Theology 101 No. 21

One of the most common questions we ask our children is, “What are you going to be when you grow up?” We get all kinds of answers and professions. “I want to be a firefighter.” “I want to be a doctor.” “I want to be a singer.” For our High School students we have books and assessments and Guidance Counselors to help our youth choose classes to help them in their future plans and career. College students are pressured into declaring a major. In the marketplace there are many books about how to choose and get the “perfect job.”

The world, as usual, looks at things rather backwards or, at least, from the wrong angle. This is not truly what life is about – chasing after the perfect job and that elusive dream of “financial independence” you hear about in infomercials. As Christians the question is not “what job shall I choose” but “what is God calling me to do?” This is the Doctrine of Vocation: God placing us in certain situations with certain abilities to accomplish His will.

The Doctrine of Vocation is a different way of thinking for most of us. Part of this is due to the fact that when we think of God, we think of this grand, mystical being who works through almost exclusively supernatural, almost magical means. When we think of God we think of the God who willed the universe into existence; or the God Who gave manna to His people in the wilderness; or The God Who zapped Sodom and Gomorrah with fire and brimstone. More often then not, however, God works through more ordinary means. God works through what Martin Luther called “masks.” Our heavenly Father works through means – everyday items to accomplish His desires. Our God also works through the vocations of people in order to do much of what He does in our day to day lives.

Think of it this way: In the Lord’s Prayer we pray that God would give us our daily bread. And He does. But He does not provide it in the same way as He did the Israelites while they wandered in the wilderness for forty years. God give us our manna in a different manner. He calls someone to be a farmer. The farmer plants the grain. God causes it to grow, and the farmer harvests it. The grain is sold to a person who makes it into flour. The flour is sold to a baker who makes the bread. Between you and the bread is also a whole host of other people with other vocations – distributors, stock boys, the lady at the check out, and so on. Only then do you get to eat it. God has provided your daily bread but He has used ordinary means to do it. Remember this, however: Even though He has used everyday people and ordinary things it does not diminish His role in providing for you what you need.

There are other ways that God provides for our needs. When a loved one gets sick, we pray for healing. Certainly God can provide healing through a miracle, but normally He works through the vocations of doctors, nurses, pharmacists, lab technicians, and the like. God almost always blesses us through other people. But vocation is not just about God blessing us through jobs and careers. God calls people into a variety of offices, callings, in order to extend His care, providence and love to us.

Most parents would agree that raising children is also a job. But parenthood is a God-given vocation, a calling. God, in the beginning could have decided to populate the earth with as many human beings as He wanted – just as He did with the animals. Yet God chose, through a tremendous miracle, to provide the gift of children through the vocations of husband and wife, father and mother. God calls people into families to accomplish the task of filling the world.

God provides for us through many different offices. And they are all good callings. No Godly vocation is to looked down upon by us just because we might find it in our arrogance to be “below us.” God uses, for example, the sanitation worker to keep you clean and healthy just as He used a farmer to provide food. This Doctrine of Vocation is important and it is one of the most overlooked teachings to come out of the Reformation. We tend to focus quite heavily on the Doctrine of Justification by Faith, and rightly so. But the Doctrine of Vocation tells us the “so what” of life. Vocation teaches us that God uses us to serve others, to help others. The Doctrine of Vocation gives everyone’s life meaning and worth.

It use to be, at the time of the Reformation, that you were nothing if you didn’t work for the church. The teaching that was common to the day was that you were a special class of people if you were a priest or a monk or a nun. Somehow you were closer to God. These people looked down upon the laity as if they were mere peasants and the church worker was royalty. Now while it is true we are to respect those God has called to proclaim the Gospel, a pastor is not better than the laity because he is ordained and the laity are not. It is from the Doctrine of Vocation that the priesthood of all believers extends. This teaching did not make everyone into church workers, but it did turn Godly work into a sacred calling, again giving people and their lives worth and meaning.

The Doctrine of Vocation also teaches us that there is a concern not only for the personal relationship one has with God (that being justification and salvation), but also the relationship that we have to one another. You see the Doctrine of Vocation is the practical application of what God desires from us as His children. What is the first table of the Law? Love God. What is the Second table of the Law? Love your neighbor. How do we love and serve God? By loving and serving our neighbor. How do we love and serve our neighbor? Through the means that God has given us, particularly through the vocations or callings that God has given us. Our relationship with God (particularly in relation to our salvation) has nothing to do with our works. Our relationship with people, in the world that God has placed us in, does involve our works.

Martin Luther writes in the Large Catechism: “In God’s sight it is actually faith that makes a person holy, it [faith] alone serves God, while our works serve people.” In other words, God does not need our works, but people do. God is in the spiritual realm and strictly speaking, He serves us there. But you and I do not live in the spiritual kingdom at this time. We live here and as such we serve one another.

A while back, WWJD bracelets were quite popular. People were to stop and ask themselves before they did something if it was something Jesus would do. A more developed version of this is based on an proper understanding of vocation: “Is what I am doing loving and serving my neighbor?” And “Is what I am doing bringing glory to God?” These two questions apply to every aspect of our lives. This is because, as I have tried to state before, vocation is not just your job. God has called most of us to multiple vocations. You can be a Christian lawyer, a Christian Doctor, a Christian cook, a Christian singer, a Christian whatever.

But God also calls you to be a Christian husband or wife, a Christian parent, a Christian member of a congregation, even a Christian citizen. No matter what God has called a person to do these two questions are valid and affect what is done in your day to day life. This Doctrine of Vocation is important for Christians to understand and learn. It is important to know how God uses us in our day to day lives and how He uses others for our good.

The meaning of life is a question that has plagued philosophers for millennia. But in the Doctrine of Vocation we find that life has meaning because God gives it meaning. And as with all questions we see that our God, as usual, has all the right answers. As we journey through this Doctrine of Vocation these next few Theology 101's, God help us to see how He truly works through the labor, the government, the family and the church He has given us.