Expanding our understanding of vocation
Writing for the Alban Institute, Craig Satterlee says that many Christians do not grasp the vocational nature of the work that they do every day, and wonders whether our weekly worship has something to do with that:
[A]s part of their worship, congregations rightly recognize all the ways people serve Christ’s church in the congregation. They may install church boards, publicly thank the choir, and pray for Sunday school teachers, but congregations are often less intentional and explicit about publicly recognizing and honoring daily work as service to God.In fact, worship may deal with questions of life and death, heaven and hell but never explicitly connect people’s daily work to their faith. This reinforces people’s tendency to separate Sunday from the rest of the week, faith from the rest of life, and Christian service from the way we make our living. Christians may come to regard certain occupations, such as pastor, preacher, nurse, and teacher, as more connected to God's work and even holier than other occupations. They may understand themselves to be serving God solely by volunteering at church. While this understanding of Christian service might be good for congregations, it suggests that serving God is something people do in addition to everything else they have to do, rather than the reason behind or motivation for everything they do.
Do you see this false dichotomy at work in your life? In your parish?
I agree that there is a separation between Sunday and the rest of our daily lives. It is something that I try to work on all the time, with only limited sucess. For those of us who do not have an occupation that gives oneself to others in service, must be concious of other opportunities, such as how we interact with others, no matter what we do for a living.
Bill Brennan
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October 4, 2010 10:54 PM
Robert Calhoun, a Yale theologian, in ‘God and the Common Life’ suggested that a worker's commitment to master and strive for excellence in a craft can connect a Christian to furthering God's creation in the world. Rather than rely on Martin Luther’s ‘priesthood of all believers’, Calhoun, a Protestant, chose to draw on the theology and ethics of Aquinas to understand the role of vocation.
Calhoun’s perspective on vocation is instructive but I also think one’s role in community is subject to the common demands to love the Holy and our neighbors as ourselves. All baptized and the church might be brought to measure by how well we as a society treat those imprisoned and in need. Even if Calhoun broadens vocation by linking it to excellence, without a connection to an understanding of social justice, any concept of vocation might be as spiritually empty as a church that does not value, in its worship, the lives of its members.
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October 5, 2010 7:33 AM