I work at the Donald Robinson Library, the centrepiece of Sydney’s Moore Theological College. Near the front doors to the Library is a glass-wrapped display case that often shows rare items from the Samuel Marsden Archives, another hidden jewel of the Anglican Diocese of Sydney.
As well as age-scarred letters, pamphlets and books, you might find on display old photographs, lapel pins, the spectacles of famous dead Anglicans, and items of crockery featuring the College’s distinctive coat of arms.
More unusual relics include a large Japanese ceremonial sword, a 40-centimetre bronze bust of Johannes Gutenberg (donated by a well-known Anglican minister on the condition that it is kept on public display), and the “holy brick,” a red house brick of the kind used in thousands of Sydney houses, except that this is apparently the last remaining relic of the building that was demolished to make way for the present Donald Robinson Library.
Recently a less illustrious item caught my eye: a humble undated flyer made from cheap paper urging young men to enrol as students at the College. “The ministry! GOD calls you … Moore College trains you … talk it over with your rector.”
“GOD calls you…” Those words prompted me to think about calling or vocation, and to write a series of articles about the concept.
Several assumptions seem to be made in the flyer: that it is God who “calls”; that such a call is inherently personal, and internal, but clearly discernible; that there is a fundamental link between such a calling and professional, ordained Anglican ministry; that it is at least possible to be misguided regarding a sense of call; and that such inner promptings need to be tested and validated by an external, authoritative source.
My purpose here is not to defend or critique these assumptions. But the clergy/laity distinction at the heart of much of mainline church culture is unfortunate since it divides the people of God into two separate classes of persons, and artificially elevates the privilege of the few at the expense of many of those ordinary people who do the bulk of the work of ministry in a healthy church community.
Ordained ministry is necessary for the proper functioning of the church. I myself was ordained in the Baptist tradition in 1999. But the vocation tagged “the ministry” in the flyer I saw, and the existence of other religious vocations pursued by women and men, suggest that there may also be non-religious vocations. In fact, the work of registered clergy is merely one of a multitude of vocations. Each of us, without exception, has a vocation to be identified, learned, and lived out day by day.
Vocation has universal significance. To participate in the human experience is to live a called life, and vocation is the work one does in response to an awareness of this call. To respond to this call with gratitude and determination, with authenticity and earnestness, is to live a good life. But whence this call, and what is its essence?
Vocation and calling are profoundly other-focused, exposing the shallowness and selfishness of Enlightenment individualism. Baptist pastor Rick Warren’s bestselling book, The Purpose Driven Life, famously opens with the sentence, “It’s not about you.”[1] It is only when we look to the needs and interests of others, and seek to serve others, that we discover our true vocation and purpose in life.
But vocation should never be associated with mere duty or drudgery. To pursue one’s vocation should bring joy and a sense of fulfilment to the one who serves as much as to the one who is served. Fellow American pastor and author Frederick Buechner (1926-2022) eloquently describes vocation as “the place where your deepest gladness meets the world’s deepest need.”[2]
If Buechner’s phrase resonates with your experience, then – whatever it is that you do in life – you have discovered your vocation.
I’ll have more to say on vocation and its relation to the kingdom of God in my next post.
Dr Rod Benson is Research Support Officer at Moore Theological College, Sydney. He previously pastored four Baptist churches in Queensland and NSW, and served for 12 years as an ethicist with the Tinsley Institute at Morling College.
References
[1] Rick Warren, The Purpose Driven Life: What On Earth Am I Here For? (third edition; Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2012), 21.
[2] Frederick Buechner, Wishful Thinking: A Theological ABC (New York: Harper & Row, 1973), 95.
Image source: Praise on TBN
iDigress 