Called to Be

Called to Be--January 25, 2018

"Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostles set apart for the gospel of God... through whom we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith among all the Gentiles for the sake of his name, including yourselves who are called to belong to Jesus Christ, To all God's beloved in Rome, who are called to be saints: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ." [Romans 1:1,5-7]

It's bigger than a paycheck.

It's more than a job.

Your calling.  My calling. It's more than even a career, or a resume built up over a lifetime.

When we talk about "calling," or the idea of vocation (which is just a fancy word from the Latin for "calling"), we have a way of usually reducing it down to meaning "a person's full-time paid employment," which is half-right and half-wrong, honestly.  Or rather, it is just significantly incomplete--rather like saying that A, E, I, O, and U are the whole alphabet, that a skeleton is all there is to a human body, or that the wheels are your car.  A paid job is a part of your whole life--maybe even an important part of a whole life--but a life is bigger than actions you do or a position you hold in exchange for a paycheck.

And because a whole, full life is bigger than just a paid job, so is a person's calling.  Because ultimately Jesus calls us into a certain kind of life, not simply to a certain kind of job.  It is a call to be before it is a call to do some particular employment.

And that is where our language usually falters.  We may talk about someone doing a job and saying, "That's her calling," or "He really found his vocation," and that's usually a way of saying that someone's abilities, talents, and aptitudes are well-suited to the job they do as their primary source of income.  That's fine for as far as it goes, but frankly it doesn't go far enough.  Because, in the bigger scheme of things, we are more than our jobs, and our lives are of greater significance than how we contributed to the bottom line of a company, how much money we made, or what titles we acquired in a career.  And for that matter, Jesus is not satisfied to make a claim only just forty hours of each week in our lives--he claims us wholly for our whole selves to live in a certain way.  That includes what we do to make a living, but it also includes the work we do, the labor we expend, that never gets a paycheck, never gets recognition, and never goes on a CV.  

If we only think of "calling" in terms of "paid employment," we end up thinking that God only cares about one-third of our hours each day, or that my value is reducible to what I did to contribute to the country's GDP, or to a company's quarterly profits.  It suggests that my abilities that are used in volunteer capacities don't matter, or that the simple way I treat people or speak to others is irrelevant to God... because it isn't "my calling." It comes off sounding like the times spent caring for children, or attending to aging parents, is unimportant because it doesn't get a paycheck. It suggests that people who have terrible, dead-end jobs should just suck it up and not complain because they are in "their calling," and a dead-end job must be what God "planned" for them.  In gives the impression, too, that if I am not feeling completely "fulfilled" at all times in my work, I must be in the "wrong calling," because we assume your "calling" is supposed to fit you like a hand in a glove. And maybe worst of all, it invites the dangerous leap of bad logic that says "If it's good for the company, then it must be God's will, because my job is my calling from God."

But notice here in these opening verses from Paul's letter to the Romans that talk of "calling" is so much more expansive than just someone's Monday through Friday occupation.  Paul talks about our whole selves being called--that we are "called to belong to Jesus," that we are "called to be saints" (which is just a word for "holy people"), and that he himself is called "to be an apostle" (which is just a word for "sent person").  These are about whole lives, not jobs, paychecks, or careers.  When Jesus calls us, he calls our whole selves.

And Jesus calls us into a particular way of life.  And basically, that way of life is to reflect back Jesus into every corner of our lives.  Jesus calls us to belong to him, to be shaped by him, and to reflect the Reign of God in every moment, and at every location.  My job, if I have paid employment, is a part of my calling, because it fits into the wider category of "my life," and my calling is not simply to make the company more money, or to climb higher in the corporate structure, or even necessarily to preach sermons from my place of business.  Rather, it is about being a certain kind of person, in whatever circumstance I find myself.  It is about being someone marked by Jesus' kind of love, and courage, and empathy, and mercy, and honesty, and strength, and generosity.  I can do that whether I am the Vice President of Operational Affairs, or the cashier at the grocery store, or the bus driver, or a public school teacher.  Vocation is not really about the what, as much as it is the how: the way we do anything and everything.

It's rather like that insight of Martin Luther, who says something to the effect of this: a Christian shoemaker is not someone who stamps little crosses on the shoes he or she makes; a Christian shoemaker simply makes high quality shoes in such a way that the people who buy them will have decent coverage for their feet when they walk.  In other words, our universal calling--for every last one of us--is to love other people.  And part of how a shoemaker who follows Jesus would fulfill that calling would be to do good work for those who will eventually wear the shoes you make.  The calling is to love--the particular way you express it will change moment to moment and situation to situation.

And that's why our vocation is always so much bigger than just what a person's paid employment is.  You have a vocation beyond what you do when you are "on the clock" for an employer, because you and I are always called to be Jesus' people.  There is no "off the clock" time for being followers of Jesus; he calls our whole selves for our whole lives long.  

So the way you act toward strangers at the grocery store?  That's part of your calling to love.

And the ways I take care of my world and my resources for the sake of the generations who come after me?  That's part of my calling to love.

When a farmer brings in the harvest out of sheer devotion to the land and for the good of those who will get to feed their kids, that is part of the calling to love.

When a tired full-time employed mom comes home after a long day of work to solve the problems of her kids and then has to go and take care of her own aging parents in the evening, that is part of her calling to love.

When a decent, good attorney speaks up for those who have been victimized, or when a young graduate passes up a more lucrative job offer to help teach English to young students who have just come to this country, it is part of their calling to love.

When a grandmother--without getting paid or acknowledged for it--takes the time to be there for her grandkids when they are sick, or when a family makes huge sacrifices to take care of a family member with chronic sickness, this is all part of the calling Jesus gives to all of us to love.

And when you or I take a moment, both to listen to someone else's story and then also to share where Jesus' love has met us so that someone else can know it, too, that is the calling of Jesus, too.

Sometimes the calling for the day is to weep with those who weep, or to laugh with those who laugh.  Sometimes it is to share our bread.  Sometimes it is simply to be present.

On this day, then, the question to ask is not, "What is the right paid job for me to have?" so much as, "Since I am called to belong to Jesus, what could it look like in this day to be a reflection of Jesus for people right here and right now?"

So... beyond a paycheck today, who are you called to be... today?

Lord Jesus, let us hear your calling and live it out right where we are today.