“Shepherds were seen as unsavory, a rough and tumble lot,” and yet it is to them, not the emperor in Rome, that the angel appears. This surprising fact is crucial to Luke’s gospel, preached Father Phil at our Christmas Eve service. What is Luke suggesting by giving these “nobodies” the inside scoop about the birth of Jesus? “God is going to show up where you least expect it. In the things that don’t seem to matter, in the places and people that are not special or mighty or powerful, that is where God loves to be; in the manger.”