Lectionay Reading: 1 Peter 2:2-10
Five years ago a phenomenon in Christian publishing changed the way many people see faith and life. That phenomenon was “The Purpose Driven Life” by Rick Warren. Published in 2002, it became an international best seller for people looking for some meaning and purpose in their existing by teaching that God has a purpose for each person and the things that happen. However, the book has garnered as much criticism as acclaim. From its lack of the gospel message, to its “new age-like” feel for devotional but not missional understanding the book has some folks wondering what people are really seeking that drives them to this work.
Although I find some parts of the book quite helpful, I am one of the critics in general, not because of the main idea – but of the way that idea is presented. (I am also not too happy with the mass merchandising of faith – but I’ll write that in the “Purpose Driven Journal” with my “Purpose Driven Pen” after I drink from my “Purpose Driven coffee cup”). My concern is expressed in the very title of the book – the word “Driven”.
According to the dictionary, driven means, “being propelled or pushed forward. Having a compulsive or urgent nature”. Mature Christianity isn’t about God pushing us along or a compulsive need requiring us to participate. Christianity is about our willingness to go, because of our love for and relationship with our creator. People who are “driven” are often singularly visioned, inflexible, and uninvolved with the people or places around them. Think of a work addict – someone so consumed or driven by work that they take work on vacation, ignore their family and soon lose perspective of the rest of the world. We are not created to be driven – even by an idea like our divine purpose – we as God’s children are instructed to be called.
We are to be called, not driven.
The lectionary scripture in FirstPeter reveals a treatise on what we are called to be – living stones building the body of faith as temple of the Christ by our actions and behaviors. But in that treatise is a list of who we are called to be.
9But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. 10Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.
Identity - A Chosen People
One of the things that the converts from Judaism to Christianity were missing was their status as “chosen”. As the Hebrew people they had been raised for generations with the fact they were God’s own people – chosen and called to proclaim the name of God. When they converted to Christianity, there was a sense of confusion and loss in some early communities. They asked, “we were once God’s chosen people. Now who are we?” This book goes to remind them that they are still chosen of God and still were a people proclaiming the name of God.
It is a humbling and beautiful thing to realize we are not Christians because we chose God, or were driven to God. We are Christians because God chose us – humanity – to create, relate to and reveal the relationship to. We are a chosen people called to relationship.
Service - A Royal Priesthood
There are two services offered to God in the Old Testament: those done by prophets, and those done by priests. A prophet is someone who brings the message of God to the people. A priest is someone who brings the people to God. That’s our role – we are part of a royal priesthood – we are not called to speak for God. We are called to bring the people to God. Imagine how embracing and powerful the church would be if we remembered that we are a priesthood – called to serve and to connect.
Community – A Holy Nation
A nation is a collective of people, with different traits, backgrounds and gifts, who live within the some territory and hold a common bond. We as Christians are called to be God’s nation – not defined by our country – but by our citizenship is heaven. A nation is not made of people who are the same, but by people with the same foundational contract. To the age old question “well, can’t I just worship God at home alone?” the answer is Yes – but the call is for us to be together – to be a nation of Christ on earth.
So that’s who we are – living stones. We are not people meant to be driven by internal goals or external faith precepts. We are people meant to be called by the clear voice of God, forgiven by the grace of Christ and gathered into one people.
Showing posts with label Calling. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Calling. Show all posts
Sunday, April 20, 2008
Saturday, January 12, 2008
Hearing Your Vocation
Lectionary Passage: Matthew 3:1-3, 13-16
One of the neat structures in the Old Testament is the many forms of poetry that exist between the pages. There are acronymic poems in proverbs and psalms (each verse starting with a letter of the Hebrew alphabet in succession), cuplets, doublets, and something very close to the idea of a sonnet. However, that poetry isn’t just found in the pages of the people of Israel. The New Testament has some poetic elements in it as well. Matthew 3 is a perfect example. It starts and ends in a circular pattern. It begins with John’s voice calling (Latin – “vocatio” or “de voco”) and it ends with God’s voice calling (Latin “de voco”). The first call is fulfilling the scripture “Repent. Prepare the way for the Lord”, the second call is “This is my son, whom I love.” (in another text we are also called to listen to him). It is clear in the beautiful circle of God interacting with people that we are called. We are invoked (invoco). But to what?
It’s not hard to see how we get confused. The same word used in these scriptures is the root of the word we use for the word “vocation”. But the meaning of the word “vocation” has been irreparably damaged by both secular and religious language. It is up to us, in the story of Jesus’ baptism to find its true meaning.
Vocation: It’s not your job!
In the secular world “vocation” (verb of invoco) is a word we use to describe the job we have. We even use it to describe a type of schooling that teaches job skills over academic accomplishments. Remember Grease? “If you can’t pass high school, there’s always hair school!” We have begun to think of the word “vocation” as an every day working word or descriptive of “career”. This brings us into great confusion – suddenly we mix our identity with our job and lose huge chunks of our self, our time and our sanity. I’ve heard it from many professions:
“Nursing isn’t what I do, it’s who I am!”
“I don’t teach for a living, I’m a teacher!”
“The accountant in me doesn’t rest, even on Sundays!”
and something I was told after I retired from pulpit ministry
“How can you retire from who you are?”
But vocation – the call of God - isn’t about that thing we do because we have a contract, or a pay check, or a schedule. Vocation is to be called of God and hear that voice telling us who we are – defining us by our relationship with God. It is not telling us to define who we are by what job we do. Jesus comes to John the Baptist as a rabbi – a teacher. But just as John’s first call was to “repent!” – Christ’s response is to come to him for baptism – to repent of the past, and start anointed with a public witness of the fact he is a child of God, first and foremost. Although John points out Jesus doesn’t need to repent, Jesus says he needs baptism and as a child of God wants to start out like the rest of us.
Notice God didn’t say “This is my teacher” or “This is my healer” or “This is my minister”. God said “This is my son, whom I love.” Jesus would be a rabbi, healer, minister, savior and so many other things but first his vocation was to be God’s son.
So it is with you. You are God’s daughter. You are God’s son. You are beloved of God. That’s your calling. That’s your identity. That’s your job. The places God puts you, the jobs God will give you, are guided and blessed because you are God’s child.
This may sound like semantics, but in our world it can have very serious consequences. Mixing up your identity with your employment can have lasting and bitter effects. I have known many people who lost their jobs, and nearly lost their minds. Suddenly without their work they seem to lose so much of themselves that they begin to treat their partner/husband/wife with hostility, they either ignore their children or become hyper-critical of them – pressuring them to “do better than I did” or “go into nursing/teaching/computers/funeral directing so you will always have a job”. They sink into depression, despair, and chaos. Why? Because they have lost a part of themselves. In counseling folks in that situation, I have frequently used this scripture of Christ’s baptism to bring them back to the starting point – to who they are. God's child. Don’t lose that. Don’t forget it.
Vocation: It’s not your religion
The clergy have done just as much damage to the word vocation as the secular world. We throw that word around to mean “religious life” (if you’re catholic), or to have a calling to work in the church – minister, missionary, youth worker, musician. We talk about ministers being “called” without remembering that teachers, nurses, army folks and the unemployed are also “called”. I have a friend who is very proud of being a pastor. He talks incessantly about it and claims, sometimes unaware he’s doing it, “pastoral” privileges. I once heard him start a sentence by saying “Jesus was talking to the pastors…” My first thought was “who the heck are they?” Jesus talked to fishermen, tax collectors, lawyers and gatekeepers. There weren’t any “pastors” until much much later. The problem with such thoughts is it creates a hierarchy that destroys the common beautiful witness of God’s people.
Being called to a “religious vocation” makes you no more holy, correct, or spiritual than any one else. Relying on and triumphantly praising professional ministry gives people an opportunity to ignore their vocation as God’s children and bearers of Christ’s light. “Well, I wasn’t called to the ministry so I don’t have to witness,” we say. Or one of the more interesting things I was told once in regard to a person misquoting the bible and causing damage to her family in the process, “Look, Rev. correcting scriptural issues is your job, not mine.”
But we are all called of God, and we are all responsible to shine the light of love and mercy to one another. Don’t downplay your part in bringing the kingdom of God to earth (as it is in heaven). John doesn’t really want to baptize Jesus. It seems silly to him to use a symbol of repentance on someone with no sin. But John is called to baptize and Jesus wants not only to fulfill his ministry but fulfill John’s as well. Jesus didn’t need to be baptized half as much as John needed to baptize him. Supporting the mission and witness of a pastor is a beautiful thing, and clergy add a lot to the spectrum of faith. But the job doesn’t belong simply to the clergy.
One of my favorite old hymns is “Softly and Tenderly” – it reminds us that invocation (which is the act of calling to someone, not just the prayer we say before a fancy dinner or religious event) is not only coming to us from God who calls us son or daughter, and the Holy Spirit who calls us to our job, our gifts and our worship but also from Christ who offers us the greatest vocation of all: coming home.
“Softly and tenderly Jesus is calling,
calling for you and for me;
see, on the portals he's waiting and watching,
watching for you and for me.
Come home, come home;
ye who are weary come home;
earnestly, tenderly, Jesus is calling,
calling, O sinner, come home!”
May we hear, live and love our vocation, now and always. Amen.
One of the neat structures in the Old Testament is the many forms of poetry that exist between the pages. There are acronymic poems in proverbs and psalms (each verse starting with a letter of the Hebrew alphabet in succession), cuplets, doublets, and something very close to the idea of a sonnet. However, that poetry isn’t just found in the pages of the people of Israel. The New Testament has some poetic elements in it as well. Matthew 3 is a perfect example. It starts and ends in a circular pattern. It begins with John’s voice calling (Latin – “vocatio” or “de voco”) and it ends with God’s voice calling (Latin “de voco”). The first call is fulfilling the scripture “Repent. Prepare the way for the Lord”, the second call is “This is my son, whom I love.” (in another text we are also called to listen to him). It is clear in the beautiful circle of God interacting with people that we are called. We are invoked (invoco). But to what?
It’s not hard to see how we get confused. The same word used in these scriptures is the root of the word we use for the word “vocation”. But the meaning of the word “vocation” has been irreparably damaged by both secular and religious language. It is up to us, in the story of Jesus’ baptism to find its true meaning.
Vocation: It’s not your job!
In the secular world “vocation” (verb of invoco) is a word we use to describe the job we have. We even use it to describe a type of schooling that teaches job skills over academic accomplishments. Remember Grease? “If you can’t pass high school, there’s always hair school!” We have begun to think of the word “vocation” as an every day working word or descriptive of “career”. This brings us into great confusion – suddenly we mix our identity with our job and lose huge chunks of our self, our time and our sanity. I’ve heard it from many professions:
“Nursing isn’t what I do, it’s who I am!”
“I don’t teach for a living, I’m a teacher!”
“The accountant in me doesn’t rest, even on Sundays!”
and something I was told after I retired from pulpit ministry
“How can you retire from who you are?”
But vocation – the call of God - isn’t about that thing we do because we have a contract, or a pay check, or a schedule. Vocation is to be called of God and hear that voice telling us who we are – defining us by our relationship with God. It is not telling us to define who we are by what job we do. Jesus comes to John the Baptist as a rabbi – a teacher. But just as John’s first call was to “repent!” – Christ’s response is to come to him for baptism – to repent of the past, and start anointed with a public witness of the fact he is a child of God, first and foremost. Although John points out Jesus doesn’t need to repent, Jesus says he needs baptism and as a child of God wants to start out like the rest of us.
Notice God didn’t say “This is my teacher” or “This is my healer” or “This is my minister”. God said “This is my son, whom I love.” Jesus would be a rabbi, healer, minister, savior and so many other things but first his vocation was to be God’s son.
So it is with you. You are God’s daughter. You are God’s son. You are beloved of God. That’s your calling. That’s your identity. That’s your job. The places God puts you, the jobs God will give you, are guided and blessed because you are God’s child.
This may sound like semantics, but in our world it can have very serious consequences. Mixing up your identity with your employment can have lasting and bitter effects. I have known many people who lost their jobs, and nearly lost their minds. Suddenly without their work they seem to lose so much of themselves that they begin to treat their partner/husband/wife with hostility, they either ignore their children or become hyper-critical of them – pressuring them to “do better than I did” or “go into nursing/teaching/computers/funeral directing so you will always have a job”. They sink into depression, despair, and chaos. Why? Because they have lost a part of themselves. In counseling folks in that situation, I have frequently used this scripture of Christ’s baptism to bring them back to the starting point – to who they are. God's child. Don’t lose that. Don’t forget it.
Vocation: It’s not your religion
The clergy have done just as much damage to the word vocation as the secular world. We throw that word around to mean “religious life” (if you’re catholic), or to have a calling to work in the church – minister, missionary, youth worker, musician. We talk about ministers being “called” without remembering that teachers, nurses, army folks and the unemployed are also “called”. I have a friend who is very proud of being a pastor. He talks incessantly about it and claims, sometimes unaware he’s doing it, “pastoral” privileges. I once heard him start a sentence by saying “Jesus was talking to the pastors…” My first thought was “who the heck are they?” Jesus talked to fishermen, tax collectors, lawyers and gatekeepers. There weren’t any “pastors” until much much later. The problem with such thoughts is it creates a hierarchy that destroys the common beautiful witness of God’s people.
Being called to a “religious vocation” makes you no more holy, correct, or spiritual than any one else. Relying on and triumphantly praising professional ministry gives people an opportunity to ignore their vocation as God’s children and bearers of Christ’s light. “Well, I wasn’t called to the ministry so I don’t have to witness,” we say. Or one of the more interesting things I was told once in regard to a person misquoting the bible and causing damage to her family in the process, “Look, Rev. correcting scriptural issues is your job, not mine.”
But we are all called of God, and we are all responsible to shine the light of love and mercy to one another. Don’t downplay your part in bringing the kingdom of God to earth (as it is in heaven). John doesn’t really want to baptize Jesus. It seems silly to him to use a symbol of repentance on someone with no sin. But John is called to baptize and Jesus wants not only to fulfill his ministry but fulfill John’s as well. Jesus didn’t need to be baptized half as much as John needed to baptize him. Supporting the mission and witness of a pastor is a beautiful thing, and clergy add a lot to the spectrum of faith. But the job doesn’t belong simply to the clergy.
One of my favorite old hymns is “Softly and Tenderly” – it reminds us that invocation (which is the act of calling to someone, not just the prayer we say before a fancy dinner or religious event) is not only coming to us from God who calls us son or daughter, and the Holy Spirit who calls us to our job, our gifts and our worship but also from Christ who offers us the greatest vocation of all: coming home.
“Softly and tenderly Jesus is calling,
calling for you and for me;
see, on the portals he's waiting and watching,
watching for you and for me.
Come home, come home;
ye who are weary come home;
earnestly, tenderly, Jesus is calling,
calling, O sinner, come home!”
May we hear, live and love our vocation, now and always. Amen.
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