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What is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life? What will we do with our lives – our work, our livelihood, our passions? Do we have a calling? What is our vocation? The late theologian William Placher (Callings) reminds us that the words – “vocation” and “calling” – are interchangeable. And then he reminds us that some big questions are raised when we ponder those words. * Is my job my vocation? Placher reminds us of Frederick Buechner’s well-known affirmation in his little book called Wishful Thinking. “God,” Buchener asserts, “calls you to the kind of work a) that you most need to do and b) that the world most needs to have done – the place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.” That sounds good, but still the questions remain, about fit, about gladness, about hunger. To that point, Placher reminds us that our understanding has evolved, from a time when the only worthy vocations were religious ones to the Reformation affirmation that every job is vocation through the Industrial Revolution and into the modern technological age and a current nervousness about identifying vocation with job and career. And since it is a central human matter, it is a central Biblical issue, or vice versa. Countless Old Testament episodes have God calling unlikely people, who often responded grudgingly, to do the important work of the faith. And in the Gospels, time after time, people ask Jesus about what they should do with their lives. They understand that what they do in the here and now is connected with their salvation. They often don’t like what Jesus has to say to them, perhaps a disconnect with hunger and need, or what we heard last week, that the gospel says something about gaining your life by losing it, profiting by giving it away, the risky costs of discipleship. And this morning. Jesus is traveling with his disciples. We don’t know exactly what this looked like, but you can only imagine them in clusters here and there, shooting the breeze, discussing the Bills’ loss to the Patriots, debating health-care reform. Sometimes a noble conversation, other times small talk or gossip. They stopped at a house in Capernaum to re-group. “What were you arguing about on the way?” They must have stared at the ground or whatever one does when one wants to avoid the topic and avoid direct eye contact. Because what they had been discussing was rank and position – who was the greatest, the most popular, the most influential, the one disciple that Jesus couldn’t possibly do without. And they realized how very unseemly a discussion this was, and they were embarrassed. So Jesus transforms their discussion, turns it inside out. “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.” You all might have been asking the right question, he suggests, but your criteria were WAY off. Greatness derives from servanthood. Every question about vocation and calling, what you will do with your one wild and precious life, is answered with Jesus’ vision of greatness, not our own, not the culture’s or the market’s, a vision whose sole credential is a willingness to serve, to give away, to risk loss, a reversal of status and values. Who would have thought? Well, by now you must be asking yourself what John Calvin had to say about all of this. Funny you should ask. We are commemorating the 500th anniversary of Calvin’s birth in sermons and classes here and there. But even if we weren’t, Calvin would have much to say in a discussion about vocation and calling. It is a distinctive element of his theology. In Book III, Chapter 10, Section 6 of his Institutes of the Christian Religion, Calvin writes that “God has appointed duties for every man (and woman) in his (or her) particular way of life, named ‘callings.’ Each individual has (their) own kind of living assigned to (them) by the Lord as a sort of sentry post so they may not heedlessly wander about throughout life – …we know that the Lord’s calling is in everything the beginning and foundation of well-doing… it will be no slight relief from cares, labors, troubles and other burdens for (one) to know that God is (their) guidance in all these things.” Once one knows that they have been assigned a role by God, Calvin says… “a magistrate will discharge his functions more willingly, the head of the household will confine himself to his duty, each (one) will bear and swallow the discomforts, vexations, weariness and anxieties in his way of life.” And if you are not happy, satisfied, with the assignment God has given you, Calvin offers this well-known affirmation: “that no task will be so sordid or base, provided you obey your calling in it, that it will not shine and be reckoned very precious in God’s sight.” In an article called “Calvin and the Christian Calling,” (First Things 94 (June/July 1999): 31-35.), the English theologian Alister McGrath writes about Calvin’s understanding: “The idea of a calling or vocation is first and foremost about being called by God, to serve (God) within (God’s) world. Work was thus seen as an activity by which Christians could deepen their faith, leading it on to new qualities of commitment to God. Activity within the world, motivated, informed, and sanctioned by Christian faith, was the supreme means by which the believer could demonstrate his or her commitment and thankfulness to God. To do anything for God, and to do it well, was the fundamental hallmark of authentic Christian faith. God places individuals where (God) wants them to be, which explains Calvin’s criticism of human ambition (like that of the disciples, I would add) as an unwillingness to accept the sphere of action God has allocated to us. Social status is an irrelevance, a human invention of no spiritual importance; one cannot allow the human evaluation of an occupation’s importance to be placed above the judgment of God who put you there. The work of believers is thus seen to possess a significance that goes far beyond the visible results of that work. It is the person working, as much as the resulting work, that is significant to God. There is no distinction between spiritual and temporal, sacred and secular work. All human work, however lowly, is capable of glorifying God. Work is, quite simply, an act of praise—a potentially productive act of praise. Work glorifies God, it serves the common good, and it is something through which human creativity can express itself.” Well, that was then, as they say. This is now. There is much with which to agree, and some with which to fuss. We are not bound to Calvin in any way, except that it feels to me that considering his affirmations about work and worth and how they bump into society’s affirmations may be worth the conversation. It may be particularly true in the face of our economic crisis. We 21st century citizens and Christians have made mistakes, about how we use our time, about equating our work with our worth, about ranking the value of work and jobs. We are revisiting much of that these days. A whole slew of books is asking very interesting questions. In How Starbucks Saved My Life, Michael Gates Gill tells his story of losing a high-paying advertising position and finding redemption by finding a new career, and new purpose, by serving up lattes to people with whom he once identified. In a fascinating book called Shop Class as Soulcraft: An Inquiry into the Value of Work, Matthew Crawford calls our culture into a consideration of what it has lost by separating “thinking” from “doing.’ Crawford describes his own journey from think tank director to the proprietor of a motorcycle repair shop. I am intrigued about how we re-connect – in our vocations and avocations – our hands and mind and heart in what we do, so that what we do and who we are becomes more holistic and integrated. Barbara Brown Taylor provides an articulate response to our question of the day. In a chapter on vocation called “The Practice of Living with Purpose” in her new book An Altar in the World, Taylor writes “In my life so far, I have been a babysitter, an Avon lady, a cashier, a cheese-packer, a horseback riding instructor, a nursing unit clerk, a cocktail waitress, a secretary, a newspaper reporter, an editor, a fund-raiser, a special events coordinator, a teacher of creative writing, a hospital chaplain, a pastor, a preacher, and a college professor…I still have not given up on becoming a chef, a jewelry maker, a travel writer, a zookeeper, a chambermaid, a bookstore manager, or – the most secret, thrilling vocational desire of all – a member of…Cirque de Soleil…” (Pages 107-108) Taylor explores the journey many of us have experienced – what we do and who we are, finding a sense of purpose in our work, the difficulty of finding meaningful work, or when paid work does not always feed our hearts. She tells of her experience of searching, and God’s voice coming to her: “Do anything that pleases you,” the voice said, “and belong to me.” (Page 110)1 Perhaps that sense of belonging to God in all we do allows us to filter out the confusion and competing values, and to make choices about how we will seek out purpose in our lives and find meaningful work. In his classic The Call of Service, Robert Coles writes of a variety of opportunities in which the call can take place, whether in paid work or beyond it. He writes of social and political struggle, community service, personal gestures and encounters, charity, religiously sanctioned action, government sanctioned action, service to country. Coles acknowledges what we know, the satisfaction that serving provides, in something done and someone reached, the moral purpose and the personal affirmation. He also acknowledges that weariness and resignation may be a part of all this, or cynicism, or anger or bitterness, or burnout, or even despair. But he reminds us what Jesus taught us, what Calvin understood, and all the people we know and value who have somehow – in their own vocations – discerned that divine balance, that while the call of service is a call toward others – heart, mind and soul – is it also a call inward, a call to oneself. (Page 284) What does all of this mean for us? It means that one conversation about vocation should elicit a million more, in our hearts, with our family and friends, in the context of this community, because it is a central question of faith. What will we do with our one wild and precious life? * Claim the calling and vocation that has been given to you
as a profound gift by a gracious God. All to the glory of God. Amen.
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