DESPITE the credit crunch and all the uncertainty in the money markets, it's easy to think of a good job as one that pays well and leaves us comfortably off; but right at the beginning of the Bible there's a story which says something different. That's the story of Cain and Abel.
It's easy to remember that it was Cain who killed Abel, but not so easy to remember which was the shepherd and which was the farmer – and still less why it matters.
The answer is that Cain was the farmer and Abel the shepherd.
In the Bible, she
pherds have by far the tougher life.
Grass wasn't something you cut because you have so much of it; it was the symbol of everything short-lived because except during the two rainy seasons the sun soon burned it up.
The shepherd was always having to search for grass for his flock to eat and had to know where there were waterholes they could drink (not too many of them, either).
In addition he had to be permanently on the lookout for wolves and other wild animals, while at night he would sleep on the ground across the entrance to the sheep-fold so that he would know if any wild animal tried to get in.
No creature comforts for the shepherd; all the time he was overworked, sleepless, and starving.
By contrast, the farmer in Bible times was seen as having a comparatively cushy life, and in addition he was tempted for various reasons to go off after other gods in a way that the shepherd was not.
King David the shepherd boy had many faults (as in the Bathsheba episode) but at least he did not go off after other gods and remained true to the Lord God of Israel.
Going off after other gods very easily led to a permissive lifestyle; being true to God would at least point you to the straight and narrow of discipline and clean-living.
The people of the Bible knew that they needed the farmer as much as they needed the shepherd; but they still knew the shepherd with his low standard of living as having a better job than the farmer who in Bible times was much better off.
There are some (but not all that many) jobs of which one ought to say that a Christian should not be engaged in it, but all of us need to remember the line from the Charles Wesley hymn: "Preserve me from my calling's snare."
In other words, preserve me from the particular temptations that go with my job, whatever that is.
