Out Our Way: Many hands make light work

We are many parts in Christ but together form one Body. So in Christ, though many, are one Body. - Romans 12:5

  Out our way, the above paraphrase is often illustrated during the round up season. A few years ago, Charlie and I were one of three separate crews getting the cattle down off Tiger Ridge and into the trucks for shipping. Big Mike and his crew rode quads and pushed some 100-plus pair toward the corrals where another crew awaited to sort and load them into the trucks. Charlie and I rode our horses into the hills and gullies where the quads had difficulty maneuvering. 

It was quite a sight up there on the ridge as we watched Mike and his crew about a mile off with that loud buzzing of the quads and the lowing of so many cattle, but we weren't there to watch. We had our own part to play.  There were Hawthorn bushes and some deep gullies to check - as well as a couple of not yet dried-up watering holes. Over the next hour we probably picked up about 10 pair and were moving them toward the trucks when we came upon some 40 more gathered at an old waterhole. It was muddy on the edges where a quad might have gotten stuck, but Goliath and Jet weren't too concerned and went right in after those mamas and little squirts that were not so quick about coming out. All in all, I estimate we brought in 50 pair.  

We pushed them into the corral where the rest of the herd had been brought to be sorted and loaded, and watched the Hutterite crew handle that chore with expertise and skill. This clearly wasn't these boys' "first rodeo."

We had unsaddled and rubbed down our mounts getting ready to load them in the horse trailer when we heard a cow bawling back out in the pasture. One lone bossy was out there. So Big Mike hopped on his quad, got it started and then went out and got her. She spooked and ran, but he cut her off and worked her back to where I was handling the gate, and when she got close I opened it wide and she trotted in with the rest of the herd. Teamwork with a capital "T"!

The Apostle Paul talked about teamwork as a necessary part of the Christian life as well. Like the Tiger Ridge roundup, different folks have different tasks, but all with the same goal. Goliath and I could not have pushed so many pairs as quickly across the pasture as Mike and his quad riders, but then those motorized cowboys would not have been able to follow some of those cow trails through the twisting and muddy gullies or chase rangy calves up and down some of those steep and slippery slopes as well as Goliath, Jet, Charlie and I could do. And my hat is off to those Hutterite boys who walked in the middle of those cows and got that milling throng sorted and loaded. We each had a different job to do, but working together, each doing our particular part, we got it done.   

So too, each of us has a particular role to play in our life as a member of the church, the Body of Christ. I have found that, too often, the bigger the congregation, the fewer who take that role seriously. Too many folks want to just sit "in the opera house" - the top rail of the fence in old-timey lingo - to watch everybody else do the work.  They don't want to get their hat dirty, their scarves sweaty or their boots muddy. Well, if you go to the rodeo and sit in the stands, buy a ticket and grab a seat. But if you go to a round up, get off the fence, step down on the dirt or step up in the saddle, and commence to helping. 

We saw some glorious sights I will always cherish up there on the ridge, but Goliath and I didn't come for the view. God's house is no rodeo arena; it's a working ranch.

(John Bruington is pastor of the Presbyterian Church in Havre, Montana. Copies of the "Out Our Way" column and cartoon, as well as his weekly cartoon and children's message series, "Bruin-Town Tales," can be viewed at the church website: http://www.havrepres.org. The book "Out Our Way: Theology Under Saddle" is also available at Amazon.com.)