I don’t know what it really means to pursue vocation. To love others. I can read and theorize and have my ideals. But when the rubber hits the road, and you make a move that seeks honesty and flourishing in a place that seems opposed to that, and you just crash and burn, what do you do?
When you are labeled an inciter for trying to seek goodness, and you wonder if your livelihood is on the line, what do the words vocation really mean? When you are seeking incarnation in very dark places and are being betrayed, you have to wonder. Are you alone in this? What does being in a church really mean?
“Becoming a disciple is not a matter of a new or changed self-understanding, but of becoming a part of a different community with a different set of practices.” – Hauerwas
Ideally, local churches would be the place where we come together using our different talents to work out our common vocation together. Where we talk and commiserate and encourage each other to keep going deep, to keep suffering, but encouraging each other that it is worth it. That there will be joys that make it all worthwhile. Is that merely idealistic, or can it be, is it somewhere, realistic?
I know that working for transformation is hard to do alone. I can understand why the Bible talks so much about community. About ‘doing life together’. ‘Being in relationship’. Because entering brokenness and darkness, working for redemption, living for transformation is so hard and draining.
Sometimes the outcome isn’t good and you spend the morning so depressed you can’t get out of bed. And you wonder, does it matter? Should I have tried to make a difference? It’s at times like these that I need community. I don’t need another sermon series on not being angry or reading my Bible. I need to hear that sometimes in your quest for transformation, you’re going to bump up against the powers of this world and they will not be moved.
Then what? When the pain and frustration is beyond tears, when we are limited by human realities, then what? We need to be reminded, encouraged, that being a spark of light in a dim place is worth it. That God is here and he is moving, always, always, even if we can’t see him.
We need to pursue vocation together, even if we have individual roles or jobs or careers, because loving people and seeking redemption is going to have the same ups and downs, frustrations and joys, no matter how it takes on flesh.
We need community to help each other love others.
But it seems like a lot of times, the point of church life is about how I can be a better person. Have a better marriage. Sin less. Give more.
I can go anywhere to get self-help and knowledge. I can’t go just anywhere to be challenged to enter brokenness of the sake of redemption and resurrection.
We’ve become a community of people who are trying to be better people together. Instead, we need to be a community of people who enter brokenness together, working with and for other people, being a source of life and redemption.
Because guess what?
I’m never going to become perfect. As many sermons as I hear about the cross and temptations, and as much encouragement I get to read the Bible, give more money, be patient, etc…..I’m still not going to do them all the time.
I know all of these things that I ‘should’ be doing.
Stop telling me to do more.
Help me love more.
And I think churches would in theory, agree that we need to love more, love better.
And so they serve people. Churches are big on serving people.
On Sundays, that is.
I almost wonder if we need a new word. Because I think what happens on Sunday is necessary, and might even be a form of service. But I don’t think it’s necessarily the servanthood kind of serving Jesus was talking about.
“Nothing makes us happier than serving others.”
“Pride ourselves on making a mark in every community we serve.”
“It’s a call to service that comes from the heart.”
Are churches in the service business or the hospitality business? Because these things could be said by many churches.
Are we serving customers or are we serving broken people? Are we serving people in their comfort or serving them in their needs?
What does it mean to really serve people? Can we honestly serve if we’re not entering their brokenness? If we’re not diving deep, looking for the movements of God in the dark?
“Sin is the root cause of deception, distortion, and domination.” (WWP)
“Sin is the inclination toward serving death.” (Despair)
“Anything that is for life, that enhances life, or that celebrates life is pointing towards the kingdom.” (WWP)
When we talk about sin as only personal moral failings and treat it as a shameful thing, then we spend all of our effort trying to fix and overcome it. Which leads to our inability to enter the broken places.
How can we look for redemption and work towards life if we’re trying to treat darkness as something to be avoided instead of entered in?
Are we trying to get through life believing certain things, or are we trying to live the way of love in a world of death?
“Our ultimate love is oriented by and to a picture of what we think it looks like for us to live well, and that picture then governs, shapes, and motivates our decisions and actions.” (DtK)
What do we love? What does flourishing look like to us?
What does it look like for us to live well? To serve well?
How can we create communities where we are entering death together, seeking the light?
Because this vocation thing? It is so hard to do alone.
The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. Check out the other posts in this series: Identity and Vocation Defined Being an Image of God What Does Christian Vocation Look Like? Is It Who You Are, Or Just What You Do? How Does Vocation Impact Our Places of Work? Stewarding Our Love