新视野

Orders of Vocation

BAPTISM OF OUR LORD                                   January 8  2012 

Orders of Vocation

(Mark 1.4-11)

Introduction

‘What are you going to be when you grow up?’  In my childhood, the regulation answers for a boy were a fireman or a soldier…  or a nurse for a girl.  (I was odd right from the start and I wanted to be a shopkeeper!)  And so our culture rehearses one of the most common (if not universal) recipes for happiness and fulfilment… ‘I will be happy/satisfied when I find that job, that role, that vocation which is just right for me.

This dream naturally becomes more sophisticated with age.  (Very few of us actually do become firemen!)  Most of us choose a career, a work, in which we believe we’ll be happy and fulfilled… and this satisfaction quotient is generally given more weight than financial reward… (although the ideal is where both coincide!)  This vocation of course can be a role rather than a paying job – motherhood being the most obvious and common example.

Some of us are fortunate to find such a career early in adult life, but many people struggle – lives full of continual change always searching for that elusive ‘right job’ are quite common.  Also common even within outward stability, is that nagging discomfort – ‘this is not working for me, this is not right… there must be a better career for me out there somewhere.’  In reality, the recipe for happiness that says, ‘I’ll be fulfilled when I find the right work, the right vocation’, is not only elusive but very demanding.

(Is there a version of this that continues into retirement… does it morph into a different dream of vocation… as the perfect grandparent or the stellar golfer etc …. or is the absence of this struggle one of the blissful consequences of old age?)

It is indeed a great blessing when one is content in one’s work, one’s vocation… where what we do for a living brings satisfaction as well as a pay packet.  And it is indeed tough, when one feels caught in a role or career that is just not ‘happy’… that feels stressful, boring and unsatisfying.  This is such a clear and obvious reality that it seems unchallengeable.  Nevertheless, today, the feast of the Baptism of Our Lord, is one of those days when the faith questions the correlation between work and happiness… asking if it actually works that way… and suggesting we reorient our priorities and look instead in a different place for our satisfaction and fulfilment.

The Baptism of Jesus

The limited vision the gospels give us into Jesus’ early development, suggest a child endeavouring to discern what the inner whispers of God mean for him… what is he called to do with his life.[1]  And so at the age of mature adulthood for a Jewish male (30), he travels to the river Jordan where John is baptising, looking for clarity and confirmation of God’s call[2]… and it is there that ‘it’ happens.  All four of the gospels share an unusual agreement on this – it is in the baptism of John that it begins… that Jesus of Nazareth comes to know the path set before him.  Now he knows who he is and what he must do.

It is in this experience of the Spirit that Jesus is anointed for his great work, his vocation… as Christ and Saviour.  There is in his baptism the power of God’s touch (Jesus feels it!)… but the accompanying words show us as witnesses what has happened here.  “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.’[3]

Note that there are no details – no strategy for ministry; no message to be delivered; no mention of disciples or church – no job description at all of what he has to do!  Just two crucial realities are communicated…

• who Jesus is…  (He is God’s beloved son)… and…
• where Jesus stands in relationship with God…  (God is delighted with him!)

And this is the source from which his vocation flows.

Orders of Vocation

The faith challenges our common assumption and says that happiness… peace… fulfilment… come not so much from what we do… but rather from knowing:

• who we are – that is, who God created us to be; and
• how we stand in relationship with God.

The emphasis is not so much on doing, but rather on being and on relationship… especially our relationship with God.  And if we can get a handle on those two critical fundamentals, then what to do will not only flow quite seamlessly and naturally… but also carry less weight of hope and expectation.

Christian tradition teaches that there are actually three orders of vocation in descending priority…

1. The first vocation of a human being is to live!  God’s greatest gift to each of us is the breath and spirit of life.  And so God asks us, ‘Will you live… will you truly live?’  (Sadly many of us who are breathing are not really living!)  God invests us with life and being… gives us our own unique name… and thus our first and critical vocation is… to be who we are created to be.
2. The second priority of vocation is to relate… that is to respond to our Creator in love… to be in faithful relationship with God; to receive God’s love, to respond to God’s love, and to share this love with all people.  Relationship is the second order of vocation.
3. And only then can we hope to attend properly to the third priority of vocation… that is, what we do with our lives… work, career, role etc.  Now this is important…to name what we do as the third priority is not to belittle its importance or its place in the order of vocation.  Who we are and how we stand with God must be expressed in action… in work for the peace, justice and the good of society… What we do is the fruit of our being and our relating.

But if we invert the order of vocational priority and focus on ‘what to do’ as the main game, as the first priority… we will never ‘get there’…   We will never find true satisfaction… fulfilment… no matter how good the job/role is.  And not only are we less fruitful and useful to those around us, the work of God’s Spirit in our life is stalled and frustrated. [4]  It doesn’t work that way!

Conclusion

Richard Rohr, the wonderful American Franciscan teacher, tells the story of giving counsel to a young man, a recent university graduate about to commence his career…  The young man was agonising about whether he should take a job in Chicagoor New York… both jobs had their attractions but he wanted to take the one that was God’s will for him…  And as zealous young men are apt to do, he went on and on and on about all the possibilities, the options etc, etc… Until Richard Rohr interrupted.  “Young man, God has no opinion about whether you take the job in Chicago or New York… in fact God doesn’t care.  Choose which ever one you feel strongest about, and then when you get to whichever city it is, look at God and say, ‘Here I am and I’m ready’… and trust me, God will have work for you to do!”

Even within the church, we spend so much time and energy trying to determine what job we should do… and… yes, it is important… but we’re starting at the wrong end of the process… we’re getting the priorities in the wrong order.  If only we would take that energy and focus it instead on:

• Who has God created me to be; and
• What is happening in relationship between me and my Creator,

then the question of ‘what am I to do’ will be answered quite naturally and freely… without all the unhelpful expectation and baggage.

Then, the faith says, contentment, peace, satisfaction – who knows, even happiness – will flow… and critically, so will fruit for the Kingdom.  Good actions, good works… blessings will flow seamlessly from you… from your presence as well as your labours.

When Jesus comes up from the waters of baptism, he hears God’s voice speak, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.’   And it’s from this foundation that his ministry of salvation begins!