Sermons

Vocation

John Wilkinson                            Third Presbyterian Church
January 28, 2007                     Jeremiah 1:4-10, Luke 4:21-30

It is called “Movie Madness” for a reason. “Movie Madness” is an event sponsored by our presbytery that brings youth from various churches together for an overnight experience. Typically the event happens over the Martin Luther King, Jr. weekend. We meet at 11:30 p.m. Sunday, that’s p.m., at a local movie theater. The doors are locked at midnight, and seven hours and three movies later, we emerge to greet the morning, and this year to greet an ice storm.

It is an odd experience but generally a good one. Lots of caffeine. Lots of sugar. Lots of youth who try their best to avoid conversation with anyone over eighteen. One conversation I had – not with a youth from our church, of course – went something like this. How did you like the movies? Fine. Which one did you like the best? Don’t know.

I tell you all this not only to update you on what our youth program is up to, but to report on this year’s offering of movies. It wasn’t bad. “Night at the Museum.” “The Pursuit of Happyness.” “Freedom Writers.” All three feature divorce, interestingly enough, not as the central plot, but as an important theme. But more so, all three explore issues of career, and as we will more deeply define, vocation.

In “Night at the Museum,” Larry Daley is a chronically unsuccessful dreamer who risks losing visitation rights with his son unless he finds a steady job. He ends up, reluctantly, as the night watchman at the Museum of Natural History, where he discovers that the exhibits – from dinosaurs to mummies to Teddy Roosevelt – come alive at night. I won’t spoil it for you, (unless I just did!), but you might presume that everything turns out all right in the end.

The second two movies, both based on real-life stories, provide more ample food for thought. “The Pursuit of Happyness” recounts the story of Chris Gardner, played very well by Will Smith, and his journey from a happily married salesman of medical equipment through a bitter divorce and into homelessness. Gardner maintained custody of his son Christopher and protects him – even in homelessness – with a ferocious affection that takes the movie beyond the typical sentiment.

Gardner is accepted into an internship program at Dean Witter, and becomes the only one out of 20 in the program who is offered a permanent position, which he will turn into a lucrative practice. The moment when he receives the job offer is portrayed with appropriate understatement, as Gardner responds with relief rather than celebration, realizing how devastating poverty is, and how fragile the human condition can be.

In “Freedom Writers,” Hilary Swank plays Erin Gruwell, a first-time teacher hatched from the affluence of Newport Beach landing in the gang-controlled, resource-deficient school district of Long Beach. Violence, isolation and indifference rule the school halls and classroom, fed by an indifferent school administration. The Latinos sit in one section of the classroom, the Cambodians in another, the African-Americans in another. Fights break-out regularly, street violence threatens students and their families, learning is impossible.

But not for Miss Gruwell. With her very white skin and very white pearls, she reaches the children through a journaling project; they become the “Freedom Writers,” and eventually bond with one another and with learning. Her experience is more mixed, as her devotion to the job, to her students, to her fight with the school administration intensifies. Her father, initially skeptical and viewing her crusade as a lark, eventually comes around. Her husband cannot.

At a deeper level, each film, and particularly the latter two, raise the issues that we face every day, and provide complex responses based on real-life, or at last real-life via Hollywood.

* What will we be?
* What will we do?
* What are we good at?
* What are we committed to?
* What happens when what we are good at doesn’t work out so well?
* What happens when we get stuck doing something that provides little satisfaction?
* What happens when what we are good at takes us to places, unexpected places, unfamiliar places, unwanted places?

Hollywood is good at rags to riches, pull-yourself-up-by-the-bootstrap fairy tales. We know better.

Last week, in Luke’s gospel, Jesus claimed his vocation. He showed up at his home synagogue, where people were bursting with pride. They spoke well of him, it is reported, and were amazed. So far, so good. And then, this morning, he puts the hammer down, telling him how they have ignored the widow and neglected the leper. Happy home-town welcome turns to congregational rage. Not only did they run him out of town, but nearly threw him over a cliff, literally, until he escaped. So much for a vocation of comfort, a smooth career path. And we know where it all will lead.

Earlier, several centuries earlier, a word came to a young man named Jeremiah: “I knew you. I consecrated you. I appointed you a prophet.” Jeremiah spoke back: I am too young. I have no skills or abilities.” The voice speaking the word would have none of it: “This is not you speaking. Do not be afraid. I will be with you.”

Rarely do we get that specific of a word, and rarely are we offered the platform offered to Jesus. For most of us, the call unfolds more gradually, over time.

But every day, every important moment, opportunities present themselves whereby we are called to respond with a prophetic response, a transformative response that transforms both us and the situation for the sake of justice and compassion. Every day.

We may not be Jeremiah, and we are certainly not Jesus, but we are all children of God given gifts and graces to respond in prophetic and redemptive ways.

It is a classic biblical theme, God calling people who consider themselves un-callable. Moses, with his apparent speech impediment. Jeremiah, with his apparent age disqualification. The disciples, a bunch of fishers with little apparent potential for upward mobility. It is God’s way.

We heard the last few weeks from Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians. Paul, another unlikely call recipient, insists to the church at Corinth that all are given gifts and all are an integral and indispensable part of the body. No gift, no calling, is unimportant or secondary.

When the church of the middle ages veered away from that understanding, vesting too much power and authority in the elite, the priests, the Protestant Reformation brought us back on track. The doctrinal term is the “priesthood of all believers.” God has placed the call in all of our ears. It took a reformation to return it there, and we have been exploring that notion ever since.

It has not always been easy. In the United States over the last century, we have made the very unhelpful move of equating call and vocation with career and profession, thus equating who we are with what we do and therefore what we are worth. That was, and is, a mistake.

We should remember what Karl Barth said one time, that “one’s calling is never exhausted in one’s profession.”

We need to reclaim the biblical idea that God calls us, that all have work to do, that all work is valued and all who do it are valuable. We also need to be very careful when we equate the work that may, or may not, earn us money, with a blessing, or lack thereof, from God. It is simpler than that and more complex at the same time.

In Wishful Thinking: A Seeker’s ABC, Frederick Buechner writes: “There are all different kinds of voices calling you to all different kinds of work, and the problem is to find out which is the voice of God rather than of society, or the superego, or self interest.”

Buechner continues: “The kind of work God usually calls you to is the kind of work (a) that you need to do and (b) that the world needs to have done. If you find your work rewarding, you have presumably met requirement (a), but if your work does not benefit others, the chances are you have missed requirement (b). On the other hand, if your work does benefit others, you have probably met requirement (b), but if most of the time you are unhappy with it, the chances are you have not only bypassed (a) but probably aren’t helping your customers much either.”

And then this well-known statement: “… The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.”

I believe that. But I believe we need to be thoughtful in how we identify that, and how we discern both gladness and hunger.

For some, it will be staying home and caring for children. For some, it will be law school. For some, it will be driving a truck. For some, it will be earning as much money as possible, and then using non-working hours and financial resources to make a difference. For some it will be entering a career path where compensation is notoriously and chronically low, and always will be.

In Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation, Parker Palmer writes that “…Vocation does not mean a goal that I pursue. It means a calling that I hear. Before I can tell my life what I want to do with it, I must listen to my life telling me who I am. I must listen for the truths and values at the heart of my own identity, not the standards by which I must live – but the standards by which I cannot help but live if I am living my own life.” (4-5)

Palmer continues: “Today I understand vocation quite differently – not as a goal to be achieved but as a gift to be received. Discovering vocation does not mean scrambling toward some prize just beyond my reach but accepting the treasure of true self I already possess. Vocation does not come from a voice ‘out there’ calling me to become something I am not. It comes from a voice ‘in here’ calling me to be the person I was born to be, to fulfill the original selfhood given me at birth by God.” (10)

It is true that not all can be teachers in the worst inner-city settings. But it is equally true that we who believe in a transcendent, sovereign God believe that that same God has something to do with every choice we make, and the way those choices play themselves out in the real world.

We are all not to be lawyers – insert your favorite lawyer joke here – but those of us who are lawyers are called to practice that profession with integrity and honor. Same with ministers, doctors, fry cooks, undertakers, athletes. Our calling may not be as a night watchman, a stock broker, a teacher. But it certainly is to use our gifts fully, to push ourselves to do more than we think ourselves able, to work for justice, peace, righteousness, to be the best partner, spouse, parent, neighbor, citizen we can possibly be, and to nurture and encourage our children – in our homes and in this church – to do the same.

We say we are not capable – the voice says otherwise. We say that simply cannot be our calling – the voice says otherwise.

Perhaps the call leads you to a new profession, a new career. Perhaps it leads you to continue on the same career path, but with a new set of values and principles. Perhaps it leads you to a new volunteer opportunity that you engage beyond 9-to-5 and in which you find a meaning you never thought possible.

I do not know – I only know that you are called. That’s a promise. And that you are given gifts. That’s a promise as well. And that when the voice calls, and it will call, that your answer will change your life and make a difference in the world.

That’s why I am announcing this morning that we are forming an exploratory committee, a vocation exploratory committee. We are all members of it, declared candidates.

* God knows us.
* God consecrates us.
* God appoints us.
* The voice is calling.
* The vocation is waiting.
* There is work to do.

Let us pray. How clear is our vocation Lord, when once we heed your call: to live according to your word, and daily learn, refreshed, restored, that you are Lord of all and will not let us fall. Amen.