Day Eighteen: The Shepherds

  

This little group of men with their dogs, sticks and even a set of bagpipes are almost certainly the shepherds, whom Luke’s account of the nativity say were the first visitors after the birth of Christ. Matthew says nothing of the shepherds, and Luke says nothing of the Magi, but Brueghel, like every nativity play ever, has included both groups in his “mash-up” version of Jesus’ birth. They are almost hiding around the corner of the stable, as if they feel it’s not their place to be hob-nobbing with such grand figures as the Magi. One of the dogs is cowering among their legs, too, as if overawed by the occasion, though the other looks towards the child, with the kind of devotion and focus only a dog can muster.

They strike me as men who have spent their lives internalising the message that they had better keep their distance, that they don’t belong in company like this. But we know that they were first at the manger, the first to be told that the Messiah has arrived, and they will carry that knowledge, and that honour, with them all their lives. Social class still has the power to divide us from one another, but the message of the Gospels is that class, like gender, is irrelevant to God, who, in Jesus, has “put down the mighty from their thrones and exalted the humble and meek” (Luke 1.52)

For Reflection

The shepherds returned [to their flocks] glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, as it had been told them.   Luke 2.20

What class do you feel you are? What are the markers of class for you – what tells you where you ‘belong’ in society? Has that changed for you over your life? Where do you feel at ease, or not?

What effect does class have on the way we meet and worship together in church?

The whole picture:

https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/jan-brueghel-the-elder-the-adoration-of-the-kings