The Other Shepherd's Story

(I did this Christmas monologue a few years ago and figured I’d share it with you. It begins when a lone shepherd enters, grumbling under his breath. He stops at the front of the sanctuary and addresses the congregation.)

Well, what are you looking at? Haven’t you ever seen a shepherd before? Go ahead and look. I don’t care. It doesn’t matter anyway. ‘Cause you’re looking at a shepherd who’s lost his sheep!

That’s right. And that’s not the worst of it. My whole family has gone crazy! Every last one of them! And when my uncle Hophni asks me what happened to his sheep, that’s exactly what I’m going to tell him. It’s not my fault. He can blame his very own sons.

It all started last night. The six of us were outside, watching the sheep. My brother Yossi and I, our cousins Reuben, Samuel, Zakkai, and Eli, Samuel’s oldest.

Eli’s the only one of the whole bunch who’s worth anything. Just turned twelve and Samuel has been letting him stay up and help us with the night watch. Eli’s a good boy. And he likes me, unlike the rest of them. He calls me “uncle Simon” even though we’re really second cousins.

Well, it wasn’t long after sunset that we realized one of the lambs was missing. So Reuben says to me, “Simon, take the boy and go find that lamb.” I never liked Reuben. Always bossing the rest of us around. Oh, sure, he is the oldest, and he’s going to inherit a double portion of the flock some day, but why does he have to keep rubbing my face in it? Says I have an attitude problem! Have you ever heard anything so stupid in your life?

Sure, Reuben, I’ll go out into the cold and the dark and find your precious father’s little lamb … if I don’t get eaten by wolves first! You just stay here by the fire and keep warm. Even so, I figured I’d rather spend time with Eli than with any of the rest of those lousy stinking relatives of mine, so off we went.

We finally found her in a ditch. I guess she tripped in the dark and there she landed. No broken bones, but she was limping awfully bad. So I handed Eli my crook and lifted her up on my shoulders and we headed back to camp.

Well, we got back and that’s when I knew that my brother and my cousins had gone insane. They ran out to meet us, all at once, and they were all talking at the same time about bright lights and angels and who knows what else. Finally Zakkai calmed down enough that I could understand him. He starts telling this story about how while we were gone, angels came and told them the Messiah had been born just a few miles away in Bethlehem. He said they had talked it over and they decided that as soon as Eli and I got back we were all going to go see him.

Have you ever heard such foolishness in all your life? Of course, I didn’t believe them. I figured they were all drunk?¢‚Ǩ‚Äùwouldn’t be the first time! Yeah, if you asked me, I bet somebody had brought along a skin of wine and they didnt’ want to share it with me! So while I was off looking after the boy, the rest of them were back at the fire getting drunk. Then they probably saw a shooting star or lightning or something and heard the wind whistling in the trees and thought that angels were talking to them. I mean, what else could it be?

And now they want to go off, tramping through the streets of Bethlehem, looking for a baby? You’ve got to be kidding! I had just spent the better part of an hour out looking for a lost sheep, and my feet were tired and I was cold and I just wanted to sit down and rest.

“No guys, I’m not buying it,” I told them. “Let’s just stay here close to the fire. It’s too much work to get up and go, and even if this crazy story of yours is true, how would you know where to look, anyway? And for that matter,” I said, “if we all run off to town, who is going to take care of the sheep?”

Those sheep were our livelihood, you know. We’re shepherds. We depend on our sheep for our food, our clothing, everything! You don’t just leave everything and go off after some dream, do you? Well, do you?!

I asked Reuben, “What will your father say when you tell him you handed his flock over to the wolves and thieves because you thought it was more important to go into town looking for some squalling brat?”

I almost had him with that one. He just looked down and said, “I don’t know.” But then he said, “But if it’s true, maybe he’ll understand.”

Hmph! I patted Eli on the shoulder and said, “Boy, your uncle Reuben is a fool!” I guess that was going a little too far. At least, that’s when Reuben threw the first punch. The fight didn’t last long, but boy did it feel good to finally give Reuben what he had coming to him! The rest of them pulled us apart. And as I was standing there with Yossi holding my arms behind my back, Eli looks up at me and says, “I want to see him. I want to see the Messiah.”

And I couldn’t bring myself to tell him what I was thinking. “Boy, you may want to see the Messiah, but you can bet the Messiah doesn’t want to see you!”

Even if all this foolishness were true, what would the Messiah have to do with the likes of us? We shepherds have a reputation, you know. The Pharisees don’t even think we count as full Jews, just a bunch of heathens with a thin layer of Jewishness on the surface. “The people of the land,” they call us?¢‚Ǩ‚Äùuncivilized, ungodly. Not the kind of people angels come to visit.

They say we’re Sabbath-breakers. Well, taking care of sheep is a full-time job. They need more attention than most other animals. They say we don’t tithe as strictly as we should, and there are probably lots of other things they disapprove of … and they don’t do a thing to keep their disapproval to themselves. I see how they look at us in the marketplace. I know they wash their hands after doing business with us, just in case a little bit of us rubbed off on them.

Well, sure, I don’t get to the synagogue very often and maybe I don’t know the Torah as good as they do, but that’s no reason to treat me like dirt! They say they’re closer to God, they follow God more strictly than anybody else. Well, if that’s what they are like, then it must be what God is like, too. And if that’s what God is like, then the Messiah doesn’t care about people like us, and those angels were just a bad dream.

But I could see there was no stopping them. Fine! Let them find out for themselves what God thinks of us shepherds. Off they went, and I sat by the fire. Oh, for a while I even tried to keep the sheep from wandering off, but then I figured, what’s the use? Let Reuben explain it to his father when he comes back. So I curled up and went to sleep.

Sure enough, when I woke up all the sheep were gone except two: the lamb we went after last night and its mother. But Eli was sitting next to me, and Yossi and Samuel and the rest.

“Uncle Simon,” he said … and there was something excited and maybe even a little scared in his voice, “We saw him!”

I scratched my head. He told me how they searched him out, wandering through the town looking for the baby the angels had described. How they finally came to a house. They said the guest room up on the roof was full of people, but in the goat pen they found a man and a woman, and a little newborn baby wrapped in swaddling cloths, asleep in the feed trough. They asked to know the baby’s name and his mother told them he was called Yeshua.

Eli almost shouted: “It was just like the angel told us!”

And then Reuben comes up to me … and apologized for hitting me, for all the times he had bossed me around or caused me grief. I think I even saw a tear in his eye. he seemed different?¢‚Ǩ‚Äùthey all did, now that I think about it. Like a load had been lifted. Could one little baby do that?

We all just stood there quietly for a long time. And then, I don’t know why, but they started to sing. I had never heard the song before. They said it was what the angels sang before they left. They couldn’t remember exactly how it went, but it was beautiful, anyway.

You know, maybe my family hasn’t gone crazy after all. Maybe they really did see angels last night … and a baby … a Savior, the Messiah, the Lord.

And maybe he likes shepherds, too. I wonder if we’re like God’s lost sheep, and he goes out to look for us when we’re hurt and alone and can’t find our way. Maybe that’s what the Messiah is for?¢‚Ǩ‚Äùto go out and find lost people and bring them back to a place that’s safe and warm.

And now I wish I had gone to see him, too. Those sheep weren’t really all that important. We ended up losing them anyway. And my feet weren’t that sore, and the walking would have kept me warm.

You don’t suppose it’s too late, do you? Do you think I could find the baby today? I know I was supposed to have gone last night, but I would go right now if I could. Oh, that would be something, if I could find the Messiah, too!

That’s what I’ll do! I go find my cousins, or my brother, and ask them to take me so I can see the Messiah, too! And not just see him, but worship him, just like those angels said. Now, how did that go again? “Glory to God in the highest heaven …. and on earth ….. peace.”