Most people think that a pastor's primary job is to preach on Sundays, and so all the emphasis goes into how good of a sermon they can deliver. This is not a pastor, this is a person who delivers a TEDx talk once a week.
The word "pastor" comes from Latin and literally means "shepherd." The word used in Greek which is translated as "pastor" in most English translations literally just means "shepherd". Shepherds don't stand up and give a rousing speech to their flocks once a week. Shepherds watch their flocks for hours on end and through the night as they graze to keep them safe from predators. Shepherds (in particular ancient shepherds) don't hand feed their sheep generally. They move them, guiding them from safe pasture to safe pasture and watch over them while they graze on the greens they find there. Each sheep and lamb represents a serious investment of time and resources, and so each one matters. Sheep are going to be sheep, which means they are going to get themselves in trouble on occasion. The shepherd doesn't judge them for it. He doesn't punish them for it (seriously, you really can't train sheep worth anything). He plans for it and takes care that they don't get into too much trouble. If one sheep wanders too far away, they go after them and guide them back to the rest of the flock so that none of them are lost. If one of the flock gets stuck, they take the time to free it. If one of the flock is injured, they care for it. They do all this because each head of livestock matters to the owner of the flock, and a loss of even one represents a financial blow. All of this is doubly true if the shepherd himself is the owner of the flock.
My favorite story which exemplifies what it means to be a pastor comes from Eusebius' History of the Church. In it, he relates a story about the Apostle John in his later years before he died. A much older, very senior John brought a young man whom he had been discipling and left him in the care of the bishop of a certain town in Asia Minor and then left for a while needing to travel elsewhere. After John was gone for a while, the young man fell away and fell in with a gang of thieves and bandits and eventually ran away to their hideout at the top of a mountain. When John returned he asked the Bishop for the "treasure" he had left in his care. Confused, the Bishop didn't know what he was talking about. Then John clarified that he was talking about the young man. The Bishop then explained what had happened, and without saying as much had basically written him off. John however, a man in his eighties or nineties, took it upon himself to travel the dangerous path up into the mountains on his own to the bandits' hideout to find the young man to plead with him to return with him. He stayed there for days, weeks maybe until finally he had reached the young man and he agreed to return with the Apostle.
This is what it means to be a pastor. As pastors, we are given care or charge of those the Lord brings into our lives to watch over, guide, and protect from predators. It is our responsibility, not to hand feed the sheep, but to guide them to safe pastures where they can graze. If one wanders off or runs because another shepherd has abused it, it is our responsibility to care for it and do everything we are empowered to do to bring it home. I have heard and seen far too many pastors write off sheep who run or wander as not worth the effort because they have the rest of the flock to watch.
The primary job of a pastor is to care and be responsible with the sheep they are given to watch, not to deliver speeches whatever the context. It is a demanding, twenty-four hour, on call job which may or may not pay enough to support the pastor much less a family. Sermons and homilies are a part of the job, but they are only a part of the whole job.
As pastors, we need to remember what the word "pastor" actually means, and the picture it is meant to evoke.
