If you would prefer to watch something than read if, you can find the video version of this here.
We are a decent ways away from Reformation Day, but in my Omni V class, we are in full swing with some reformers. I assigned a discussion questions for my students and their families to talk about last week without assigning the reading to go along with it. I noticed the error, noticed our book didn’t even have this work in their selection, and went about finding and assigning it this week.
I had another happy accident though. The PDF that I thought I found for Luther’s work on Vocation is actually merely a summary by Karlfried Froehlich, who happened to be a BB Warfield professor of church history at Princeton. He was born in 1930 in Germany to a Lutheran family, bouncing all over Europe for his education before making it stateside to finish out his career. He spent a fair amount of his time translating Luther’s works from German to English, so to say that he knows his stuff is a vast understatement.
So, I read through his summary of the work yesterday and thoroughly enjoyed it. You can find the PDF of it hereif you would like to read it on your own. We will be discussing it in class on Monday.
To get into the meat of the work though, we come to the question of what is vocation? Is it merely your job or is it something more? Interestingly, the word for vocation in German, Beruf, is a totally neutral word and means your daily job, like teacher, driver, or farmer. It would be how you would describe yourself and the work you do. Dr. Froehlich is quite clear though that Luther is trying to do something else with using this word in particular. Studying not only how Luther used it in his book On Vocation but also how he used it in his Bible translation, it is clear that Luther was trying to level the playing field.
In Luther’s time, it was the common and Catholic way to think of the clergy as having a higher calling. They would be the ones who are choosing to forego the things of earth for the things of heaven. This would put them above everyone else because they were doing the work of God. If you know anything about Luther, you know that he hated this idea. God calls people where they are at and changes their heart, not their occupation. This is where the concept of the Protestant Work Ethic came from to revolutionize the industry of the church. Everything is done for the glory of God, so it matters how you do everything.
Now, a lot of the conversations I heard about centered on whether one had to be paid for a vocation or not, or what types of things are vocation. A good example of the latter is whether motherhood is a vocation. There is a lot of fine tuning that can happen with the definition of vocation that is good for discussion. From this PDF, there isn’t a narrow definition of the word. Because of the way that I was raised and the state of the church around me, I like to take a broader view of the word to fight the very thing that Luther was fighting in his day. The doctrine of Dualism, as we like to call it at ECS and TEC sees the sacred and secular divide that Luther was fighting and calls it for what it is: that God cares more about the spiritual things rather than the earthly things. This is a doctrine that we and Luther reject. God cares about it all. If God cares about it all, I also have to care about it all.
Now, God is infinite, and I am finite. How am I going to care like God does? Well, I would say by paying attention to the things that God has placed before me and the cares that He has given to me. There is a whole lot of stuff that I don’t care about that I am working on caring about more. There is also a lot of stuff that God has not put in front of me that are good thing and things I care about. The things that I should probably focus on are the things that God has put in front of me and that I care about. Earlier this month, my family and I had full intentions on buying some land and doing a bunch of work on it. God closed that door for us right now. God did not put those things in front of me to focus on right now. You know what He did put in front of me? Books and writing. What do you think I am trying to fill my time and care with right now? Books and writing. I have a long way to go in both, but thankfully, I enjoy the work. All the things that God has made are fantastic and wonderful. Pay attention to the things that God has placed into your finite space.
To come full circle now, I would say, and I think Luther would agree with me based on this limited reading, that all the things that God has placed in front of me are my vocation. It is what God is calling me to do. The role of father, husband, teacher, reader, writer, and friend are all things that God has placed in my way. The people that I interact with daily are placed here by God. I am also placed here by God. These people are my calling. How and what am I doing with the gifts that God has given to me in the place that He has put me? That is the question for me and for you.
Do I have a very expansive view of what the Christian vocation is? Absolutely. You can’t really put it out any farther than what I am doing. And I am doing that on purpose. I can never be just a writer, reader, father, or husband. I will also be so much more than any one of those things. God is calling me too so much more than that. God is also calling you to so much more than you are thinking He is. You just have to open your eyes to see all that it is. God has big plans for his children if we are willing to look outside the windows that we place around ourselves.
So, here is to looking out.
And with that, the Doctor is out!