Time is Money?
I'm finishing up my sermon for tomorrow, and I can't resist making the comparison between Latin Americans and the Shepherds of Luke chapter 2 (my sermon topic tomorrow). Why did God choose shepherds to be the first to hear the "good news", the birth announcement of the Savior? Perhaps because they had nothing better to do! They were poor. They had no money, but they had a lot of time on their hands. Their lives and their jobs could have been described as downright boring. Unlike the innkeeper who missed out, they weren't all that busy. And like many Latin Americans, they had more time than money.
Latinos would laugh at the concept that "time is money". They rarely trade scarce and really HARD-earned cash for time-saving conveniences. Where's the wisdom in that? After all, they already have time on their hands, for the most part. Jobs and money are hard to come by, and like shepherding sheep, their jobs are usually mundane and downright boring. They're not, for the most part, deliriously frantic nor upwardly mobile. No pressure.
Perhaps, like the shepherds, that's why they are so open to the good news, the birth announcement of the Savior. Could you, at a moment's notice, drop everything you are doing to "go and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about"? (Lk 2:15)
