Pastor 2

Thus I was; in the day the drought consumed me, and the frost by night; and my sleep departed from mine eyes. (Genesis 31:40)

I promised to help us understand a Biblical pastor better.

We had looked at a pastor in the context of God and His pastoring.

Today I want us to look at it from the farmer’s side, or a pastoralist or herder if that makes you more comfortable.

Incidentally I was able to understand this concept better when I started keeping animals. That is actually where the promptings of this message came from but I couldn’t write then because my computer was down.

Have you ever wondered why at the time of Christ’s birth the angel appeared to pastors, eeh, shepherds?

A pastor was being born. THE PASTOR was being born.

Why had it to be at night?

It was in their nature and duty to spend nights out for effective pastoring, probably because the days were too hot for the flocks to feed effectively.

Those of us in the tropics do not understand seasons because we do not experience the extremities of the same.

Summer in the tropics is just warmer than normal and winter is the converse.

Outside the tropics things are completely different. Winter is freezing cold while summer is scorching hot. We read of fires starting from nowhere because of the summer heat. We read of people dying of heat strokes for the same reason.

It therefore must have been the summer season that had prompted those pastors to keep their flocks outside so that they can adequately get their nutrition.

This gets me to the first point.

Pastor is not a title or job.

Pastor is a commitment, a calling if you want it to appear spiritual. Pastor is a function.

Just like it is impossible to have a shepherd without a flock, it is impossible in the spiritual to have a pastor (same name as shepherd) who does not tend a flock.

A pastor does not do it for the pay, if I may call it that.

You do not take the risks of fighting wild animals just to get a few coins.

You cannot forfeit sleep and the comforts of a bed just because of a paycheck.

The next point is related to the first.

A pastor has a complete relationship with his flock. There are no timelines with a pastor as concerns his flock due to that commitment.

Jacob herded Laban’s flock for fourteen years for a wife (who became four before long).

I am sure he could have haggled for the second seven years especially because he hadn’t wanted Leah. Maybe asked a discount of three or four years since the ‘goods’ had been forced on him.

But I am sure that in those first seven years he had become attached to the flock.

It took the complaint (and probably threat) of Laban’s sons and God’s order to consider leaving them.

This is the reason I have an issue with denominations that transfer pastors like the government transfers policemen so that they do not become too familiar with their flock.

You see, animals do not talk.

A pastor must learn to interpret their ‘language’, something that needs adequate time to develop.

Incidentally, each animal has its own language. And that is why we have verses like this.

What man of you, having an hundred sheep, if he lose one of them, doth not leave the ninety and nine in the wilderness, and go after that which is lost, until he find it? (Luke 15:4)

He does not count one two three every time to know that one is missing.

He knows each sheep individually and so can easily identify the loss. And he knows the one with such tendencies of course.

Otherwise how would he know his sheep if it was swallowed by another flock, a usual thing with animals?

Remember recently when I wrote about the time our calf followed my grandfather’s flock and its mother noticed in the morning?

You see, a sheep gets lost when it is separated from its flock.

And it would require the same skill for the pastor whose flock the lost sheep joined to identify the stranger in his house.

A pastor therefore has a flock, however large, with individual sheep that he knows very well because he loves them individually.

That is why he celebrates the recovery of that troublesome one when he finds it.

The next point follows this one.

A pastor can never be paid for his services.

A pastor feeds from the flock, and not by ‘eating’ the flock.

Be thou diligent to know the state of thy flocks, and look well to thy herds. For riches are not for ever: and doth the crown endure to every generation? The hay appeareth, and the tender grass sheweth itself, and herbs of the mountains are gathered. The lambs are for thy clothing, and the goats are the price of the field. And thou shalt have goats' milk enough for thy food, for the food of thy household, and for the maintenance for thy maidens. (Proverbs 27: 23 – 27)

Jacob tended Laban’s flock for a wife. But after he cleared the ‘debt’ he continued to tend to get his own flock. And those who have some background information on herding know this.

Let me illustrate.

You tend the flock for free, but with particular conditions like, every second birth is yours, we share the twins equally, or even every one with a particular color or color code is yours.

Or you do not remember Jacob’s story?

But you are also milking, and if possible, selling the milk since many times you are far from home. That is what gives you sustenance as there is no other income you are getting.

That is how many people in the past used to get out of poverty, by attaching to someone with a large flock or herd and being gifted a startup capital of a few of his own.

Like I said recently, giving a cow is easier than giving money.

A Biblical pastor operates along the same lines.

He walks and grows with his flock. He does not demand anything from his flock but gladly shares (giving and receiving) in the growth and multiplication of his flock.

A pastor loses sleep over the state of his flock. A pastor agonizes over his flock. A pastor fights for his flock. That is what we hear Jacob saying. That is the reason the flock has no issues sharing their increase with him.

You see, only the pastor knows the goat to milk because he has taken very good care of it.

A pastor has both goats and sheep and intricately knows each and its peculiarities.

He doesn’t kill goats because they are troublesome.

He knows he needs them as much as he needs sheep.

But he also knows each needs its own shepherding.

The goat is independent, troublesome, looking for and creating trouble and of course loves herbs.

But they produce milk. And their meat has a unique taste because of their troublesome and greedy nature. They also produce twins, triplets and quadruplets more often.

The pastor must know that the goats require a lot of watching as they are naturally prone to trouble. It appears as if they are addicted to trouble. You take them to a very juicy meadow and they will run off to a neighbor’s wasteland.

A pastor must know this and herd them effectively.

A pastor knows sheep are not demanding. Give them food and they are content and will flourish. They do not care for anything the neighbor has provided they have food and water.

But they also have needs. Only that they do not make noise about them like the goats.

An unwise pastor concentrates on lowering the noise of the goats, a noise that is lowered only for a moment before it resumes.

A wise pastor knows that goats will make noise for nothing just as sheep do not make noise for anything.

He will therefore concentrate on keeping a healthy flock instead of lowering the noise of the goats.

But is that how pastors operate?

In closing let me state that a good pastor knows his neighbors and their sheep, of course not as much as he does his.

He needs to do this because like I mentioned earlier sheep get lost into other flocks. His goats can also easily cause a mess to another flock. Or some will mess their flock and run to hide in yours and vice versa.

It is thus important that he pastors his neighbor’s flock as well so that he can deal with some of those complications without needing to go to court.

Then all the sheep and goats around are secure in your shepherding.

I hope you understand my allegory.

But I am talking about the church and its pastor.

Feel free to comment or even bash me if you think I have not said anything.