This week some members of the congregation and I attended synod assembly the annual gathering of the ELCA in upstate New York. We got together to address church matters, to conduct business and to learn and to worship as a church body. The theme for the week was vocation. Vocation is a bit of catch word in the church right now that refers to our calling in the world and our mission from God. The place where our passions and gifts meet to guide us in the ministry of the everyday. The idea behind Christian Vocation is that we are all given certain talents and abilities and we are all called to work in God's kingdom and that work will be best done and we will be happiest and most successful if we figure out a way to match up work in the kingdom with our own talents and gifts.
At Synod Assembly there were speeches, videos and workshops that tried to answer the question: Why are Lutherans excited about vocation? How do we as Lutherans manage to consider the work that we do in our employment, in our churches, in our homes, in our friendships and today being father's day we should mention even, as parents and children, how do we consider all that more than work but vocation?
The best answer that I heard this question was: That we do it because our baptisms mean something! They are an assurance from God that we will be cared for, a promise from God that we will be equipped to do good work and a call from God to care for his people.
We are excited about vocation because our baptisms mean something.
With that in mind I'm going to re-read a little portion of today's gospel lesson:
When Jesus saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, "The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest." Then Jesus summoned his twelve disciples and gave them authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to cure every disease and every sickness...[skipping ahead] and these twelve Jesus sent out.
There is something great and a little trickey going on here. Jesus saw that the sheep needed a shepherd. His people needed things and he had great compassion and he asked the disciples to pray that God would send some people out. Then in just about the same breath Jesus himself called and sent the very disciples that he had just asked to pray, out to do what they were asking God for. Now maybe this all happened so quickly because Jesus had a extra-fast line to God and knew right away the answer to the disciples' prayers or maybe this happened in the way that, sometimes, when we are interested in seeing something happen, we ask for volunteers, no one steps up and we realize that if it is going to happen we are going to have to at least start the work ourselves.
This is part of how vocation works. How do you find your calling? Well, what do you find yourself praying for most often? If you are praying for the sick is your calling to visit the sick? If you are praying for the children in the community is your calling to be a teacher or mentor. If you are praying for a relationship that you have are you being called to work on that relationship? Again vocation is tied to passion so we get clues from what we care most about.
Let me tell you a story about a group of people who found their vocation in a pretty everyday way.
There was a wheat farmer. In a town called Othello near where I lived two harvest seasons ago. This farmer died very suddenly just after he planted the wheat fields in the spring. He was gone but the wheat kept growing. And as summer ended just like every year the wheat was ready for harvest. Now perhaps some of you farm here or have lived on a farm at some point and so you know what it is like for a farm family come harvest time. It takes up a lot of time and energy, it is the central event for the family. I know some families where a daughter or son is known to come home more reliably during harvest time than even for the holidays. It is hard work but there is also some excitement in the air, something strong and familiar, it is full not only of urgency but also memory and thoughts about the future. And harvest time is also the livelihood of the family. No harvest, no income and you lose whatever you put down on the fields to begin with. So, as harvest grew nearer it must have been very hard to be a widow with the wheat ready to harvest but no farmer around to do so.
The community must have thought so too because they went to church Sunday after Sunday for weeks and prayed and asked the people to pray for her and her farm. The prayer must have sounded similar to what Jesus told his disciples to pray, the harvest is plentiful but the laborers are few, Lord send people to work those fields and care for that family.
Well God listened in that same funny way that he listened to the prayers of the disciples and when it came around to harvest time there, those same people who had prayed, were, getting their instructions and heading out into the widow's fields. One morning after a simple prayer an army of combines from the whole community set out to harvest the wheat of the deceased farmer while an army of loving friends set out to create new harvest memories with a the farmer’s wife. The men driving the combines were not preaching about God’s love, they did not sit down and gather anyone around to hear about what it means to reach out to a neighbor in the name of God. Instead quietly and efficiently they did so. The served this widow when she was most vulnerable and they filled an entire community with the love of God. It only took one morning and a bit of gasoline.
They didn’t do it because they thought that they would get a better place in heaven if they did the other thing our baptisms tell us is that we are saved not by work but by God's grace. They did it out of love for a friend and fellow farmer now gone and out of love and compassion for his wife. This is what it means to have vocation, it isn't foreign or uncomfortable. The best ministry is reflexive. It is doing what you are moved to do and what you are confident about.
In the case of this community the most everyday service was an extraordinary ministry. They figured out the call of their baptisms, to care for people in the ways that they understood, with a vocation they already knew together and with the help of God.
Jesus asked his disciples to pray for those upon whom he took compassion and then Jesus raised up people to care for them. Jesus asks us to pray for his people, and then he sends us out to care for them. This is what we are promised at our baptisms, that we will be given unique gifts, a unique call, the Holy Spirit among us and an entire community of people of God to work beside us.
The really good news here about baptism and vocation is not that we are sent but that God sends. Sometimes we are the shepherds, sometimes we are the lost sheep. Sometimes we help and sometimes we need help and God sends workers to bring in the harvest when we can't. Helpers to carry us through when we are weak and sheep for us to lead when we are strong.
God sends, because our baptisms mean something. Amen
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