Chores vs. Work

I am grateful for the opportunity to attend the Small Town Pastor’s conference in Morton, IL. Every time I attend, I came away refreshed and exhausted. This was our 9th conference. And because of that, while the content was great, the best part was the community. Being with fellow men in the rural ministry trenches, talking, laughing, and crying together.

As I was in the used book section, which I only took 5 books from. I was very good this year, I heard a voice call: I know you. And there was a friend of mine who graduated with me 11 years ago. We lost touch after he moved to Indiana immediately after graduation. And we were able to connect, talk about ministry and the cool things that God is going. I told him, conference is like heaven. Some people I interact with, I might never see again, until Jesus calls me home, and that day will be better than anything we can imagine.

Every year, on the Sunday after conference, I share a sermon that I heard at conference. So, what I am about to share is not my original content. Most of it is the thoughts of Jeff Clark with the Rural Matters Institute. Some of it is my thoughts to clarify or contextualize it to our situation.

The title he gave to this sermon is Chores vs. Work. And the text is Matt 9:36-38

Matthew 9:35–38 NIV

Jesus went through all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and healing every disease and sickness. When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.”

Before we dive in, will you pray with me?

1. Jesus’ Perspective

Jesus had a unique perspective. As he is traveling around, being bombarded by groups of people, hardly getting any rest, being interrupted in his teaching. He sees the crowds.

If we were him, what reaction would we have?

How do we see people who bump into our schedules, our priorities, our tasks, our conversations, our goals, our relationships?

Well, Sometimes we see them as nuisances. They are things that annoy us because we have a task to complete. Many people have passed me on the road and they have waved, and I don’t respond and they think that I am ignoring them. It’s not that. I’m just focused on whatever I am thinking about. Sometimes we can get so focused that those that but in are just annoyances.

Sometimes we see the crowds as obstacles. They are what stands in the way of what we really want to do. So, we quickly deal with whoever is in front of us so that we can get to what is really important.

Sometimes we see them as hopeless. They will never change. The next generation, many times people call them hopeless, because they don’t know to work, they have no responsibility, they have turned from morality and Christianity. Sometimes we look at someone who consistently refuses to turn to Jesus as hopeless.

Sometimes they are not just hopeless, but they are opposed to the Gospel. They are actively trying to hurt the ministry that we are in.

Sometimes we see them as competition, trying to take the spotlight from us, or trying to mess up what we are trying to do.

Sometimes, we see them as invisible, because we are so focused on something else.

Sometimes, we are so focused on ministry inside the church that we do not see the crowds outside the church. Instead of being harvest-field focused, we are church-focused, and the crowds are invisible to us.

But, Jesus saw the crowds with compassion. What does that mean? Well, he saw who they were. What they were like.

Matthew 9:36 NIV

When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.

Matthew 9:36 NASB95

Seeing the people, He felt compassion for them, because they were distressed and dispirited like sheep without a shepherd.

Matthew 9:36 HCSB

When He saw the crowds, He felt compassion for them, because they were weary and worn out, like sheep without a shepherd.

Matthew 9:36 KJV

But when he saw the multitudes, he was moved with compassion on them, because they fainted, and were scattered abroad, as sheep having no shepherd.

Two words, one means to be troubled, weighed down, carrying a heavy burden that appears to be too much.

You’ve seen people like this. You’ve been people like this. The weight of your world on your shoulders, and you wished that someone would notice, but others were too busy, or saw you as a nuisance. You were invisible.

The second word speaks of being thrown down, unable to get up, rejected. Because of the situation of the life, the person is stuck in the pain, in the sin, in the failure, and wrong identity. Maybe society has rejected them, because they are hopeless. Maybe they have rejected themselves. Maybe they have convinced themselves, because what they have done or experienced that God himself has rejected them.

He looked at the troubled, thrown down people, and he had compassion on them.

What does that mean?

Well, let’s step into my geek box, shall we? I appreciated this guy. He grew up in Appalachia. He had a strong accent. He would be the first to say that he didn’t have much of an education. He said that he took English as a second language in high school because of his Appalachia background, but he dived into this word.

Compassion.

Com, means alongside, with. Think about the word community, people coming alongside into one body. Com, alongside, with.

Passion: to suffer. We just went through the Passion week where Christ suffered.

Compassion means to suffer beside someone, along with them.

It is not pity. Pity is standing over here and saying: O, I am so sorry that happened. It must be hard. Please don’t get any closer because I don’t want to get messy like you are.

Compassion is to take their hurt, pick up, hold it close, and walk with them, feeling that pain.

We see their heart breaking and our heart breaks.

What did that verse say:

Matthew 9:36 NIV

When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.

That is not our normal response. Our normal response is what we talked about before. We see the crowds and try to will them away, normally. Because we are basically selfish.

We practice compassion, by having a relationship with Jesus. We can try to will ourselves to be compassionate people, but it will not work without Jesus’ changing work in our hearts through salvation.

As we pursue a relationship with Jesus, and allow him to change us, we invest in other’s lives. We ask them how their lives are going, and we get beyond the “Oh, I’m fine” question. Sometimes, I give that answer and wonder if someone is going to dig past it to actually know what is going on.

We invest in their lives, so that they will be safe to open up, so that we can say: no really, how are you doing.

And then, once we find out, We spend time with them. We walk with them through their hurt.

This isn’t natural, but it is Christ-like-ness.

2. Jesus’ Promise

Based on Jesus’ perspective, he turns to the disciples and gives them a promise.

Matthew 9:37 NIV

Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few.

He sees all the distressed people in front of him and declares that we will never have a lack of distressed, dispirited people in our communities. The harvest is plentiful.

They will always be there. But, if there are workers in the field many will come to Jesus.

Many will come to Jesus if we are willing to suffer with them. If we are willing to slow down our lives and step alongside someone and show compassion. To be Jesus.

The problem is, the workers are few. Few people are willing to have compassion, to stop their busy lives, their unordered priorities, and see the suffering in front of them. Not only see, but take up and suffer alongside.

The problem is, new believers are messy. They have wounds and baggage that they don’t know what to do with, and many Christians would just rather not deal with it.

I know a church in another location. I will just say that it is somewhere in the US. They had 35 families attending. Down the road from the church was a garage with a not so desirable family working and living there. The pastor mentioned that several of the families should make friends with that family and so them the love of Christ. And the leaders of the church said: we don’t want them. We are good with where we are at 35 families.

Ministry is messy. People are messy, and many times, to our shame, we don’t want to deal with that. There are many pastors that pray for Sunday School teachers. I do. We are short one or two for our rotations downstairs. And God answers them with sending a new Christian who has a lot of baggage, who we would never want to teach our kids. But after 3 years of discipleship, that’s a Sunday school teachers. The problem is, we don’t want the mess.

The problem with the harvest, is that working in the field is hard. We are not willing to suffer alongside others, because we are lazy. We want more people, but we don’t want their problems. We want people who can help our church, but not people we can help.

Truthfully, the God of our culture, too often, is comfort. But our God is not concerned with comfort. We can pick up the Bible, read it cover to cover, and never does God say: “Oh, I’m sorry that makes you uncomfortable, let’s try something different.” God is not concerned with our comfort, but with our obedience.

3. Jesus’ Command

Which brings us to Jesus’ command. In the face of the harvest, those who are hurting in our communities, the distressed and the dispirited; in the face of the lack of workers, he does not say: Go and work the harvest!

No, he says:

Matthew 9:38 NIV

Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.”

Before going, we are to pray.

As humans, we like to plan and strategize, wrap our heads around it and then do it.

Well, at least some of us do. Others like to jump in and do.

But, those are the two choices normally. We plan with our human intellect and we do with our human strength and wisdom.

But the focus, Jesus says, is not planning or doing. The focus is praying. Because we still need God to change us.

As we pray, he does a work in our hearts to show us what our priority should be. Because, we, the American church, have lost our priority.

In our churches in America, we have confused chores with work.

I know many of you grew up with chores. Things that you did around the house or farm to keep the house and farm going because you were part of the family. And then, after doing the chores, you started the work.

In the winter, one of our chores was to wake up early and scoop the quarter mile driveway so that my dad could go to work. I never quite understood why he wouldn’t do it himself. Now, that I am a parent, I understand.

Jeff tells of when he was a kid and a city friend came by. The friend helped Jeff with the chores. They gathered the eggs, the milked the cow, they fed the animals. They spent a lot of time on it and wore the city friend out. After the chores, the friend started to head upstairs and Jeff ask: what are you doing. The friend said: I’m tired. I’m going to lay down. And Jeff said, but we just finished the chores, now we have to do the work.

In churches, we have confused chores with work.

There are things that we are all expected to take part in for church, because we are family and need to keep things going. But, those are chores. Being on committees, running the sound system, teaching Sunday school, greeting, cleaning, mowing. Those are chores. They need to get done, and if we are part of the family, we will take our turn to get them done. And if we are not taking our turn, something should change, because as I tell my kids, if you are part of the family, you will help with the running of the household.

Those are chores.

Work is done in the harvest field.

Jesus said: pray for workers in the harvest, not workers in the church. Sometimes the field will come to the church, and we can do the work here.

But, most of the time, the field is out there. People waiting for someone to come into their lives, to show compassion on their distress and disillusionment and tell them about the God who loved them so much that he came with his own compassion and died for them.

As we pray for workers out there, we start realizing that our priority is to be out there. Doing the work of the ministry out there. Having compassion on the crowds out there. So that they might know Jesus, join us here, and then be sent back out there.

There is a revival going on in China. Which is really neat to read about. The thing is. When someone becomes a new believer, they are taken under the wing of an older believer, and they are taught about the elements of our faith: who is God, what is the bible, how do you study the Bible, how do you pray. Things like that. But the first lesson is how do you share your faith. Two weeks after that lesson, before they moved on to the other lessons, they would be asked: who did you share your faith with? If they didn’t, they would be taught that lesson again. Two weeks later, who did you share your faith with? No one, well, we’ll cover that lesson again. Two weeks later, who did you share your faith with? No one. Well, we are done. I’m not going to spend anymore time with you, because you must not be a believer. If you were, you would be doing what Jesus asked. If you love him, you will keep his commandments.

Maybe too legalistic, but people are coming to Christ.

Church family, are you doing chores? Thanks! I really appreciate it. If you aren’t, I can help you find something to do.

But, my goal as your pastor, is not just to equip you to do chores, but to equip you to do the work. Jesus wants you in the field, doing the work. Are you doing it? Or have you confused chores with work?

If you need help making that transition, or you don’t know what to do in the field, let me know. I love those conversations.