Ecclesia Princeton
Ecclesia Princeton
The Work Of The People: Life As Liturgy- Romans 12vv1-8: Myths About Vocation
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Pastor Ian Graham looks at the cultural myths about vocation and how they can make it hard to discover our personal vocations. It's our hope that by exposing lies, illusions, and half-truths that we can see the beauty of the truth. We pray this teaching blesses you!
Exploring Personal Vocation and Purpose
Speaker 1Good morning. My name is Ian. I'm the pastor. Thanks for being here. Today we have been talking about vocation and what it means for us to be people who receive a call from God to work, to do things in this world and to bless the world with the life that he's given us, and so I want to put up a graphic that just looks like a cake. Thank you, craig.
Speaker 1We started this discussion about vocation talking about our human vocation. What does it mean to be human? What does it mean to be created by God and to be human is to receive the goodness of God and to delight in the beauty that he's given us, to delight in the justice with which he encoded the world, to receive the gifts of limits that not everything is good for us, not everything is possible for us to worship in face-to-face relatedness to our God, and the beauty of the human vocation is that work is a part of it. Is that the stuff that we do? That for many of us, we have this sense that the way that we spend our time, the way that we spend our moments and our days, has significance, has value. The scriptures are saying yes to that, but all of this is enshrouded in the rest that God has given us. We were created from rest and for rest. So we talked about that in the first week, then last week we talked about our Christian vocation. How do we walk alongside Jesus? And typically when people talk about the Christian vocation they talk about the Great Commission, you know, going to all the world telling the reality of Jesus's life, his death, his resurrection. This is a part of it, for sure. But our call is to be with Jesus and in being with Jesus we live a life that embodies the life that he has called to us.
Speaker 1We looked at the life of Peter last week and we saw that the Christian vocation is first to discipleship. Jesus calls. Peter says come, follow me, come be with me and I will make you fish for people. The primary emphasis in that call is to be with Jesus and then he will transfigure that which we do into something that blesses the world and something that seeds the kingdom of God. Our call also pertains to receiving the holiness that God has for us. Peter has his feet washed by Jesus. Our call to be a Christian involves asking God for things that don't seem immediately reasonable or possible. We saw with Peter he sees Jesus walking on the water. He says, lord, if it's you, tell me to come to you. And Jesus says to him come along. And our call to Jesus is to receive his forgiveness. There will be moments where we don't live this out in the way that we should, but Jesus is unflinching in his mercy. He restores us. Just as Peter denied Jesus three times, jesus asked him do you love me? Peter answers yes, jesus is restoring.
Speaker 1Today we're looking at our personal vocation and it's interesting. If you think about the notion of a personal vocation, it's a fairly recent development in the story of humanity. I mean, for most of human history, you were given a job because of the place or the family that you were born into. Right, you didn't get to decide oh, I want to be this when I grow up, your father was a carpenter. Therefore you were a carpenter. Or if you were a woman and you lived in a patriarchal society, which was most societies throughout human history, your tasks were largely resigned to the home and the tasks that are coordinated with that, and so it's a fairly recent development for us to have to think about what do I want to be when I grow up? There's a Head and the Heart song. It's a folk kind of indie band and the song starts off and he says I wish I was a slave to an age-old trade, and you can hear the kind of ache in that line he's saying. All this choice is actually exhausting me. I wish I was just given a job Now. I think our current situation, though it's complex and though it requires a lot of discernment, is infinitely better For me. I don't want to have to think about how to survive on the frontier. I'm very grateful that I have the opportunity to do the work that I get to do, but we have to acknowledge too that it is complex and that for those of us in the room who are more advanced in our vocation and when we talk about vocation we're talking about work, yes, but we're talking about all the stuff of life, as we'll see today we could say that there's complexity, that there are things that happen that we would never have seen coming, and for some of you in here today, you're on the cusp. You're trying to figure out what do I do next? You know I'm always very gentle, especially as you get along in your academic career and you attend this church. I try to ask the question very gently, but it's like what's next? I try to put all the caveats aside there and say how can I ask this as gently and kindly as possible when you're like I don't know, please don't ask me again? Today we're looking at our personal vocation and I think the reality is that we all have something that we've been given to do by God. It may shift and it may kind of meander like a river with the seasons of our life, but you have been given gifts, you've been given a specific time and a place to live in. You've been given people that are around you and God has given you as a gift to this world, and today we want to begin to unpack. What does it mean for us to understand that, to live in light of that?
Speaker 1One of my favorite TV shows right now and it's very rare that I am up on current TV shows is called the Bear. Anybody watch the Bear? Yeah, okay, right, all right. I need to offer this very clear disclaimer the Bear has a lot of swearing Okay, a lot. So if you're like, if that's not for you and you're like, pastor Ian told me to watch this show oh my gosh, my ears are being assaulted. Please, you have been warned, swearing does not bother me. I worked in restaurants in high school and college and if you've ever worked in restaurants you know what I'm saying. And I also moved to New Jersey, so swearing is okay with me. Never would have thought I would hear so many people swear in church until I moved here, which actually makes my heart happy. I'm into it.
Speaker 1But the Bear is about a world-renowned chef whose brother dies and he returns home to take over the family restaurant business and he's taking a marked step down in his career path. But you could see how this world-renowned, accomplished chef entering back into his family system would create a ripe environment for a story and it in fact does. And one of the characters in the Bear the main character's name is Carmy and one of the other characters is named Richie and Cousin. Richie is the antagonist kind of from the beginning. He resists all the change that Carmy, the world-class chef, is trying to gently impose upon this family mom and pop establishment. He is the one who just can't quite get with the program and Richie is that person. We have some of these people in our lives. If you could just draw out like what's the worst possible decision you could make in this scenario and Richie tends to make that decision, and so we kind of get to know Richie early on and he is kind of the stick in the mud. That won't quite go along with the program. Now I will not spoil the show for you, but as the show progresses, change begins to happen more rapidly and this, for Richie, creates an existential crisis, because he has fully identified his self, his commitment, his gift to the world in regards to what this place was. And so, as change happens, he's trying to hold on to anything solid, just trying to make a name for himself, trying to say I matter, I have value.
Speaker 1And as the second season begins and I tell you this all the time because it is a mark of good storytelling the first thing we hear Richie saying he's down in the basement and Carmi, the main character, walks down. He's looking for Richie, he's in a hurry and he walks down to the basement. He finds Richie sitting down there and Richie just says do you ever think about purpose? Carmi's like I do not have time for this. But then Carmi sees that Richie is really dealing with something heavy and serious here and he goes okay, I have time for this.
Speaker 1But from the very beginning we're told that Richie is struggling with purpose. What does it mean? And the whole season we see Richie trying to latch on to something, trying to assert his value, trying to say I matter. And the more that he does that, the more that he frustrates everybody in the establishment, until and again, I won't spoil it. But we get to a moment where Richie sees that he doesn't have to strive for an identity that he doesn't have to assert himself, have to strive for an identity that he doesn't have to assert himself. It's simply by giving out of the gift that is his self, by focusing on others, that he has a place, that he has something to offer. And I think this is such a powerful encapsulation of the way that we begin to discover our vocations personally. You know, our world tells us that we have to build a life for ourselves, that we have to assert ourselves, and yet the way of the kingdom is Jesus saying die to yourself, rid yourself of yourself, and you will find something far beyond you have ever imagined.
Finding Meaning and Purpose in Work
Speaker 1So what I want to do today, I started outlining this teaching as we talk about personal vocation, and my intention was I want to unpack some myths that are unhelpful to us in discovering our personal vocation. And, as I did that, what I wanted to do was unpack these myths and then move to how do we actually, in a positive way, begin to take inventory of the life that God has given us, and what I found was that that teaching was like an hour and a half long. So what we have today you're welcome is a part one, because in a way that I don't normally have sway, I'm literally holding the keys to lunch right now. So I'm literally holding the keys to lunch right now. So I'm aware of that, but what I want to do is unpack some myths that are unhelpful. Again, we talked about the reality that for us to think about the job that we do as a part of our vocation is a fairly recent phenomena right, but in many ways, there are so many headwinds for us in the scripts that our culture gives us in understanding what we are here to do and how we embody God's love in that space. And so what I want to do is unpack several myths today, and I think when we start to see illusions or half-truths for what they are, you also see the freedom that is attached to the reality of things, and so my hope today is that as we sort of unpack these myths, some of them may hit you in a way. It's like oh yeah, others of you might be like I don't really struggle with that, that's fine. But as we kind of circumvent all of these different illusions, I think today we're going to find something so beautiful and so freeing. So first I want to kind of paint the picture of the world that we live in Again, going back to Derek Thompson's quote on workism and he describes workism as kind of the air that we breathe.
Speaker 1When it comes to how we try to impose meaning, how we try to assert meaning in our work, look what he says. He says what is workism meaning, how we try to assert meaning in our work. Look what he says. He says what is workism? It is the belief that work is not only necessary to economic production but also the centerpiece of one's identity and life's purpose. Yeah, does that resonate? Any of you ever tried to impose ultimate value and meaning onto your work? There are good reasons for this, and that's what I hope to unpack today. But sometimes we are trying to put something in a container that cannot hold it and my hope today is you'll see that, as Jesus invites us to lay our burdens upon him, that we have a greater freedom, that we are called towards.
Speaker 1So I'm going to list out several myths I'm going to just put up. You can put up that list. Yeah, thank you, craig. Now these will not be immediately apparent Some of them might be but these are some of the myths we're going to unpack today, and we'll start with the first one Cash rules everything around me. This is a song by the Wu-Tang Clan. So the economicizing I don't even know how to say that of everything, everything has economic value, is what we'll say Now.
Speaker 1We've already discussed the new variable in our equation when it comes to work and vocation, that we can choose a career path, and for many of us, the fulcrum of that decision is simply this when can I make the most money? Jesus tells us that the love of money is the root of all sorts of evil, but for many of us, in making decisions about the way that we will spend the hours and the moments of our day, the primary operating question is how can I make the most money? Now here's the complexity, and it was so fascinating. I was having this discussion with our daughter on the way here and we drive through one of the neighborhoods in Princeton that has a lot of large houses and we were talking about greed and riches and I said, dear you know, jesus never asks us to manage other people's money and I can't know these people's hearts. And she was like aren't they greedy? I was like I have no idea.
Speaker 1But it was a fascinating discussion because what we were talking about was we want rules and principles, oftentimes in life, in place of the presence of God, and so it would be so easy for us if God were to say okay, once you get to $100,000 a year, $200,000 a year, probably $500,000 a year in New Jersey, you have to start giving at this rate and do these things. But what God does is much more ambiguous, much more complex. That requires his presence. It's not so cut and dry how we live in regards to money. Jesus is constantly telling us to inventory our hearts, to ask ourselves the question of where our heart lies. But there's not these hard and fast principles. Even people talk about things like tithing. You can't find tithing in the New Testament. So Jesus says give it all. So that's the fulcrum that we're dealing with, but as it pertains to our vocation and our work.
Speaker 1When we we talk about, is money the primary driver? If that is your fundamental posture in life, then you have to do some inventorying and some work with the spirit. But I've also met people that say, listen, I want to make as much money as I can so I can give it away, and I've seen them do it. That's a very different posture. Right, it may have the appearance on the exterior of the same kind of motivation, but a very different heart posture. And so what we have to confront is the myth and the lie that money which leads to a life of ease, of comfort, of power, of sort of self-salvation where we don't need God's provision. That is a lie and illusion. But there's this other version. Do you know? Jesus's ministry was supported by wealthy women. Luke's gospel tells us. There's this other version, this other motivation, this other ambition that can be at work here. But what we're trying to deal with is sort of primary motivations. Where does your heart lie and where is that inviting you to trust God?
Speaker 1Dorothy Sayers, in her powerful I commend it to you and short treatise on work called why Work, writes this the habit of thinking about work as something one does to make money is so ingrained in us that we can scarcely imagine what a revolutionary change it would be to think about it in terms of the work done. To do so would mean taking the attitude of mind we reserve for our unpaid work, our hobbies, our leisure interests, the things we make and do for pleasure, and making that the standard of all our judgments about things and people. We should ask of an enterprise not will it pay, but is it good? It's interesting in our sort of current world, the move towards side hustles, like even our hobbies and our leisures are now being economized. So it's like, hey, you can make money off of this thing that you were just doing for fun, now you can try to make money off that. But for us, again, the primary question is cash. Is money, is the power that accompanies that your primary motivation, and you should ask God to help you repent. But is there something else at work there? Then maybe, perhaps God is using that All right.
Speaker 1Second, fame Some work can be a gateway to fame. Now, again, most of us are not after, like Taylor Swift, level worldwide fame. I understand that Some of us might be, but there's like the localized fame, right, the being famous in your field or in your office or in your school, there's that kind of notoriety and honor attached. This is something deeply ingrained in all of us. We want to be seen and it's a beautiful thing about God that he sees us, that he recognizes the work that we do, and if our heart posture is to please him, if our ambition is to perform not for the audience of the many but for the audience of one, we are blessed and we find God's honor. We find him saying well done, good and faithful servant. Cs Lewis in his great sermon, the Weight of Glory says it this way. He says for glory means good report with God, acceptance by God, response, acknowledgement and welcome into the heart of things. The door on which we have been knocking all our lives will open at last. Friends, it is understandable and coded into who you are that you would want to be seen for your work. But the question we have to constantly ask ourselves is who do I want to be seen by? Who am I doing this for? Am I doing this to please others? Am I doing this because at some level I have a fear of others and what they think of me? Or am I doing this to please God and to honor him. It's a very different postures.
Speaker 1Third, you can listen to any song in the history of humanity recorded. Which song would you like to listen to? Anybody ever run into this? Now? I'm old enough to have had a book that had CDs in it and when I would get into my car I would look through that book, flip through them and I would pick out a CD and that was actually the only music that was available to me in that moment. Couldn't listen to anything else. It was actually quite freeing.
Speaker 1We live in a world of infinite choice, which something as maybe trivial as music can seem like. Oh, which you know, something as you know, maybe trivial as music can seem like oh, okay, haha. But when it comes to things like our career, can seem like quite paralyzing. What if I choose wrong? What if I choose something lesser than what if I take the wrong path? These can all be very paralyzing choices and conundrums.
Speaker 1Alan Noble says in his book you Are Not your Own. He says we live in a perpetual state of I just need to. He puts in scare quotes because our hyper competitive society cultivates in us an addiction to self-development and because people buy more junk when they think they need more junk. If you are your own, it makes sense. You'll need to keep acquiring, to fill yourself up and to give your personhood some weight in the world. But even though you can acquire a lot of things and experience a lot of pleasures, you aren't actually free to love them, because love requires presence. Love cannot always be looking ahead or to the left or the right. Love requires us to be still and to take joy in the goodness of this moment. And if we are not our own but belong to Christ, that's exactly what we are free to do. You don't have to prove anything. You don't have to acquire more. You don't have to weigh your options and consider what you might be missing out on. You are free to be present and attend to the gift in you, whether it's your spouse in front of you, whether it's your spouse, your child, a song, a pleasant talk with a friend or the wind in the trees.
Speaker 1Dorothy Sayers says this way a society which consumption has to be artificially simulated in order to keep production going is a society founded on trash and waste, and such a society is a house built upon sand. Again, we talked about the reality of being human is receiving the gift of limits, saying God, what gifts have you given me? And gifts in the most expansive sense possible. Yes, talents, yes, things that you can do, but also people, seasons, life. What gifts have you put in front of me that will help discernment, that will help us make choices?
The Sacredness of Vocation
Speaker 1The fourth myth that we often encounter is we over-identify our work with our vocation. This becomes especially poignant for those of you who do immense amount of work that is unpaid. Perhaps you're a stay-at-home parent, perhaps you're an artist, perhaps you're somebody who caretakes and does a lot of work in the unseen. We talked in the first week of this series how our work is one of the areas that we readily identify our identities. So I rarely say to somebody I am a husband Like that's kind of a weird sentence Like I am married. I rarely say to somebody I am a father. I would say we have kids. But I say to people I am a pastor, and probably you say something similar as it regards to your current status. I am a student, I am a plumber, I am a teacher, and for some of us we downplay the contribution that we make to this world. Oh, I'm just a stay-at-home parent or I'm just fill-in-the-blank with time, occupation, spent that seems less than desirable or less than honored and valued in our culture. That seems less than desirable or less than honored and valued in our culture. We over-identify that which we can be paid for and that is capitulating to this idea that everything that has value can be valued monetarily. And so many people that are contributing value that is immense beyond anything we can imagine, to the eternal reality of the kingdom.
Speaker 1Look at what Dorothy Sayers says. She says should be the full expression of the worker's faculties, the thing in which he finds spiritual, mental and bodily satisfaction and the medium in which he offers himself to God. The work that you do, whether it is paid or unpaid, is part of your human vocation. It is part of your life before God. It is part of your life before God. It is the gift offered to God as a part of your life with him. Your call, ecclesia, is to be a saint, to be somebody who is surrendered and yielded to the life that God has for you, receiving it continuously from his hands, being transformed day by day from glory to glory. This is what you have been called to. This is the gift that you offer to the world, and what that means is that every single moment of your life can be an expression of that gift. Look at what NT Wright says. You want my favorite NT Wright quote Great.
Speaker 1Here it is the point of the resurrection is that the present bodily life is not valueless just because it will die. What you do with your body in the present matters because God has a great future in store for it. What you do in the present by painting, preaching, singing, sewing, praying, teaching, building hospitals, digging wells, campaigning for justice, writing poems, caring for the needy, loving your neighbor as yourself, will last into God's future. These activities are not simply ways of making the present life a little less beastly. This is what Richard Dawkins wants. He says I'm a cultural Christian because I want the sort of value system of the kingdom. I want people to live like Christians and be nice to each other, but I don't want Jesus, right. But he's saying NT Wright's saying that's not what's happening here.
Speaker 1God is not just trying to slightly absolve us of the pain of this world. What he is saying is is that every little thing that we do in the powerful scandal of grace can be a building block for the world that is to come Because Jesus is gathering up all things, gathering them up into his nail-scarred hands, building the life that is to come, which means that every moment is sacred. Every moment can be a gift that will be expressed. We will only see the fullness of it in eternity. But for many of us, we downplay the reality that God has called us to a vocation, first to himself and then to offer ourselves as a gift to the world, and this leads us to build up walls. This is the next myth. We want to encounter the wall, the wall between the secular and the sacred.
Speaker 1Dorothy Sayers says this. This is poignant. She says it is the business of the church to recognize that the secular vocation as such is sacred, and all those of you with secular vocation said amen. Christian people, and particularly perhaps the Christian clergy, that being me, must get it firmly into their heads that when a man or woman is called to a particular job of secular work that is as true a vocation as though he or she were called to specifically religious work. The church must concern herself not only with such questions as the just price and proper working conditions. She must concern herself with seeing that work itself is such as a human being can perform without degradation.
Speaker 1As you sit here, as we talk about vocation, your work is just as holy, just as impactful to the kingdom of God as the people who do things like preaching and singing and all that other stuff. And so often we build up a wall in our minds of like this is the spiritual stuff, over here the Sunday morning, you know hour, hour and a half, and then this is all the other stuff. And it's these walls that allow us to live with this kind of dissonance, all these parts that don't quite fit together. And what Jesus is trying to do is say I am the Lord of all of life, I am trying to help you live a congruent, integrated life. And so much of that informs our daily life at work. How do we see even the parts of your job or the parts of your daily moments that seem so mundane, so unimpactful? God is present there. It is an invitation to, as Moses did, take off your shoes and find that the ground that you are standing on is holy ground.
Speaker 1The next myth is that the kingdom of God is where ambition goes to die. May it not be so. May it not be said among us that, because we are people of Jesus, that we lower ourselves in the way that CS Lewis talks about. Is that true humility is not thinking less of ourselves, but it's thinking of ourselves less. We gave a talk I gave a talk several months back on holy ambition, the kind of kingdom ambition, the kind of faith that says, lord, if that's you upon the water, I want to be where you are, call to me. The kind of faith that says I want to do the things that you do. And we have to cultivate that in our midst.
Speaker 1But so often we use our ambition to build our kingdoms, to build our livelihoods, and we fail to offer that ambition as a gift to God. James KS Smith says of a holy ambition. He says resting in the love of God doesn't squelch ambition, it fuels it with a different fire. I don't have to strive to get God to love me. Rather, because God loves me unconditionally, I'm free to take risks and launch out into the deep. I'm released to use my gifts in gratitude, caught up in God's mission for the sake of the world. When you've been found, you're free to fail. We have the security of the one to whom all authority in heaven and on earth have been given and Jesus has called us to live as his children in light of that kind of kingdom, and so may it not be said of us that we squelched our ambition under the guise of faithfulness. May we be people who cultivate an expectation that God wants to do something profound and powerful in our midst.
Speaker 1Next, our culture's obsession with youth. For many of us, a discussion of vocation and work is wrapped up with all sorts of regret. What if, we wonder, we could have, or should have chosen differently? What if we wouldn't have stayed at that job for so long? What if we would have changed our major? What if our parents would have called out the gifts that were in us? We often find that the fulcrum of vocation lies somewhere in the past and that we are left negotiating with the present. Isn't it interesting that so many people who are impactful in Jesus' story are older? Anna, the prophetess, has been praying in the temple for decades. She catches a glimpse of the Messiah born Simeon. My eyes have seen the glory, the coming of God, zechariah, elizabeth, well beyond childbearing years, and yet a part of the story, nicodemus, lord. How can I reenter my mother's womb when I'm an older man? And yet we find that Nicodemus is one of the caretakers of Jesus's body upon his death.
Speaker 1The kingdom does not capitulate to our culture's obsession with youth, and what this means is that vocation is not a young person's discussion. Yes, there will be times in our lives where doors have been closed, where roads have been crossed, but our God is the way maker. He is the one who carves life out of the grave, which is the ultimate end, the ultimate of futility. And God crosses every distance and makes a way from there. And he can make a way no matter where you are, in what season of your life you find yourself in, whether that be on the cusp of your life, in work and career and vocation, or whether that be well seasoned and advanced. God has a story and a place for you to play.
Speaker 1And, friends, this is not just patronizing Like oh, we gotta find something for somebody to do here. Like you've seen the movie Elf. Like you know, when they're trying to like they figure out he's not an elf and they're like, hey, you bring down the choir a whole octave and you change the light bulbs. And you know, like God is not looking for little patronizing things for you to do, so you can feel good about yourself. The stuff that you do matters, the stuff of the seasons of your life, has infinite impact.
Living Sacrifice and Spiritual Gifts
Speaker 1You know, one of the beautiful things, we're going to celebrate a baptism in here today of a young woman named Ji Young, and I was talking to her this week and she said you know we're talking about the church and how she found it. She said I found it because there was a sign put up on the corner. And I said, oh, I know the man who puts that sign out every single week. His name is Gene and he does it faithfully to the point where, like, the one week he doesn't show up, the sign definitely does not get put on the corner. I say all that to say, like, of course, okay, there's a sign and somebody came in, but it's like that small act of putting that sign on the corner of the street brings somebody in who finds some semblance of life in this community, finds people that she can walk alongside. That's an incredible thing. That's the ecosystem of this kingdom and for us, god is not trying to patronize us Like, okay, you can have a little role there.
Speaker 1God is inviting us to see every single thing that we do as a gift and that he will take and multiply those gifts in ways that we cannot imagine. I realize that we've gone several minutes into a sermon and we've not read a passage of scripture. Now I'm going to do the thing I'm called to do Romans 12. I appeal to you, therefore, brothers and sisters, on the basis of God's mercy, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God. This is your reasonable act of worship. Do not be conformed to this age, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.
Speaker 1Paul was talking to a people that are not all that different from us, and he's saying to us that God can be trusted with the whole of our lives, that we can place ourselves as a sacrifice on the altar of God's mercy, and that what we will find is not that we are diminished, not that we are burned up, but that we are transformed, that we are turned and sanctified into a gift that God gives to the world. Paul goes on, he says for, by the grace given to me, I say to everyone among you you should not think of yourself more highly than you ought to think, but you should think of yourself with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned you. For as in one body we have many members and not all members have the same function, so we, who are many, are one body in Christ and individually we are members one of another. We have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us prophecy in proportion to faith, ministry and ministering, the teacher and teaching, the encourager and encouragement, the giver and sincerity, the leader and diligence, the compassionate and cheerfulness. When Paul talks about spiritual gifts, he always kind of lists different attributes, different things, because he's trying to somehow capture the all-encompassing reality of what it means to be the body of Christ, that everything that we do, when done for the glory of God and done for the service of our neighbor, is a gift that God will take into his blessed hands. He will bless them, he will break them, he will give them, he will multiply them, because this is who our God is. I'm gonna invite the worship team forward.
Speaker 1The last myth that we have to encounter here today is when we talk about vocation, when we talk about the stuff that we can do in the world, which is such a beautiful topic but we often talk about our gifts, the stuff that we're good at, but the incredible thing about the gospel story is that the gospel is not just about glory and triumph and victory. It is about those things, but it is about glory, triumph and victory through the pathway of sorrow and suffering, through the pathway of brokenness is that Jesus enters in to our condition, into our brokenness, and by them not discarding them, not ignoring them, not minimizing them, but by taking the full weight of those realities and transforming them and transfiguring them turns them into glory. And for many of us in here today, we think, because of a decision that we made in our past, because of an affliction, whether it be something like mental illness, whether it be something mental struggle, whether it be some disability, that we live our lives with a thorn in the flesh, something that we constantly encounter. We think that we don't have a gift to offer to the world. And whether it be a decision you've made or some reality that's been visited upon you, the glory of the gospel is that Jesus has taken all of it into his hands and that he is taking it in such a way that he can transform it and transfigure it in our lives today. And so, whether you walked in here laden with shame and regret, whether you walked in here just suffering, I pray that you would hear me today that God is present with you in your pain. But he's not just present with you in your pain, as in he's walking alongside you. He takes that pain and transforms and transfigures it.
Speaker 1There's this beautiful scene in the show Doctor who, which is a BBC show, and the doctor has the power of time travel. And this particular episode centers on the painter Vincent Van Gogh. And Vincent Van Gogh famously struggled throughout his life. He's tormented mentally. He's also tormented vocationally here. He was a painter who had never sold a painting. As he got to the end of his life he just felt like a failure, like somebody who didn't contribute anything to the world.
Speaker 1And in the show, because the doctor has the power of time travel, he takes Vincent van Gogh from the 19th century to the 21st century to a museum in Paris, and they walk through the museum and van Gogh is you know, obviously, the dissonance between the 19th century and the 20th. He's just kind of taking it all in. But then, as they move towards the center of the museum, he enters into a room with paintings that are familiar. He sees his work, he sees crowds gathering around it and he's just taking it all in. And then the doctor turns to the docent in the museum and says, sir, you were telling me about Vincent van Gogh, can you say some more about that? And the docent begins to talk and he talks about van Gogh's way with color and with art.
Speaker 1And he says of van Gogh. He says he transformed the pain of his tormented life into ecstatic beauty. Pain is easy to portray, but to use your passion and pain to portray the ecstasy and joy and the magnificence of our world, that is something else altogether. This is the powerful truth of our vocation is that everything offered to God, every moment, every experience, everything that we can offer, that is, of any goodness in this world, put into his hands and be transformed into the beauty of our king. And he promises us that he will do it. Jesus restores all things, which means the stuff of this world. He's going to give us a new body, resurrected, reigning with him. But it means that he's going to restore time itself, that all those moments that have felt so fleeting, as Joel 2 says, the years that the locust has eaten, he will renew in a harvest of blessing. Today, we receive the scandal and the reality of that promise, that all his promises are in fact yes and amen. We gather around him.
Speaker 1I'm going to pray over you as we come and expect God to move in our midst. I pray, holy Spirit, come, god in this place. God, for those of us who are asking the question, lord, of what we are to give to this world. God, I pray for clarity and discernment and wisdom. God, I pray that you would unburden us from the scripts of our culture, god, the illusions, god, the half-truths, and that you bring us into your freedom. Where the spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. God.
Speaker 1I pray for those who are mired in shame or regret, especially as it comes to this discussion of vocation. God, that you would show us a glimpse of how you are restoring all things, god, and that you would show us, god, that that is not just a future orientation, god, but it is the right now that the present moment can be redeemed because you are here, your presence is here, god. I pray for those of us who are in a different season of our life. Maybe our house has been emptied of children as they've all gone on. Maybe retirement, lord, maybe a new, a job change. God, that's sort of struggling with what's next.
Speaker 1God, I pray that your provision in your hand would be seen in a mighty way. God, I also pray that we would see that in those liminal times, god, that you are calling us to move and to give out of those spaces. God, I pray for those of us who are afflicted, god, with great pain. God, that we would see how you, by the power of your spirit, god, by the power of the same spirit that called Christ Jesus from the grave, are raising the dead things in us to life. God, are offering the broken places in us as a gift, a mosaic, a tapestry of grace. Jesus, lord, would you have your way in this room, amongst these dear, dear people called by you, called as a priesthood of saints, god, a holy people. God, build in us an ambition, an expectation for your kingdom to come. We ask all these things in your name, in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.