“The Herdmans were absolutely the worst kids in the history of the world. They lied and stole and smoked cigars (even the girls) and talked dirty and hit little kids and cussed their teachers and took the name of the Lord in vain and set fire to Fred Shoemaker’s old broken-down toolhouse.”
So began Barbara Robinson’s novel, The Best Christmas Pageant Ever, first published in 1972 and revered by many readers as a classic in children’s literature. Thankfully, Dallas Jenkins (director of The Chosen) believed Robinson’s book was movie-worthy. “If I could only make one more movie for the rest of my life, this is it,” he told Christian Broadcasting Network.
Lori and I took our two oldest grandchildren, ages 7 and 12, to see the movie the day after Thanksgiving. The Best Christmas Pageant Ever did not disappoint us. Our grandkids got the message, too, about who gets invited into the Christmas story.
For some unexplained reason, as Robinson tells it, the Herdman kids take an interest in the yearly Christmas pageant produced by the local church. They show up at auditions and volunteer for all the major roles. The other children, intimidated by the Herdmans, remain silent, which leaves the director, Grace (note the first name) Bradley (Judy Greer), with no choice but to give the parts to the six Herdman kids.
A battle ensues between the church members, who think the Herdmans will ruin the production, and Grace Bradley, who becomes increasingly convinced that the Herdmans should be allowed to participate in and receive the gift of Christmas as much as the more socially acceptable children.
It’s a battle I’ve watched in churches I’ve attended and pastored. It inevitably happens whenever uncultured newbies infringe on the territorial rights of the church’s self-righteous establishment. One of my students at Campbellsville University shared with me how her preacher father encountered what she termed as EGR (Extra Grace Required) church members. I smiled, for I know those people. It seems like they have followed me from one pastorate to the next. Maybe you know them, too. They show themselves when threatened by those who don’t “fit in” with the acceptable standards of a church’s culture.
Ed Walker, where I pastored in Miami, Oklahoma, was a retired pharmacist. Ed would fill his station wagon with the down-and-out, hauling them to church, sometimes with more than one trip. You would have thought it was carload special at the drive-in, so thrilled were his occupants that Ed had included them. They would climb out of the overloaded station wagon like so many refugees, landing on the church parking lot, a veritable reenactment of the poor and outcast who flocked to Jesus. As Ed’s guests entered the church doors, they were sometimes met with the suspicion of the religious elite, who raised their eyebrows and whispered, “They are too noisy. And what about their clothes? They smell. Wouldn’t they fit in better at another church?”
I gladly baptized several of them, and as I immersed them, I sometimes thought that the baptismal waters provided the only bath they had that week. Ed would feed them, too, and sometimes clothe them. Then, he would tell them about the love of Jesus in his Sunday School class. We faced some opposition, but most accepted them, overruling those who asked, “Do they belong at a First Baptist Church?”
When it’s truly the Gospel—the one Jesus proclaimed to the poor and oppressed, announcing that the Kingdom had come with Him—it cuts across ethnic and cultural spheres, flatlining social fences.
The Herdmans were “all around awful,” but (spoiler alert) they experienced transformation. Well, at least most of them did.
“When Jesus said, ‘Suffer the little children to come unto me,’ Jesus meant all the children, including Herdmans,” wrote Robinson.
Yes, Jesus came not just for the well-behaved but for those of us who have finally recognized that our good behavior is never quite good enough. I hope my grandkids got that message because that’s when grace breaks in.
And that’s when we experience the true meaning of Christmas.