It is a risk, and an adventure, to live life on purpose; to dare to believe, to know that we are doing what we are supposed to do, what we were born for.

There’s an old performer’s joke, based, I think, on the school of Method Acting, which teaches actors to immerse themselves in the imaginary world, mind, and back-story of their character, reaching deep down to understand who, and what, and why, before beginning to act. What’s my motivation? asks the performer of the director. What’s your motivation? Your paycheck.

When Jesus decided it was time to pack up his carpentry tools and become an itinerant seeker of the kingdom of heaven, what was his motivation? The Matthew story says, simply, that when Jesus heard that John had been arrested, he knew it was time. He withdrew to Galilee—packing up shop, as it were; he left his home people and his home ties in Nazareth, and he took up the work of proclaiming the kingdom of heaven. Interestingly, it does not seem to be the magical confirmation of the baptism story that sent Jesus on his way; not at all. Matthew separates the story of the baptism from the beginning of Jesus’ ministry. Between the confirmation and the calling, there is, according to Matthew, a long season of indecision and confusion: a temptation, if you will. Jesus is not sure of what he is to do. He is, figuratively and perhaps really, in the wilderness: struggling with his calling, examining his possibilities, searching for some clear sign or direction—he is tempted, he is hungry, he is lost: he needs something to show him the way.

How strange, really, that that something that pushes him over the edge and into the kingdom of heaven is not a sign for him, or even specific direction he might have derived from his life-passage ritual of baptism, or his dry, hard, wilderness season in which despair and temptation drove him to prayer. Rather, the story says, he heard that John had been put into prison. The silencing of John left a void, a need for hope and for direction in the world of Jesus and his community. Somehow, maybe simply because no one else would or could, Jesus stepped into the need, and suddenly he knew what he had to do. And he did it.

The idea that each person must find their one true calling and follow it is a beguiling lie. We envy people who believe they know, or have somehow mystically been awarded, a knowledge of their life’s work and the means to perform it. We try to press this kind of knowing on our children; to the absurdity of pressing young high school students to “declare a major” and narrow their education toward that one, singular goal. We wonder if things had been different for us, or we had been in a different place or time, whether we would have found “IT,” that mystical place and purpose for which we had been born. And then we get up, have a cup of coffee, and go to work.

The reformer Martin Luther made a distinction between Christian vocation and Christian office. No “office” is any dearer to the heart of God than another. In our offices, we exercise the diversity of our gifts, and play out our particular circumstances. Our office is determined by a whole host of circumstances—people, families, community possibilities, whatever. Our offices may change with our circumstance.

But what remains the same, what is the center around which our offices are played out and our decisions are made: that is our vocation. I remember reading in Barbara Brown Taylor’s first book about her struggle to find her vocation, and to decide whether to become a priest. She wrote:. . . I struggled with the ordination question. I listened for voices in the night and searched the sky for signs. If lasting preoccupation with the church constituted a call, then I was called, but called to what? To be a priest, or to be a Christian? One midnight I asked God to tell me as plainly as possible what I was supposed to do.

“Anything that pleases you.” That is the answer that came into my sleepy head.
“What?” I said, waking up. “What kind of an answer is that?”
“Do anything that pleases you,” the voice in my head said again,
“and belong to me.”

I thought this was a great example, and have used it several times. But after all, a friend of mine with what he describes as a boring day job points out, she did become a priest, not take a secular job. So I was awed when I read last year Taylor’s last book, Leaving Church, in which her soul-searching examination of what pleased her, and where she could belong to God, led her out of the bubble of the office of priestly life, and into a day job as a teacher at a local college.

Our vocation is, simply, to be God’s person in the world. That is all. And when we know that, when we know and are attentive to our vocation, the baffling magic of how folks know what they’re supposed to do is revealed as a trick requiring nothing more than practice and the willingness to perform it: it is to practice attentiveness to what is before you, moment by moment and day by day; and to be willing to perform: that is, to do what needs to be done. Like Juliet Casanova-Perez, the kindergarten teacher at Fairchild Elementary who noticed her new student Sophie Howell’s wobbling gait and lack of eye contact, called her parents to recommend a neurologist, and saved the child’s life.^[1]

That those two pairs of brothers in Matthew’s story heard Jesus’ offer to come and fish for people, and left their offices as fishermen to become friends and followers of Jesus from Nazareth, an itinerant teacher and healer, has always amazed me. That they did so without any of the attendent signs that other gospels offer as motivation—the spellbinding sermon, the awe-inspiring healing miracles—is baffling. We can, and usually do, fill in the blanks for Matthew by “reading in” the evidence of later stories and other gospels—assuming that Simon Peter and Andrew, James and John, saw and heard and believed, and dropped everything to follow, not into the unknown but into a relationship that was mystical and irresistible. But if we can take him alone, I think Matthew might be offering us a snapshot of what it is like for one of us to begin tio hear, and respond to our own vocation. That is, to carry about in our ordinary-time work, our chosen professions or the jobs others have laid upon us, three things: first, a deep knowing that, before anything else, our essential self is a gift from God; second, a deep yearning to know that what and who we are can make a difference; and third, a deep need that, at least for the moment, no one else but you is willing or able to fill.

Our vocation is the place where our deep yearning meets the world’s deep need.

I think about the people in this community of faith, and feel grateful and amazed for the many examples of where practicing vocation regardless of office has led you, and sometimes, by example, all of us. John Allen, a teacher, went to church three weeks ago and learned that the interim pastor of his congregation in New York had phoned in sick. John said he’d read scripture, but no one wanted to preach the sermon! Finally, John thought about what he has been learning since his heart attack a year ago, and realized he had a word to speak about “a four letter word,” hope. Jerry Kratz is a doctor and an emergency services administrator, and a good one. But he is also learning to play the guitar, and when we asked, he was willing to risk offering a gift from his heart, even though, as he at first protested, many others in the church were better at it, or even professionals. His playing of Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring during communion two weeks ago moved me and others in a way that was unique, and rare.

Anne Calhoun is a nurse, who feels called to write cards and visit those who are sick and lonely in our congregation. Kathy Stults is a physical therapist who blows and etches glass, to make God’s house and our homes places that reflect beauty and light.

I could go on for hours…but look around you, and see. And more importantly, look within yourself, and listen. You have something to give, you see a need to be filled.

I know we all wish we could have more clear direction. But really, we already have what we need— what Jesus had, and what his disciples had. We have our vocation as God’s own person in the world: and what we do with that is up to us, and determined by a whole host of circumstances that area at first one thing and then, maybe another.

Many “calls” throughout our life. Not just one, and not for always. One vocation, always the same, and around that, many calls. In and out of jobs. To and from different places. In and out of relationships, or circumstances where, if just for a moment, you and you alone are being called to make a difference. The one true thing is to know whose you are, and if you trust that, the rest will sort itself out.

Let us pray:

May our feet rest firmly on the ground. May our heads touch the sky. May we see clearly. May we have the capacity to listen. May we be free to touch. May our words be true. May our hearts and minds be open. May our hands be empty to fill the need. May our arms be open to others. May our gifts be revealed to us so we may return that which has been given, completing the great circle.^[2

Amen.