My First Call

If I were a betting man – which I’m not, but if I were – I’d bet that the title of this post has most people thinking about a particular church to which I might be going after graduating from seminary next month. And, at that particular church, I would be responsible for doing a particular thing, namely Word and Sacrament ministry. That, indeed, is what most talk about “call” refers to.

I think the Church should be very reluctant to speak about call in such a way. Why? A few reasons. First, acting as if God’s call is some hidden thing that Christians must first decipher and then fulfill is an error that does much harm. That is, it tends to make Christians worry about something that has no clear command of God. Also, it tends to distract from the much simpler (but infinitely more important) call to faith, hope, and love.

Rather than focusing on those three theological virtues, the way the Church talks about God’s call tends to act as if God’s Kingdom will be found if/when one reaches a particular station in life. In pursuit of that station – that “call,” as we like to say – it’s not uncommon for a man to act in ways that flatly contradict the Way of Christ. Why? Because he’s decided what God’s “call” is and, doggone it, he’s going to fulfill it. In the meantime, it’s as if he has no call in the here and now – as if the daily task of discipleship is something he can ignore until later.

The true call of Christians is much less complicated. It’s probably more modest than imagined, but that doesn’t make it less pleasing to God. At its core, it’s a call not to a particular station in life, but to love. Instead of the misguided (and sometimes downright sinful) pursuit of a particular job or place, the Christian vocation of love calls for patience and kindness. Moreover, it calls for a heart that does not insist on its own way. (1 Corinthians 13:4, 5)

Love is the first and enduring call of every Christian. It’s a humble vocation, and yet it’s the highest vocation there is. For that reason, the work of a pastor is no more meritorious than the work of a mother, a teacher, an accountant, or a young child. Why? “For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love.” (Galatians 5:6)

Ultimately, the true call of God cuts through all the confusing talk about being called to seminary or to a particular church or to a particular station in life. The true call is simple: faith in and obedience to Jesus Christ, even and especially as one attends to the daily tasks in life. Any talk about “call” in the Church would be much more faithful to the witness of Scripture – not to mention much more edifying to the Christian soul – if it had this focus.

* Final note: It’s worth admitting that Scripture does occasionally (though infrequently) speak about people having a call to a particular role. For example, the apostle Paul described himself in Romans 1:1 as “called to be an apostle.” (And not everyone is an apostle. See 1 Corinthians 12:29.) What can be made of this? That’ll be the topic of my next post. For now it suffices to say that such particular calls are manifestations of the overarching call to love.