Sermon:  Phoenix Affirmation 12:  What Do You Want to Be?

Text:   Isaiah 6:8; Luke.5.1-11; Colossians 3:23

Date: March 25, 2007

Bob Haslanger, Eagle Harbor Congregational Church

What do you want to be when you grow up?

Have you considered that question lately? What do you want to be when you grow up?

Isn’t that still a good question for all of us? We know it’s a question for those still in school or early in careers but how about those who are retired or firmly in the middle of a career?

In considering the question, you might want to remember Abraham and Sarah.  Even if we are not called to found a nation by having a child when others our age are playing with great grandchildren, there still may be something for us to do as we continue to grow up.

I was recently watching some video on TV. There was a group of very young people in caps and gowns. They might have been graduating from kindergarten or first grade. One by one they mounted a podium and spoke into a microphone saying what they wanted to be when they grew up.

One said, “When I grow up I want to be a vampire bat.”

The next child slowly mounted the podium and hesitated, looking uncomfortable. He said, “I don’t want to grow up.”

We are considering the twelfth and final affirmation “Loving ourselves includes: Acting on the faith that we are born with a meaning and purpose; a vocation and ministry that serves to strengthen and extend God’s realm of love.”

This affirmation appealed to me, not because I already had a strong opinion, but because I wanted to study again a subject that recurs in my life, whether I want it to or not.

When I look back at my work life, I stopped counting the number of professions I’ve worked in when I reached ten. Only one of those things was an answer to, “what do you want to be when you grow up.” I grew out of that vocation almost half my life ago.  On the other hand, I’ve never been employed in the vocation I thought I was destined for as a young man.

In a 1965 sermon, Martin Luther King Jr. said:

And the great tragedy of life is that too often we allow the means by which we live to out distance the ends for which we live.

And how much of modern life can be summarized in that arresting dictum of the poet Thoreau "improved means to an unimproved end." We have allowed our civilization to out-run our culture. We have allowed our technology to out distance our theology... Through our scientific genius we have made of the world a neighborhood but we've failed through moral commitment to make of it a brotherhood. And so we've ended up with guided missiles and misguided men.

He continues by quoting Luke 9. “What will a man gain by winning the whole world, at the cost of his true self.”

Are we filling our days but not fulfilling our lives?

Do we consider vocation solely what we do more than our way of being?   If vocation is to have meaning and purpose, if it is to be ministry, does it entail “how we do” every bit as much as “what we do?”

The Bible readings suggested in the Phoenix Affirmations study guide included passages from Romans and Corinthians that speak of gifts and members of the body. It’s the usual and comfortable path to take in considering our personal ministry.

Appraising our own gifts allows us to choose within our talents. We may select what we feel we do well and make an offering. The church likes that as well. As the church finds our gifts useful it can ask us to serve as volunteers, council members, teachers, cooks, choir members. It is a satisfying direction for everyone.

There is a downside to this self selection.

Eugene Peterson describes the “Americanization of spirituality” as “spirituality commodified into a technique or means for serving the American creed of ‘pursuit of happiness.’ Spirituality functionalized to helping me meet my self-determined goals... It is spirituality used as an adjective to describe my life instead of the working of the Spirit in my life.”

When we consider our gifts alone it is easy to see them as what defines us and even limits us in how we give them back in ministry. We can make a commodity of our time and talent for us to portion out to our spiritual life as opposed to the rest of our life.

Vocation is from the Latin vocatio, summons, and vocare, to call. Vocation is being called; called by God.  Considering our vocation is different from considering our gifts.

After reading ideas on vocation from Martin Luther, John Calvin, Cotton Mather, and a host of modern theologians and scholarly writers, I found that Douglas Schuurman of St. Olaf College in Northfield Minnesota spoke to me very clearly.

Schuurman suggests two ideas central to vocation. “Historically the Protestant notion of calling suggests that one first understands one's own life as shaped by God through providence, an understanding which then prods one to ask: ‘Considering all that God has given and made me to be, how can I serve him in a distinct way in my life?’"

He outlines the biblical notion of vocation. God initiates the call in two forms: a "general call" to live as a Christian and a "particular calling" to specific responsibilities both in the church and in secular settings.

The “general call” to live as a Christian is clearly stated by Christ in Gospel of Matthew, "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and the most important commandment. The second is like it: Love your neighbor as you love yourself. “

How that appears in our lives as a daily vocation can be the work of a lifetime.

It is significant to understand the calling to vocation in a variety of ways. It is a common perception that many church leaders have heard an almost audible call from God. Thinking that the call must be miraculous, many Christians conclude that God has not called them.

When Professor Schuurman teaches vocation, he says, “students are often surprised… to learn that all Christians have callings, and that they almost never come in an extraordinary and miraculous nature. They seem very interested in the idea that one's call and callings are received through mediators. Often they come through an important person, an opportunity, a certain kind of desire, a certain perception of the world's need, and so on. This is a more human process in which God is working rather than a supernatural version.”

Matt Chamberlain told me the story of her finding vocation. In school she studied business. Upon graduation she went to work in the accounting department of a manufacturing firm. She was struck by the conflict she had when she went to the factory floor as, essentially, a representative of management. It was not the work for her. Through a government agency she found a job with an organization which investigated cruelty to children, as it was called then; child abuse. She was not a trained social worker but it was a job that fulfilled her. Work was not enough. For Matt, it had to be work helping people.

Schuurman writes, "One is not called to be a Christian 'in general'; one is called to be a Christian in the concrete social locations one presently occupies."

There is nothing that limits you to one vocation. In fact, most of us are called to many.

My own vocational journey has moved from identifying with my work, my worth was what I did, to identifying with the outcome of my work, my worth was what I accomplished, to identifying with the way I am as I work. I aim to work within the Scout law: trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean, and reverent. I have a relationship with God. I am a husband and father. I serve.

Marriage is a vocation. I don’t mean that as code language to say, “it’s a job.” It is a vocation in the truest sense. It can be difficult if both partners don’t feel called by a love greater than their own. For our own love can sometimes falter.

Dawn and I consider ourselves called to our marriage. We met as neighbors. We knew each other for about three years before we found ourselves spending quite a bit of time together. We weren’t really dating but then we saw each other almost every day.

I traveled a lot. On one trip I was in a remote part of New Mexico; a wonderful place for contemplation. It was a time when my prayer life consisted of more talking than listening. In considering my life I found myself asking God for a life companion.

At the same time, really, the same actual time, Dawn was in Austin having a similar conversation; asking God for someone to share her life.

In New Mexico I was saying, “Please God, anyone but Dawn.” In Texas Dawn was saying, “Please God, just not Bob.”

We think God has a sense of humor. God was calling whether we wanted to hear it or not.

A minister we enjoyed in Austin once said in a sermon, “Don't worry that God might call you when you're too busy to notice, that you might ‘miss your calling.’  If it's truly God calling, God will keep calling until you respond.”  Too busy or even too stubborn.

Raising children is a vocation. I can only imagine the vocational commitment necessary to adopt children. God bless those who do. And the vocation goes beyond raising the children. It entails loving them unconditionally throughout life, both theirs and ours.  Even when we are helpless to help them or even guide them, we are called to love them.

In my life’s story I’ve often confused who I am with what I do; my vocation with my work.  Our lives are a narrative, a story. At every moment we are called to give witness to what is important to us, to tell the next chapter. So often the important parts don’t seem that important when we’re doing them. We practice our vocation when we least expect it.

I’m suggesting that our vocation appears in how we live our lives, in the way we are in the world more than just the work we choose to do.

Eugene Peterson says, “We can talk about an action, a behavior, objectively without engaging in it. But the actual way we live cannot be objectified or intellectualized — we are what we live. The only adequate language is the language of prayer and of love, the supremely relational languages. They require our soul participation”

I’ve spoken about hearing a vocational call in the context of mediators: Listening for God in what appeals to us, what we know is right, what we are invited to do.  Studies have reported that as many as half of all Americans have had a mystical experience of God.  I’ve been in both halves of that equation so I know it can be difficult to understand if it is not your experience. Claims of divine guidance often justify un-loving action. It is also awkward if you have had the experience and it comes time to explain it to others. 

This affirmation speaks of strengthening and extending God’s realm of love. That starts with having a loving relationship with God. If that grace is given us, how can we not share it?

My personal story of that love includes an account from boarding school. At fourteen I experienced what no child should have to experience from an adult but too many do. I reported it to the headmaster and was told I was lying. I ran away from school but couldn’t tell my parents. They sent me back.

Being an adolescent is cause enough for black clouds and confusion. Overwhelmed by these events, I was lost. One morning I was walking across the campus not really aware of anything, quite numb, when I felt a presence and understood the words, “It’s a beautiful day.” In a moment the world was different. I noticed the beauty of the spring day, the sky, the clouds, the balmy breeze. It was beautiful. It was a moment out of time, without fear, without pain. I was by myself but not alone. It was a gift to me. Life went on as it had before except I now had a transcendent moment that I still have today.

It gave me a context for another experience I had twenty one years ago while I was managing the west coast offices of a company based in Texas. I was being paid very well. I had a solid future with the company. One day the owner of the company asked me to begin the firing of all the gay employees in our California offices.  She said she had great faith in me that I would handle this task discreetly and with my usual effectiveness.

Dawn and I were planning on moving from Texas to Washington with this company. We had been planning the move for about a year.

I was in Los Angeles in a hotel. I’m not in the habit of praying from my knees. That night I felt compelled to get on my knees and listen. What I heard was simple. “Go where your heart says go and do not be afraid.”

I left the company. Spurning common sense and a good health plan, we moved anyway.  We arrived with no jobs. We didn’t know anyone. We loved each other and trusted God.

In these transcendent moments I wasn’t called to a specific job. Instead I understand that I am called to be an ordinary man with an extraordinary understanding that I am loved, I am not alone, and I need not be afraid. How I show my gratitude is up to me.

Douglas Schuurman says, "We are who we are, ultimately, not by fate or fortune, but by God’s providence"; and very succinctly, "Ingratitude is the chief obstacle to experiencing life as vocation."

Garrison Keillor tells a story of Pastor Ingqvist counseling a parishioner. The pastor “gave his little talk about whole heartedness, suitable for Lutheran, Unitarian, Hindu, Buddhist or Jew. To have a whole heart, to live life with a whole heart, not divided against yourself… To be entirely loving what you love and without question,” to have a whole heart is to have a grateful heart.

“Whatever you are doing, put your whole heart into it, as if you were doing for the Lord and not for men.”

I leave you with a quote from Joseph Campbell, “The privilege of a lifetime is being who you are.”