Having grown up on a farm I can clearly remember when it was time to do the chores. Each day we had some very specific chores.
During the 1970’s in a rural, farming community it was not uncommon for us to have chores that dominated our day. The cow had to be milked and the pigs had to be fed every morning and every evening. The eggs had to be gathered each night. Weeding the garden and cleaning out the animal’s pens was not weird, nor was it punishment, it was our norm. There was no option of ‘skipping out’ on the responsibility to feed the animals and taking care of them. If a chore was shirked and we chose to do something else, the price to pay would be staggering. Our breakfast in the morning consisted of the eggs we gathered the night before. The 2 gallons of milk we collected daily would feed our family of six (four growing boys) daily. The vegetables we grew in the garden would be canned or preserved for the winter months. We did our chores because we knew there would be consequences if we didn’t obey. But we also did our chores because our parents cared for us, and we loved our parents. You see, our chores were important to our survival.
But before we go much further you need to know that with all the animals we had to care for, we never owned sheep. Chickens, cattle, hogs and even an occasional horse or two, but never sheep. And as I understand them, sheep are very precarious when it comes to raising them. Some even say they’re stupid animals. Again, having never raised sheep I’m not speaking from direct experience, but from what sheep farmers and those who raise sheep have told me. Those who tend sheep know that the responsibility to care for them is intensified. Sheep challenge your resolve when it comes to feeding them, watering them and shearing them. Much less keeping them alive.
But have you ever noticed that the Bible calls followers of Christ ‘sheep’? Matthew 10:16, “Behold, I send you out as SHEEP…” and Matthew 25:33, “and He will put the SHEEP on His right, and the goats on the left…” and Matthew 26:31, “I will strike down the Shepherd, and the SHEEP of the flock will be scattered…” And no doubt you’ll remember the 23rd Psalm as it refers to us as sheep and the Lord as our Shepherd. “The Lord’s my shepherd, I’ll not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures.”
There is a connection between doing chores and the idea that we are sheep and Christ is our Shepherd! Perhaps you can see the connection between doing God’s work (doing our chores) and the need to take care of the sheep when you look deeper into God’s Word. From a Biblical point of view, the world is not in
the safety of the fold. And God calls His people (the sheep) with the help of the Shepherd (Jesus) to bring a lost people home. (The cattle are out of the pen; there’s a fox in the hen house; there are chores to be done.) Take out your Bible and read I Peter 2:25; “For you were continually straying like sheep, but now you have returned to your Shepherd and Guardian of your souls.”
Next time we’ll see how to make sense of this comparison…being like a sheep, and tending the sheep. There are always chores to be done. We will look at a song (not a surprise) that addresses this responsibility and obligation to work in the fold. Stay tune as we continue to look at ‘doing chores’. Let’s work together.