Undoing Christmas-Unreachable!
Luke 2:8-20
December 11, 2016
3rd Sunday of Advent
I have a homeless friend who I had not seen for close to a month. It was not like him to not show up on Sunday mornings for coffee and a pastry. After the recent passing of our homeless friend Ron I wanted to go and see if my friend was okay, to be honest to make sure he was alive.
I drove to the park where he hangs out. I walked up to the picnic shelter overlooking the river and saw a group of a half a dozen people. From a distance I recognized the silhouette of my friend.
As I walked closer others looked at me with faces of concern and doubt. They wondered who this person was coming to invade their space. I noticed a few sleeping on the concrete benches. One was reading a book and others were listening to a radio and eating some day old donated food from 7-11.
I called out my friend's name and he turned around with a shock of surprise on his face. "Pastor Ken?!? What a surprise to see you here. Why are you here?" I told my friend I was concerned about him. I had not seen him for a few weeks and wanted to reach out to him to make sure he was good.
He smiled and thanked me and then, as a fellow Gators fan, he started rambling his frustrations. I didn't want to go there but I did. Others entered the conversation about upcoming bowl predictions. Not all the verbage expressed can I repeat...just suffice it to say they were not all happy with the projections.
I told my friend it was good to see him and hope to see him around the church soon.
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As I walked away I heard my friend say to his buddies, "What a surprise!"
As I walked away I sensed God saying to me in my spirit, "Ken, your friend and his buddies would be the ones I would choose to let the community know that my son Jesus has come!"
Then I realized that nothing has changed!
God went to some shepherds and told them that He cared about them and the world so much He was going to send His Son to earth. In fact, he was already here in a barn in a manger...a feed trough filled with hay. Then God told them to be the ones to share the Good News with their community.
Shepherds were not exactly the prominent leaders of their community. They were hardly ever around. They stayed out in the fields with the sheep. They were smelly and dirty because they hung out with smelly and dirty sheep.
God chose them to reach out to a hurting world with the amazing news of Jesus the messiah being among them.
God reached out to the most unlikely. They were reachable. They listened and then acted on what they heard from the angels. They overcame the initial shock and fear in their spirits and went to see the messiah. They experienced Jesus. They went and told everyone in the town what they had heard, seen and experienced.
Can you imagine the reaction of the people? They were amazed! I would imagine that the religious leaders and priests were not so convinced or thrilled. I would imagine they would have piously explained that God would have certainly reached out to them to proclaim the news of the Messiah...and not some group of outcasts.
God chose the shepherds because they were reachable. Jesus would later in his life risk defilement in the eyes of the religious leaders by reaching out to the "unreachable/untouchable."
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Jesus reached out to the lepers and the neglected by society.
Jesus completely disregarded the social sanctions or standards of who was reachable and who was unreachable. Jesus came to offer salvation to those who were willing to be reached by His love. Jesus continued to go to and be with those who needed him; regardless of the effect his association with the "unreachable" would have on his reputation.
This desire of Jesus to reach the "unreachable" was not only seen in the shepherds but in the ones Jesus called to be a part of his inner circle of disciples.
Whenever there is a change in Presidents there is that period from the day after the election to the inauguration in which the President-elect begins selecting his team of leaders. We are witnessing this presidential transition. Names and faces are being chosen to head up various departments and agencies. Of course there is not a unanimous agreement by all of those selected. It is interesting to hear some of the critics voice concern that some chosen have no experience in government. They have no idea how to run a big government agency. Simply stated they are not who they would have picked for that particular office or position.
The same was said about Jesus. He came to set up his kingdom. He chose his inner circle of leaders. None of them had experience in religious leadership. He chose some fishermen. One of them who needed anger management at times.
There was one choice made that really rattled the thoughts of the religious. This choice was probably the closest to having any religious experience.
His name was Levi...not the original founder of the blue jeans.
He was called Levi most likely because he was from a long lineage of Levitical priests. Most likely his father and grandfather were priests. It was a family lineage that was passed on to the next generation.
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However, when Jesus reached out to Levi to become one of his disciples, he was not in a temple as a priest. He was in a tax collection office and the name plate on his desk read "Matthew."
Most likely, Levi didn't measure up to be a priest. He flunked out. What an embarrassment he must have been to his family. He was most likely banished and so he took up the job as a tax-collector. Whatever happened we know that something bad happened to where Matthew turned his back on his own family and people and went to work for the oppressive Roman government.
A tax collector was seen as a religious and a social outcast. He was ceremonially unclean in the rituals of the religious. He was considered "unreachable." He wasn't even allowed to enter the outer courts of the temple. His name had been removed from the membership role. Matthew was unreachable.
And yet, Jesus goes to Matthew and calls him to follow him.
The crazy thing is that Matthew does. He gives up a lucrative career to follow this rabbi called Jesus. Before he leaves his nice home and town he has one last dinner party with his friends. He even invited Jesus to the dinner. (Mark 2:13-17)
The religious people had a fit. They questioned why Jesus would reach out to such "riff-raff" as Matthew and his cronies. Why in the world would Jesus reach out to such a group of disreputable people?
Then there is an interesting reaction that happened. After hanging out with Jesus over dinner Mark's gospel makes this observation:
"Unlikely as it seems, more than a few of them had become followers!" (Mark 2:15 msg)
Unlikely as it seems the unreachables were reached and followed Jesus. Matthew and his unreachable friends did not only experience a changed life...they experienced a new life!
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Now before we start down that road of "that's then but not now" let me ask the question that Isaiah, the O.T. prophet, sarcastically asked,
"Surely the arm of the Lord is not too short to save, nor his ear to dull to hear?" (Isaiah 59:1)
Did God decide one day to no longer reach out to people?
Are we no longer reachable?
Of course not!
Jesus referred to himself as the "Good Shepherd." (John 10:11)
He told the parable or story of a shepherd with a flock of 100. One escapes the flock. The good shepherd will go in search of the lost sheep. He knows the value and importance of even one. (Luke 15:1-7) Jesus still reaches out to the "lost sheep"...the unreachable, because he knows the value of the search.
One of those lost sheep, the Apostle Paul, would remind the Corinthians that they were not qualified or had any experience when Jesus called them to follow him.
"Take a good look, friends, at who you were when you got called into this life. I don't see many of the 'brightest and the best' among you, not many influential, not many from high-society families. Isn't it obvious that God deliberately chose men and women that the culture overlooks..." I Corinthians 1:26-31 MSG)
God reaches out to what the culture calls "unreachable" with his saving love. That was evident that day He was born and told the shepherds to announce it to all who would listen.
It was obvious in the choices Jesus made for his inner core of disciples.
It was obvious in who He chose to build his kingdom one life at a time.
It is still the same today.
Jesus reaches out to you and me with his new life love.
Are you reachable?
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You might be thinking what the psalmist, David, a shepherd, contemplated one night while in the fields with his sheep.
He looked up on one of those clear magnificent star-filled night skies and asked God the question:
"What is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him?" (Psalm 8:4NIV)
Anotherway to ask it would be, "God who am I to even think you would consider reaching out to me with your saving love?"
We can relate to the shepherds as being no one special in our community's eyes.
We may feel like Matthew, someone who has been an embarrassment to our family or friends.
We may not want to be reachable to Jesus because we realize that it will be a call to give up who we are and to fully commit to a new way of life of being who Jesus sees in us us to be.
Jesus continues to build his kingdom. He reaches out to you and me to be a part of his team. Are you reachable?
Undoing Christmas seeks to take the "un" away from "unreachable" and to make us reachable.
There is one more aspect to being reachable. It is the call to go and reach out to others. Who is that "friend" you have lost touch with or maybe you have written off as "unreachable?" I want to challenge you to reach out to them.
After all, think of what you were when God reached out to you through his Son Jesus!
Undo Christmas by being reachable with the love of Jesus.
Undo Christmas by being willing to reach out with the love of Jesus to those whom culture or you consider to be "unreachable."
May the love of Jesus, who reached out to us, make us reachable in reaching out to the unreachable.
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