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Week 23

Mike Wagenman, University of Western Ontario

 Easter and Resurrection Living

Finding Your Vocation

23.1   A Brand New Life

Read Matthew 20.20-28  

The resurrection of Jesus has changed everything. History has reached its point of fullness, the ancient promises have been fulfilled, God's New Creation has been born. And the reverberations of this historical event reach us, even today.
   
The resurrection means that even your work (whether before or after graduation) is transformed. Now, just doing anything that pays the bills or seeking greater glory or salary for self - these have gone out of style for the Christ-follower living in the wake of the resurrection.
   
In Matthew 20, we read an exchange between Jesus and his disciples from before his Passion. Jesus is pointing the way ahead into God's New Creation, turning age-old assumptions on their heads. "From now on," Jesus says, "you are called to be a counter-culture of service."
   
For the Christian student imagining life after graduation, vocation is the goal instead of career or money or recognition or status. The only greatness in the life of God's New Creation comes by way of service. The one who is first in the Kingdom of God is the one who has given their life way for others.
   
Jesus aims high - much higher than we're often comfortable with. But that's because Jesus desires a brand new life for us - a life in God's New Creation. Jesus' goal is our life in him working its way out into every area of our being - work included.
   
Ask yourself today: How is God calling me to serve his Creation? What gifts and experiences have shaped me which in turn can be given to others? Where is the world still in the groaning pains of birthing something Kingdom-new? Aim for a vocation of service.

Prayer:  God of new beginnings, inspire within me a Kingdom-dream for the world. Lead me into discovering my vocation in you and for the good of your Creation. Amen.

Quote:  "Remember your Creator during your youth: when all possibilities lie open before you and you can offer all your strength intact for his service. The time to remember is not after you become senile and paralyzed! Then it is not too late for your salvation, but too late for you to serve as the presence of God in the midst of the world and the creation. You must take sides earlier - when you can actually make choices, when you have many paths opening at your feet, before the weight of necessity overwhelms you."  ~Jacques Ellul, Reason for Being: A Meditation on Ecclesiastes, 282

 

23.2  Soli Deo Gloria

Read 1Corinthians 10.23-33

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750), the great German composer and organist, concluded each of his masterpiece compositions by scratching the initials "S. D. G." at the bottom of each musical score. Those initials stood for Soli Deo Gloria (Latin for "glory to God alone"), a sentiment paralleled by the Westminster Catechism's first question and answer: "What is the chief end of man? To glorify God and enjoy him forever."
  
In the midst of a multitude of occupational choices today, each person has at least one calling in life, one vocation: to glorify God. Each of us does this in our own personal ways: by placing our allegiance and trust in Jesus Christ, by living lives in step with God's Spirit, by being hospitable, kind, gracious, etc.
   
The Presbyterian pastor and author Frederick Beuchner says that you will find your vocation, your occupational calling, at the intersection of "where your deep gladness and the world's deep hunger meet." What are you good at? What natural skills and desires has God worked into the fabric of your life? These kinds of questions point to where our deep gladness will be found. Where does the world's brokenness need mending? How does the Kingdom of God need to come more fully in your area of influence? These kinds of questions will point to where the world's deep hunger lies.
   
Lee Hardy, professor of philosophy at Calvin College, says in his book The Fabric of This World that "work is the social place where people can exercise the gifts that God has given them in the service of others." Discern that social place where you can make a difference for Christ and his Kingdom. In whatever you do, bring glory to God alone.

Prayer:  God of glory, you have given to me the entire length, breadth, height, and depth of Creation as a place to use my gifts. Empower me to discern and to develop a way of bringing you glory by serving those around me. Amen.

Quote:  "Beyond the consciousness of everyday reality, or perhaps more accurately, beneath it, submerged below the stream of thoughts and perceptions that occupy normal waking attention, lies a system of symbols and images that evokes a larger coherence and meaning than that found in everyday reality. This level of consciousness derives from the impulse for 'something more' in which to embed the reality of day-to-day existence."
Robert Wuthnow, The Consciousness Reformation, 71.

 

 

23.3  Vocation and Doubt   

Read Psalm 23

Almost every student, at some point in their educational journey, wonders what career field they should go into - and rightly so. Should I become a business-person, creating employment opportunities and community resources? Should I enter a trade and provide a needed service to a particular subset of society? Should I enter full-time Christian ministry and extend the Kingdom of God by shepherding people through life? At times, it may feel as if there is no real way to know for sure.

That is to say, vocational questions often cause doubt to enter the picture. And this isn't all bad. It doesn't mean anything is wrong. It's a part of life. And, it can be part of the pathway to clarity.

James R. Horne, professor emeritus of philosophy at the University of Waterloo, would agree. Life is organic and the journey or pilgrimage metaphor is often very apt. The process of growing into adulthood, also, is one that requires openness to the future and to the changes that different life experiences can bring. In fact, the process of moving from darkness to light is a theme that runs throughout the Bible. Moving from the darkness of doubt to the clarity of light is a process that takes time, often involves struggle and personal pain, and has to be sought out. It's not automatic. And, you have to keep moving to make your way.

So as you face career choices, occupational options, questions of vocation, take heart that the pathway of life and faith sometimes involves navigating one's way through shady, shadowy, and outright dark places. Doubt is sometimes a necessary ingredient in the quest for clarity. Feeling tossed about on life's stormy seas, for the vast numbers of your Christian contemporaries and forebears, has eventually resulted in finding safe docking in port.

Prayer:  God of Light, shine the light of your Word upon my path. Show me the next step to take as I discern how to follow you in life. Amen.

Quote:  "Modernity has accomplished many far-reaching transformations, but it has not fundamentally changed the finitude, fragility and mortality of the human condition."
~Peter Berger, The Homeless Mind, 185.

 

23.4   Vocation:  Getting Involved with the World

Read John 1.1-18

St. John writes in the opening verses of his Gospel that "the Word became flesh and blood and moved into the neighbourhood" (John 1.14, The Message) - the grace of God finds us, not the other way around. The grace of God finds us right here, right now - in this Creation that God created very good and that we infected with sin and rebellion.
   
But, what does one do when the neighborhood in which the grace of God finds us is caught in the stranglehold of evil and brokenness? This is the question that German pastor and theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer faced during World War 2 and answered by saying that "Vocation is responsibility, and responsibility is the whole response of the whole person to reality as a whole" (Ethics).
   
Vocation is much more than what I as an individual person does with my own personal time, skill, and effort. Vocation is my complete response to Christ which plays itself out in every way imaginable.
  
Where in your neighbourhood is there brokenness? Christ calls you to take responsibility and mend it. Where in your neighbourhood is there beauty? Christ calls you to live responsibly and tend it. Christian vocation means making a difference for good in the world.
  
But sometimes living out one's vocation responsibly will mean intentionally putting one's self in harm's way. Bonhoeffer, an eyewitness to the horror of the Nazi regime, committed himself to a plot to assassinate Hitler. He was arrested, imprisoned, and died a martyr one month prior to the end of the war. It was his vocation: it was his response to the call of Christ to live responsibly for the sake of the whole world.

Prayer:  God, you have called to me in Jesus Christ. Prepare me for action in your world that I may respond to your call with my entire being. Amen.

Quote:  "In an age of relativity the practice of truth when it is costly is the only way to cause the world to take seriously our protestations concerning truth."
~Francis Schaeffer, The God Who Is There, 169 (italics original).

 

23. 5   Vocational Sirens

Read 1Corinthians 10.1-13

In Homer's epic saga, The Odyssey, Odysseus must sail through danger after danger. One such danger was the tempting song of the sirens, beautiful sea nymphs who sang out to sailors and lured them to their death. Having been warned ahead of time about them by his friend Circe, Odysseus was proactive and ordered his crew to stuff their ears with beeswax and lash him to the mast lest he succumb and endanger them all. As they sailed past the sirens, Odysseus screamed and thrashed under the influence of their beautiful music, but they survived, even if Odysseus' curiosity brought them all gravely close to the brink of disaster.

The analogy to our lives is obvious: there will be many voices calling to us as we attempt to discern our occupational vocation. The voice of Family Expectations will sound loudly in our ears. Society will try her darndest to get our attention. Self will surely sound enticing. Money and Fame and Gluttony and Jealousy will all be part of the chorus. And in the mix, God's "still, small voice" may hardly be discernible.

What is one to do? Like Odysseus, lash yourself to the mast. Drive deep stakes down into your certainties. Trust unswervingly in what God has revealed to you. Know yourself. Stay connected to God through his Word. Gather around you trusted, wise friends who will tell you the truth.
  
Commit yourself to what you need to do as well as what the world needs done. You may want to go into advertising, but the world doesn't need more people smoking cigarettes. The world may need more "jungle doctors" (to use Albert Schweitzer's phrase), but if it will bore you it probably won't be a blessing to your patients.
   
In this regard, don't be like Odysseus: decide today to stop your ears to those sirens' voices that don't need a curious ear listening for them.

Prayer:  God, send your Holy Spirit to me so that I may discern your voice in the clamoring multitudes of voices bombarding me with their calls. Grow a desire within me to train my ears for you and stop my ears to whatever would compete with you. Amen.

Quote:  "A man's morality is his religion enacted in social experience."
~Langdon Gilkey, Shantung Compound: The Story of Men and Women Under Pressure, 233.

 

23.6  Vocation and Community    

Read Galatians 6.1-10

Let's face it: we live in an individualistic culture. It's so easily all about my job, my paycheque, my status, my possessions, my standard of living. We are a broken people - even in Christ - and we need community. And so finding our vocation as Christ-disciples should involve some recognition of our brokenness as well - and how we, too, need community around us to make us whole.
   
The author Will Campbell tells a story about meeting a high wire artist one night when the circus rolled into town. Campbell asked him why he got up there night after night, flinging himself through the air, relying totally on others to earn his living. At first the high wire artist said he appreciated the cheers, the applause, making "children of all ages" happy, and then became more transparent. "'Now you really want to know why I go up there on that damned thing night after night after night?' I said I did. 'Man, I would have quit it a long time ago. But my sister is up there. And my wife and my father are up there. My sister has more troubles than Job. My wife is a devil-may-care nut and my old man is getting older. If I wasn't up there, some bad night, man...smash!' His foot stomped on the floor with a bone cracking thud...'But why do they stay up there?' [I asked]...'Because I drink too much!'" (from William D. Campbell, "Vocation as Grace," in Callings! ed. James Y. Holloway and Will D. Campbell [New York, Paulist Press, 1974], pp. 279-280.)
   
It's true: we're not as put-together as we imagine ourselves to be. And so we need others to be Christ to us in community. So, as you discern vocation, considerations of friends and family, support networks, geographical familiarity, issues of stability and change, and personal shortcomings and brokenness, while not primary, should be factored into our process of discernment.
   
God did not create humanity as a mess of automatons. We were created out of and for community - created in the image of our God who is Trinity - a fountain of overflowing, eternal community.

Prayer:  Triune God, you have blessed me with community close by, far away, and even with your very self. Thank you for the communities that help shape who I am. Help me hold the communities I am a part of in an open palm.  Amen.

Quote:  "For boys do not need the art of grammar which teaches correct speech if they have the opportunity to grow up and live among men who speak correctly."
~St. Augustine, On Christian Doctrine, Book 4.

 

23. 7 Vocation and Paid Employment 

Read Matthew 22.15-22

Finding one's vocation doesn't mean you've figured out what job to get. Vocation and employment are two distinct (though, we hope, overlapping) things. And, just because one doesn't have paid employment doesn't mean they don't have a vocation.
   
I have a friend whose wife's vocation is to be a friend. I have another friend whose vocation is to make as much money as is ethically possible in order to give as much money to Christian organizations as possible. I know people whose vocations are to introduce people to Jesus Christ, to teach the Bible to people, to train native pastors in other cultures, to mentor the next generation of leaders in the church and the world. But you won't find a job opening on Monster.com with any of these titles. Sometimes vocation and employment don't equate.
  
People often discover their callings via one of two routes. For some, they have been born into a historical, economic, or cultural situation where there are limited employment options and the task becomes to fit one's job into a larger vision of service to God and neighbour. For others, a process of discernment - the matching of experiences and skills with opportunities - must narrow down the employment field to positions that are decided upon rather logically. The former route has actually been the case for the vast majority of people around the world and throughout history. The near-limitless career opportunities present in the wealthier parts of the world today is a rather new and isolated development.
   
One would hope that questions of vocation and the practicalities of finding paid employment would run along parallel paths. But finding paid employment that exactly matches our calling may be very hard, even within the Christian world. There are many factors which may preclude one from finding paid employment that allows one to fully pursue their vocation.
  
So, keep your priorities straight. As you seek to live out your vocation in God's New Creation, aim for your vocation in Christ first, employment second.

Prayer:  Jesus Christ, Lord of All, my primary allegiance belongs to you alone. Open doors for me to live out of my calling in you. And when the door refuses to open, keep my loyal to you and your calling in my life. Amen.

Quote:  "Life develops new purpose, value, and significance as we discover and share our mission. Life is more than a job. Jobs come and go, whither and fade. We may have several in the course of our lives. Our identity is not in some institution or business. That way of achieving identity no longer works. it is an illusion. The meaning of life is in the mission."
~Kennon L. Callahan, Twelve Keys for Living: Possibilities for a Whole, Healthy Life.