Vocation and Community

The Reverend Rebecca Justice Schunior, Assistant Rector

Several days ago I was out with a friend who asked me a theological question, “Is it okay to be jealous of Jesus?” I think she was wondering if it was okay as in, was it blasphemous to envy the Son of God, would God smite her or put her on some naughty list. “Well,” I said, “given that Jesus died a horrible painful death after being nailed to a tree, I wouldn’t question your piety as much as your mental health.”

But as she explained what she meant, I got her point a little better. We had just read the baptism of Jesus in church last week. At his baptism, the heavens open and God speaks, telling Jesus he is his beloved son with whom he is well pleased. “Why,” my friend wondered, “can’t we hear the voice of God speaking to us clearly and unmistakably?”

In our readings today, we hear “call stories”, when Samuel and then in the gospel, Nathaniel received a call from God and they responded. What each one of us is called to do may not be so clear. But we seem to think there is something we could do or should do. As the poet Mary Oliver asks, “What will you do with your one precious life?”

As a priest, I am often asked to tell my “call story.” How did I discern my vocation? Most often I answer this question by telling a literal call story – a story that involved a phone call. After college I drifted a bit aimlessly. It didn’t look that aimless because I was employed in China teaching English, but I still had no idea what I was going to do with my life. I was on the phone with my sister back in the states and we were talking about my lack of direction. She said, “Why don’t you go to seminary?” And those words spoken over a phone connection electrified me. I suddenly knew that’s what I wanted to do. A simple question put the history of my life’s search for vocation in context and gave direction to my future.

Except it’s not so simple. My sister’s question was not out of the blue – I’d always felt an attraction and affinity to the church. And such a call story cannot encompass the future that followed – the disappointment I felt with my faith community; my frustration with the bureaucracy of the Episcopal Church, my attraction to other work. To boil down the story of how I’m standing right here now to one phone call would be a fallacy. And so I tend to be suspicious of call narratives in general. They tend to elide over the inconvenient details or smooth over the rough edges in the interest of a good story.

Everyone likes a good story, but the problem is that most of don’t have a moment where the heavens open and the voice of God speaks to us; the problem is we might have a vocation, but it isn’t whispered to us in a dream, nor does it come to us in a vision. Most of us go through our lives wondering about the right choice to make, the right path to take, and then learning to live with the consequences of what we decided.

In perhaps what is one of the most famous call stories in literature, The Confessions, St. Augustine describes a moment where he hears the words “take and read”, which leads him to pick up a Bible and turn to a relevant passage, which leads him to convert to Christianity.

Yet to reduce his calling to one phrase heard on one day instructing him to read one passage is again a trick of narrative. Before taking and reading, Augustine was endlessly searching for meaning and purpose – from philosophy to politics to a friendship with a Christian bishop, Augustine had spent his life preparing himself for his vocation. And he was surrounded by friends and mentors who supported him.

The prologue to the Gospel of John claims that the Word of God is available to us; the presence of God is here among us. The reading from Samuel doesn’t contradict this statement, but it is more ominous. “The word of the Lord was rare in those days; and visions were not widespread.” Samuel, who actually does receive a rare word from God, needs to hear it three times. And even after that he needs the wisdom of Eli to understand what’s happened. Eli, the blind priest and failed father, is needed to interpret the words of God. Samuel himself does heed the call to carry on priesthood, but he too will be a failed father and the kingmaker of a failed king. But for all of this failure, Eli and Samuel are still stumbling down a path that broadens their horizons and brings them closer to God.

Human speaking and hearing, with all its fallibility and pitfalls, seems to be the main means by which the light of God’s revelation breaks into the world. So, what clues do we poor humans follow to hear what words there are and what visions might be available to us?

Joseph Campbell once famously said “follow your bliss.” I don’t exactly agree with those words. It makes it sound like our vocation is always joyous, as if we were always hitting the game winning home run or bringing the house down with a standing ovation. It’s just not true. Joy and bliss are not necessarily good indicators for a path discovered, a call answered.

But I still remember the electric sense of purpose and hope I felt on the phone with my sister. And it reminds me of the words of God in Samuel, “See I am about to do something in Israel that will make both ears of anyone who hears it tingle.” Tingling ears, a moment of breathless anticipation or even anxiety are signs of a way forward.

And we will still need the wisdom of elders, the advice of friends, the support of community to help us interpret the signs and to hold us up when the path we follow is not blissful. Nathaniel needed Philip to say, “Come and see.” He probably also needed him when the path seemed all wrong and Jesus hung dead on a cross.

I hope each of us has had a moment of “Yes! This is exactly what I want to do. I am exactly where I should be,” even if that moment didn’t last as long as we hoped. I believe such moments are clues in the scavenger hunt of our vocation. I also hope that places like this community are where we can help each other as mentors and friends listen and see.