Vocation

I asked a friend of mine to write a guest-article on the subject of vocation for this blog. His thoughts follow. Good stuff.

I recently saw a Jeep ad with the tag line “the things we make, make us.” I liken it to the phrase “you are what you eat” and although taglines are gimmicks to nudge us towards consumptive action, there is truth to both statements. When I heard the ad I couldn’t help but think of vocation, but why? What does what we make, or even what we eat, have anything to do with the topic?

This past summer I watched the documentary King Corn which is a story about two friends who, after graduating from an east coast college, decide they want to learn about where their food comes from. The film starts in a scientific laboratory where the guys discover that they are literally made of corn. This triggers several interesting questions that lead them to farm an acre of corn in Iowa. Ian and Curt discover historic, family connections to farming as they learn about yields, bumper crops, and herbicides. Along the way they also learn about the food system, government subsidies and what we are putting into our bodies.

Being a part of two community supported agriculture farms (I have to feed a lot of kids) I was particularly drawn to this film. In my family it is common to talk about where food comes from and how it got to our table. We talk at length about what is in and out of season and have intentionally made choices to reflect what we have learned in the field. Essentially, we are cultivating a craving for healthier, in season, local, food.

That word cultivate has deep meaning and carries divine associations. As we think about the tasks assigned to our first parents God gives the mandate to “cultivate the garden” (Gen 2:15). This mandate gives purpose because God reveals to us what we are to do with ourselves and his creation. God has given us his good creation in seed form and we are to co-create and make things of the creation. This cultivation (to name, subdue, fill, keep, tend, create) is a physical representation of being created in God’s image.

Ultimately, when we fulfill our mandate we create culture. God designed us to imagine, be curious, discover, explore in a communal context that gives evidence to his splendor. Cultivating the garden is our pre-fall office, it is our vocation.

God’s design is for humanity to create culture in a direction; movement towards a holy city. God’s design is for us to have a worldview that “keeps the creation” and cares for its resources and inhabitants; however, because of depravity, through the fall, we now have distorted visions of what it means to cultivate. We have cultivated profane and incoherent cultures. We have elevated self interests above all.

Within this context of vocation and the fall we are offered two callings. The first is from Christ himself in his statement, “follow me.” This is a sort of general calling in which God invites us to turn away from sin and enter into his forgiveness. By answering this “call” we receive the free gift of the Holy Spirit. This general call becomes more specific by the power of the Holy Spirit as the manifestations of the “call” become directed reality in each individual life.

We understand that we are endowed with unique talents and giftedness to fulfill a unique aspect of creating a culture that glorifies the creator, God. Our vocation is to cultivate; our jobs, stations in life, relationships, and resources shape the ways, to what degree, and how we contribute to a particular culture. Sadly we often times create cultures that are profane and incoherent because woven into these callings is the human capacity to resist or simply reject God’s call. Sometimes we resist and reject because we are stubborn and lack trust. Other times we are impatient. Many times it is because we have a hard time with the mystery of vocation.

Author Quentin Schultze says that the “mystery of vocation is more like an unfolding relationship than a carefully planned trip. As we come to know God better and to know ourselves in relationship to God, we also discern where and how to serve—but rarely with absolute certainty.” It is the lack of certainty which is the frustration that does us in.

We can, however, have certainty in our direction and in how the story ends. In our study of Revelation we are being exposed to the culmination of God’s desire for a culture as revealed in chapter 7 verse 9, “I looked and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people, and language, standing before the throne.” Our vocation is to actively participate in creating a culture that maintains a worldview that sees our destination as a holy city of vast diversity and beauty worshiping God forever.

If we are what we eat and the things we make, make us then I want to know where my world view comes from and how it impacts and creates the culture I am a part of. My vocation is to first be aware of my vocation (to actively contribute to the construction of a culture that reflects Revelation 7:9) then utilize all of my redemptive resources including my job, my marriage, my resources, my influence-everything to promote this culture that seeks to restore all things whether in my home, office, neighborhood, church, and even garden.

In the World but not of the World?

Paul in Athens - Confronting the Lego culture

Now that Reformation Day celebrations are over we can re-engage the topic from my last post. As a reminder, it dealt with Christ-followers engaging culture and how false stories can unknowingly shape us into Christ defeating lives. I used the annual occurrence of Halloween to enlighten the subject and received much feedback both on and off the blog.

One comment from the blog begged the question as to whether or not Christians have inadvertently downgraded the Sabbath with competing stories. They went on to ask for a discussion on how to engage culture.  This question seems representative of a number of others I received, so I will give an answer and invite you to join in the dialogue.

I have three main thoughts on Christians engaging culture.

First, I think one of the big things Christ-followers must guard against is confusing cultural engagement with cultural capitulation. Often we embrace and participate in activities and claim we are engaging the culture when in reality we just want to be part of the world's story. We say we fear legalism. We appeal to neighbors and co-workers we don't want to offend because we are coaxing them into the Kingdom bit by bit. But are we engaging or capitulating? How do we know the difference?

One important distinction between engagement and capitulation is that the latter does not have an endpoint or direction. When a Christ-follower engages culture he/she must have a redemptive direction and hoped for endpoint and our actions must bear that out.  Often we enter things with no direction or desired change. It's as if we think our mere presence will radiate redemption because we don't swear or drink.....very much. In the meantime we don't have to make any changes that will deprive us of "fun" or make us look different than our neighbor.

This is not cultural engagement.

This is cultural impotence.

We often participate in our schools, jobs, sports, friendships, etc.... with such a non-distinctive presence that we are not culturally engaged. We are just there going with the flow of the prevailing story.  We are called to something higher and better.

A second thought Christ-followers must keep in mind on this matter is pronouncement. We are to make Christ known to the world. Our mouths are to share a story, and our lives are to make it believable. Sometimes we think just living good does the trick. It doesn't. The story of our "good" lives must be contextualized in the story of Christ dying for our sin. Seldom is a person going to make a faith commitment to whichever religion behaves the best. It has to answer deep truths about the world and our sin. Being good is helpful, but it doesn't always tell the story.

For a couple of years I worked in a department at a large bank. One of the people I worked with was one of the nicer co-workers I've ever had. He was a Mormon. I tried to raise my niceness quotient to  match his, but there is only so much one can do in this life. Let's pretend for a moment that I did match his niceness. Would a co-worker interacting with our "good" lives  move toward Christianity over Mormonism if I don't tell my story?

I am to be good. My life is a story that should put flesh on the biblical story.

We must tell the story. We can use our unique styles, but we must tell why we live the way we do to those who are lost. Pronouncement is essential for cultural engagement.

A final thought for cultural engagement is understanding what Christ meant in the book of Revelation when He said, "I am making all things new". He did not mean that everything we have today will be kept, but in a scrubbed-up version.

Casinos will not be made into new and better casinos. The community and people eroded by them will be made new. Being redemptive does not mean participating in everything that comes down the pike. Some things need to be abandoned, so higher things can be sought and lower things can die.

Sometimes, more often than we care to admit, the redemption of all things means abandoning some things.

Imagine if everyone who claims to be a Christian abandoned casinos. They would disappear and the communities would benefit.

Imagine if all Christians took back Sundays by abandoning competing Sunday commitments. Would we and our communities be better? Yes! We cannot just wave the banner of  "all things new" to justify involvements that keep us from better involvements and the raising up of Jesus Christ to the world.

How we treat Sundays is just one example out of millions of situations where we must think seriously and act purposefully about our place in culture. However, it is indicative of how much ground has been lost and should make us examine where else are we capitulating.

Maybe we are good on the Sabbath. That does not mean we are engaging culture biblically in other areas. We are always examining ourselves and allowing others to help us with the process.

We are here to assist in making all things new rather than having all things make us.