A Sermon by Sydney V. (Skip) Jackson — December 13, 2009
Indianola Presbyterian Church, Columbus, Ohio
Texts:  Ephesians 4:4-13;  Luke 2:8-14

Third Sunday of Advent

In that region, there were shepherds living in the fields, keeping watch over their flocks by night. — Luke 2:8 (on video with Linus van Pelt reciting)

I was a high school senior when “A Charlie Brown Christmas" first aired 44 years ago in 1965.  High school seniors can be a little self-absorbed and cynical, but I was among the 50% of viewers tuned in to that first animated Peanuts special, and I remember goose bumps as Linus recited those words.  I’ve since learned that CBS network executives really wanted this scene cut from the show, believing that viewers wouldn’t want to sit through a passage from the King James Version of the Bible.  But their worries proved for naught.  One New York critic wrote, “Linus’ reading of the story of the Nativity was, quite simply, the dramatic highlight of the season.” 

 

What is it that is so moving about Linus’ narration?  Is it the voice of a child?  It has been reported that some of the child actors couldn’t read and so were given their lines one at a time to recite, then these were put together on tape, which resulted in that now-familiar Peanuts delivery style.  There is something special about the simplicity of the presentation, the lack of any music accompaniment, Linus’ silent walk on and off stage, and, yes, the child-like intonations.

 

When I saw the special again this past Tuesday, I was moved again by these words that I’d already chosen as our text for this Third Sunday in Advent.  In addition, I found myself pondering a statement attributed to Martin Luther. Apparently Luther once said that whenever God speaks to humanity God always speaks in baby-talk.  John Calvin said something quite similar, although in more technical, theological language, when he spoke of God’s condescension in order communicate with us—“condescend,” literally bending down to our level to speak.  Both Luther and Calvin say that God does this because God is love.  God never forgets that no matter how old or mature we may become, we remain helpless, dependent, unknowing babies as far as our faith is concerned.  The Creator knows our limits and needs as finite creatures.  So God bends down close and talks baby-talk to us.

I’m sure most of you have watched people talk baby-talk to babies.  I’d bet you’ve done it yourself at one time or another.  I have… just last night with 13-month-old Samantha Bird.  You know how it goes.  You meet someone out walking with their baby.  You bend over a stroller down closer to the baby’s eye level, and then it’s goo goo, and ga ga, and cootchie, cootchie, coo.  You buzz and wheeze, click and sputter in hope that maybe a raspberry (thpppppp!!) or something similar will draw a smile or even a laugh.  It all looks quite ridiculous.  And when the baby responds with a noise, you say it back.  Last night Samantha Bird and I had a long “conversation” repeating “mmmaaaa” back and forth to each other.  It’s like we learn baby-talk from babies even as they gradually learn to speak for themselves from us.

This is a wonderful image for a loving, gracious God.  In human terms, people who study child development say that baby-talk is essential for development of things like language, coordination, perception, and a whole range of other human characteristics.  Research shows that infants who are not talked to often enough in the first months of life can suffer stunted development and even die.  Some hospitals hire people to walk around their neonatal units and talk to the tiniest babies. Psychologist Erik Erikson believed that trust is developed in the very first weeks of life, in the little rituals between parents and child.  All the cooing, tickling, silly faces, and baby-talk build trust that is essential for one’s whole life.

Luther says that God always speaks to humanity in baby-talk, and further that all the subsequent chatter of learned doctors of theology is but a series of footnotes on God’s baby-talk.  We can cause problems for ourselves when we insist we fully understand God’s truths, forgetting we are limited creatures and claiming to know more than we have experienced.  Abstract theological attempts to answer all questions and our penchant for generating complex doctrines and dogmas to explain everything should not deafen us to the simple, childlike ways God speaks to us.  After all, babies don’t need to be told what Mommy or Daddy means by “Cootchie, cootchie, coo.”  Love needs no explanation.

God’s baby-talk takes many forms, but most often it comes in our everyday, human experience—what Tom Driver calls “patterns of grace.”  And it comes in the stories that give meaning to our experience—what Frederick Buechner calls the “alphabet of grace.”  The Bible is our primer on the “alphabet of grace.”  Bible stories are God’s loving “cootchie, cootchie, coo.”  And today’s story about shepherds and angels is no exception.  Here is God bending down into this violent playpen we call the world, not only talking baby-talk to us, but actually coming as a baby, as one of us.  The theological complexities will come later, for we are very inventive babies in our drive to explain everything, but here is Truth wrapped in the simplicity of swaddling cloths and lying in a manger.  Here is straightforward baby-talk, cooed by angels to reassure common, ordinary shepherds.

Without succumbing to the paralysis of analysis, let’s look a bit at Luke’s story.  First, see just how far God does bend!  People often assume there are limits.  God bends only so far—maybe far enough to speak to the powerful or holy, to rulers or priests (or maybe even pastors)—like God has a touch of arthritis or something.  But Luke emphasizes that the news of Jesus’ birth is first proclaimed not in palace halls, or the halls of commerce, or even the hallowed halls of the temple.  The news comes first to poor shepherds.  At the very least, they are part of the common, ordinary peasantry, the people of the land.  They represent everyone.  And Luke may even mean them to be understood as outcasts, the lowest of the low.  Early Jewish writings listed sheep herding was a despised occupation.  Shepherds were seen as thieves and cheats.  They were ritually unclean due to contacts with strangers and were prohibited from being witnesses in trials.  Yet God bends down even this far, as Luke makes clear in later baby-talk stories of Jesus conversing and sharing meals with Samaritans, tax collectors, sinners, and prostitutes.

God bends down, and the message the shepherds hear from the angel is classic baby-talk—words of comfort like those cooed to reassure babies who cry out in the night.  We all know what to say when cuddling a child who is afraid in the dark—“There, there… don’t be afraid.  Everything’ll be all right.  I’m right here.  Daddy (or Mommy) is right here with you.”

Then an angel of the Lord came upon the shepherds, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were sore afraid.  But the angel said to them, “Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.”  There, there… everything’ll be all right, really all right!  “For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord.”  I’m here with you.  Daddy’s right here.  It’s going to be OK.

Then a sign is promised.  Signs are like acted out baby-talk, to be understood without words.  And again we know just what sign is needed in order to reassure a child frightened in the night… something simple, something familiar—like a glass of water and a teddy bear perhaps, or a favorite blankie.  A big impressive show won’t do as a sign.  And so the sign for the shepherds is not the multitude of the heavenly host singing God’s praises and proclaiming peace on earth.  The sign that first Christmas is something closer to the common experience of shepherds—a baby and a feeding trough.  “This shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.”  Surely all the shepherds in the area would know the stall well—most likely having fed their flocks from that manger while moving their flocks from one pasturage to another.

The Bible’s baby-talk is especially apparent in how deeply the entire Christmas story touches the hearts of the very young.  Sometimes, in our adult sophistication, we resist Christmas pageants and such, but not when we are able to become like little children and put on a bathrobe that becomes a shepherds cloak or a foil-covered circle of cardboard that becomes a king’s crown.  Beyond the stories, I’m convinced that God’s baby talk is present as well in all the word-play possible in human languages.  Recall how human baby-talk often uses made up terms that sound like real words.  A bit of word play captured my imagination this past week in the passage from Ephesians.  That’s the one and only place in the entire Bible where the word “pastor” appears, as Paul speaks of the gift of being a pastor to equip people for ministry.  But when I turned to the Greek, I discovered that the word for “pastor” was “poimein,” a word that everywhere else in the New Testament is translated as “shepherd.”

Now, I was already aware of the connection between “pastor” and “shepherd.”  There’s the word “pastoral” in English, after all.  Also, some years ago two friends of mine from seminary went to serve as co-pastors of three churches in Northern New Mexico near where Kathy and I had lived.  One of the churches is named in Spanish—El Buen Pastor Presbyterian Church.  Now, I know just enough Spanish to be dangerous, like that El Buen means the good.  But that next word tricked me by looking like English.  So I pondered how presumptuous it would be to preach from the pulpit of the “Good Pastor” Church.  But of course it’s actually the Good Shepherd Presbyterian Church, so named from John 10:11 where Jesus says, “I am the good shepherd… [who] lays down his life for the sheep” (more baby-talk).

Realizing that the Greek word “poimein” means both “pastor” and “shepherd” shattered that intellectual distance I sometimes get trapped in when I study scripture passages intently.  And suddenly this past week I found myself transported in imagination, abiding with fellow shepherds in dark fields, keeping watch over the flocks by night.  And I wasn’t alone.  All of you were there with me.  For, you see, as Protestants we Presbyterians hold fast to the idea of the “priesthood of all believers”—that is to say, that each of us is called to ministry, that we’re all of us pastors.  Oh, the church still gives out the titles to just a few.  Yet when it comes to caring and serving and building up the church, we are all of us pastors.

Listen to what the Constitution of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) has to say about pastoral care in the Directory for Worship.  Pastoral care is not restricted to those called as pastors.  The Directory declares (W6.3002):  “All Christians are called to care for one another in daily living, sharing joys and sorrows, supporting in times of stress and need, offering mutual forgiveness and reconciliation.  This care is primarily offered as the community of faith worships together.  It is also provided as people interact in community and as they come together as groups for nurture or to carry on the ministries of the church.”  The Directory goes on to speak of how pastoral care is to be offered in occasions of illness and death, in times of loss and of broken relationships, in matters of sin and forgiveness.

Pastoral care in such situations can seem more than a little frightening to each of us—to be there as support for someone caught up in the hurts, hostilities, and conflicts of daily living which lead to broken relationships… or to be truly present in a ministry of care for someone who has just been diagnosed with cancer or faces the loss of a child.  Surely we all face such needs ourselves at times.  So how is it that we can all be shepherds even as every one of us is also one of the flock in need of shepherding?  We must look to el buen pastor, Jesus the Christ.

In imagination, I see us, worshipping side by side in community, as shepherds abiding in the fields of the Lord, keeping watch over the flocks by night… and by day.  Into the darkness of our fears and anxieties, an angel of the Lord coos words of comfort, “There, there… don’t be afraid.  Everything’ll be all right.  I’m right here with you.  The Lord is here with you.”  Listen again to God’s baby-talk as recorded in the gospel according to Luke—“Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.  For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord.  And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.”

God bends down close and talks baby-talk to us.  And a baby is born, who is el buen Pastor.  Alleluia and amen.