dinner table? Would we end the season filled with joy, rather than drained of it?
When I give grudgingly, offering my second best because I feel like I have to do something, thinking, “it is the season of serving,” Jesus calls that missing the mark. It’s nice; but it’s not Jesus’ serving. His kind of serving is not just about great sacrifices and radical display — it’s about the joy.
– Katie Gentry
PBA Class of 2016 and current M.Div./MBA Student