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By Peter Summers Over Christmas I read a book by David Stancliffe, an old teacher of mine who is now the Bishop of Salisbury. The book was called "God's Pattern: Shaping Our Worship, Ministry and Life." When I was ten years old he came to my school to run the church and teach religious studies. He was an extraordinary man and had an enormous influence on our community. He made our Sunday services voluntary and provoked us into asking hard questions, so we learned young that we could make our own decisions about God and our faith. And also that there was no question that we couldn't ask God that would go unanswered. We may not get the answer right away or the one we wanted, but he assured us we would get one: that's how seriously, he taught us, God takes our lives. When he left our school he went on to become Provost of Portsmouth and chairman of the Liturgical Commission of the Church of England where he wrestled with the problems of language and worship, shaping new services to reflect the continuing growth of the Christian faith and the needs of the people of God. The book is a distillation of all that he's learned in the last thirty years and has so much to say about Christian vocation. What is a vocation? Here's what he says. "Vocation is an important word for us, because a calling - "a vocation" - is something that's not self-generated. Whether it is God who's doing the calling, or the Church, or the community, or even an awareness of our own gifts, a vocation - a calling - comes from beyond us and demands a response. It's not just something to do with ordination: it's what happens when any of us listens to God, or his voice breaks through into our subconscious." "When one of our clergy asked his 16-year-old daughter what she understood by "vocation," he got the answer: "A job you do for love rather than money," and "Something you are called to do, not asked if you'd like to do." What then is a vocation? It's something that comes from the very heart of who we are, a life-gift that God has given us to share with others to the greater glory of God. And it's not just priests who have vocations. We all do. David Stancliffe makes that point very clear when he says that he questioned two people who came to him to be ordained. They both had important jobs in the local community and he felt that they needed to be sure that God wasn't calling them to stay right where they were, doing what they were already doing, as a witness to God's loving involvement with ordinary life. What is it that defines who you are at the deepest level, that creative part of you that overflows from within, the life that calls to you in moments of quiet clarity? Whatever your gift is the exercise of it will come as a liberation. You won't have to think twice about it, when you share it you will be sharing not only your very self but the love of the God who created you. The skills and enthusiasms that mark us out as individuals we can offer to God's service. And our generosity is a reflection of the grace we have been given by God and there are fewer things more attractive than a loving heart. What do you love to do? Where do your natural enthusiasms lead you? Asking questions like these can help bring the gifts that God has given you into focus. And your vocation is to use them to bring God's blessing to others. Looked at this way, vocation is really the right use of the talents God has given us to hasten the arrival of God's kingdom. When we share who we are and the gifts we have been given in a loving way we point to the God who created and redeemed us, and make others aware of his presence in themselves. It's another way of bringing God's light into the darkness of our world. The good news is that for most of us, if we ask God to speak to us about our vocation - the skills we have for blessing others - we can stay right where we are, probably doing what we're already doing, but realizing that we're called to do it to the glory of God. That will make us see who we are and what we do in a new light. It will transform our lives into opportunities to live for God and to make others aware of his blessing. David Stancliffe has a wonderfully English way of summing up why this is important, why having a vocation matters. "The earth is, if not a battleground, then at least a playing field, where the forces of good and evil are in permanent session, and we are drawn into the game - a never-ending rehearsal over and over again - where we practice, as you might practice passing in football, or getting the notes under your fingers in a Beethoven sonata, to play the music of heaven." Peter Summers is the youngest son of Don and Lena Summers. This page originated as an article in The Messenger, the newspaper of St James' Episcopal Church, South Pasadena, California. |
