Next Sunday has been given the title ‘Vocation Sunday’. This is an initiative to encourage us all to think about our vocation, our Christian calling, and wherever it may lead. But next Sunday we are launching our Stewardship Programme, so I thought I’d shift the focus to today instead because it is an important theme which I don’t want to lose. Actually this is not a bad warm-up act for next week because it sets the scene rather well.

Christian vocation is about much more than ordination, than vicars. It is something all of us are called to and commissioned for at our baptism. So our giving should be seen in this light. We give because it is a sign of the whole of our lives being in God’s service and we place at God’s disposal ‘all we are and all that we have’, to adapt a wonderful prayer for Good Friday. So giving to the church is part of seeing the whole of our lives as being lived to God’s glory and that touches the simplicity of our living and general attitude of generosity of spirit. Christian vocation is also about the whole of our lives being lived to God’s glory and working that out in whatever we do. So the two are linked: giving being an expression of vocation.

There has in the last 20 or 30 years been a renewed emphasis on this notion of all of us being called to lives of Christian witness and Christian service. But it still seems to be taking some time to permeate through. We can still hear some talking about helping the vicar, or not recognising that when their brother and sister worshippers visit them, they have been visited by the church. The old view that if the vicar doesn’t call, no one from the church has called is still around! That is a shame because the church is the people of God and that is you and me, so if you visit someone the church has visited. The church is after all the place where Christians gather to worship and focus their calling to be disciples of Jesus Christ.

As well as valuing the ministry of all, I think we also need to give proper value and respect to what we all do to earn our crust. Some jobs are easier than others to see as a vocation: nursing, teaching, caring professions and healing ministries. It gets harder when we look at other jobs that don’t fit our stereotypes of what being a Christian involves and that is because we have tended to have fairly fixed views about what fits the bill and what does not. The key lies in seeing our lives in the light of vocation, of a calling to live in God’s service.

Some years ago I carried out some research in a church congregation and asked them if they saw their Christian faith as being important in their work. From memory I think everyone who completed my questionnaire replied ‘yes’ to this. In one parish I ran something called ‘Thank God it’s Friday’ - with a question mark at the end. The question mark was important because it raised the question of where we focus our notion of vocation.

Do we thank God it is Friday because when Friday comes deep down we feel we can get on with a sense of vocation rather than trying to work out how we can work out Christian living in the jobs we do, which requires some fresh and unconventional thinking? The group met on a Thursday! Others have done similar things calling it ‘Thank God it’s Monday’ or ‘God on Monday’, all trying to do the same thing; to help us integrate our faith and our work, or whatever we do, integrate our faith and our life, which is what vocation is about.

With that said, some do still feel called to particular ministries which go under the umbrella of the church. For some that involves ordination, which has different focuses to it - for some it is about leadership and spiritual guidance, for some it takes a more pastoral focus as in the case of chaplains. Being a vicar is largely about leadership because it is about leading a church community in its vocation to be disciples and care for and nurture each other in Christian living.

This shift in focus is partly due to reduced numbers of clergy around, so there just isn’t a professional army of providers to do everything we associate with ‘ministry’. It is also an ideological shift that sees all as having an important part to play in the church’s ministry and mission. So old notions of church ministry equalling what the vicar does just don’t work any more, if they ever did really. The whole church community has to be involved otherwise we will all feel the draught.

There are of course a number of other specific vocations, in addition to paid clergy. We are familiar here with readers. They have an important preaching and teaching ministry, but many also have a leadership role in pastoral care. Readers can conduct funerals, where specially trained for this, and do a good job. There are vocations to non-stipendiary priesthood, that is have another job to pay the bills and work out what it means to be a priest in that workplace as well as presiding at services at other times. There are also callings to the religious life - to be a monk or nun, to be a friar. No particular ministry is more important than any other. They just have different functions and focuses for the common good. None of them are out of our reach, because all of us who do any particular public ministry have started sitting in pews.

So we are encouraged to pray for all of us in our vocation and ministry, that we may serve God in holiness and truth, to God’s glory. We are encouraged to pray that our church will be a place of vibrant Christian living, for men and women to respond to God’s call wherever that may lead. Presumably when that happens we won’t have a problem finding people to stand as churchwarden. Being a churchwarden short is a symptom to my mind that something is amiss and we should all be alarmed by that!

Christian living is sacrificial - which means it is self-giving. There is no greater time requirement for clergy than there is for those who are not ordained. I have given up an awful lot to stand here as your priest. I remember being annoyed by a letter I received from George Carey when he was Archbishop of Canterbury telling me that people had given sacrificially for me to train. I thought at the time that, having just left a job to be there, I had given sacrificially too! So pursuing vocation is not cost free, because Christian living is not cost free. When we try to make it so, we forget the marks of the wounds which the risen Christ showed his disciples in our Gospel reading (Luke 24:36-48). These are his credentials, his identity papers, and both crucifixion and resurrection lie at the heart of all Christian living and of all notions of this living as a vocation.

So pray for one another, for this church community and for a vibrant witness to the good news of Jesus Christ which is the core of everything we stand for and of the call to focus on vocation.

© Ian Black 2003

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