Your job is NOT a vocation

Last updated on: April 25, 2015 at 10:42 am by Oikonomia Network

Your job is NOT a vocation 2015-04-24T09:07:36-05:00 Oikonomia Network

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

By Malcolm B. Yarnell III

Today we use words like “calling” and “vocation” in association with jobs and tasks. However, these are external circumstances that the world can change or take away. Martin Luther’s experience can help us appreciate how our true vocation rests at a deeper level, one that can never be taken from us.

In a critical moment of his life, Martin Luther was afflicted with difficult questions of purpose that continue to afflict the consciences of well-meaning Christians today. Am I doing anything in this world that really matters? Is my life what God wants it to be? What should I become in order to “really make a difference?” Dogged by these questions over many years, he came at last to understand how God’s calling provided not only a clear direction for his life, but a sense of identity that resolved his deeper spiritual afflictions.

At first, badly shaken after surviving a lightning strike, Luther vowed to become a monk. His choice did not please his father, a wealthy businessman, who preferred that his son pursue a career in law. But there was a logic behind Luther’s vow. In the late medieval context, the monastic life was considered to be the only true “vocation” or “calling” that a man or woman could receive from God.

After becoming an Augustinian friar, Luther suffered intense introspection regarding his sinfulness and his failed attempts at performing good works. He was required to study theology, which he took seriously; a conscientious man, he followed the theology of the church, but it only led him back and back again to his painful introspections. Brother Martin’s confessor and religious superior, Johann von Staupitz, tried to help him by pointing him to the sacrifice of Christ, but to no avail.

Then, in what could be seen as a counter-intuitive move, Staupitz appointed the struggling friar to become a Bible teacher at a new university in Wittenberg. This unusual step shaped Luther’s life and reshaped world history: the boy who had refused to become a lawyer, and who had become a monk instead by his own rash choice, was now given responsibility for the thought-life of the future leaders of Saxony. Staupitz’s grant of such a leading role to a self-confessed serial failure seemed to be due more to accident and whim than preparation and foresight. Perhaps the confessor just wanted to get rid of both the teaching assignment and the troubled young friar.

Whether or not Luther and Staupitz understood it at the time, they both later discerned that this was the younger man’s true role. God did not want Brother Martin to be an elite holy man but a simple Bible teacher. God’s calling found Luther, in spite of Luther.

As he studied the Bible, Brother Martin discovered that the medieval structure of Christian life had drifted far from its original mooring. Among the many things he learned, especially from the apostle Paul, was that divine calling was not restricted to monks and nuns. First, Luther’s approach to Bible reading – setting aside cumbersome medieval metaphysics to encounter the text more directly – helped him see that every human being is personally accountable to the Lord’s judgment. Second, his reading of such passages as Romans 1:16-17 helped him see that judgment could be avoided through the gift of righteousness accessible through personal faith in the gospel of Jesus Christ. Third, Luther discovered that the Lord issues to each person a calling, whatever his or her particular station in this life.

Calling is centered not in jobs or tasks, but in people. It breaks us free from captivity to our assigned cultural identities. “However, each one must live his life in the situation the Lord assigned when God called him” (I Corinthians 7:17). In this passage, Paul considers a divine calling to be allocated according to the person. One man may be a Jew, another may be a Gentile; one may be free, another may be a slave. The point is not the ethnicity or the station one receives in this life, but the calling one receives from the Lord. In I Corinthians 7, Paul is adamant that varieties in religious background, work status, and marital status were not the decisive factors. All these external circumstances are derivative; what is determinative is the Lord’s calling.

We often speak of our careers or jobs or roles as our callings or vocations. These external circumstances would be better described not as vocations themselves, but as avenues for expressing our Christian vocation. Paul could envision a human being staying in the same station he was in when he was called to eternal life (I Corinthians 7:20). He could also envision a person changing his station – perhaps even moving from slave to free status (I Corinthians 7:21). A vocation is not a station in society. A vocation is God’s call for a person to come to salvation (Romans 8:28-30) and then to serve his or her neighbor through witness (I Peter 2:9).

As Luther interprets Paul in his “Sermon in the Castle Church at Weimar,” one can be a magistrate and another can be a Bible teacher. One can be a prince; another, a shoemaker. The critical issue is not what one does for a career, but for whom one does it. On the one hand, Luther says, “The prince should think: Christ has served me and made everything to follow him; therefore, I should also serve my neighbor, protect him and everything that belongs to him.” On the other hand, “If he is a Christian tailor, he will say: I make these clothes because God has bidden me do so, so that I can earn a living, so that I can help and serve my neighbor.”

This is not to say that the choice of a career is unimportant. Careers are important, and we should pray for guidance to our proper stations in life. This is to say, however, that the call of God to salvation and our response of faith are of utmost importance. It is also to say that the call of God to salvation carries with it a call to service, to serve God by serving others.

To put it boldly, as Luther himself might: It is more important to find out who you are in Christ than it is to find out what you are to do in the world. But once you are in Christ, do what you are doing for his glory!

Malcom B. Yarnell III is professor and department chair of systematic theology, Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. This post originally appeared in the Oikonomia Network newsletter. Image: ON.

Previous Post

April 24, 2015

From the archives: [VIDEO] God's good plan

Next Post

April 27, 2015 My thousand Eucharists

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Art Audio posts Bible and Work Book Review Books Budgeting Calling Common Good Community Development Conferences Discipleship Economics Entrepreneurship Ethics Faith and Family Faith and the Marketplace Faith and the Workplace faith and work History of Work and Vocation Leadership Local Church Meaning New Blogger News Prayer Relationships Seminaries Theology of Work Uncategorized Video posts Vocation Worship Resources

Select a Month April 2026 October 2025 September 2025 July 2025 April 2025 January 2025 October 2024 September 2024 August 2024 May 2024 March 2024 February 2024 December 2023 November 2023 August 2023 July 2023 April 2023 January 2023 December 2022 November 2022 September 2022 August 2022 July 2022 May 2022 April 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 June 2021 May 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 January 2020 December 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 April 2018 March 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

Who prophesied the fall of Babylon?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Ezekiel Daniel Jeremiah Isaiah