Vocational Conflict


Our son, Nathan, graduates high school this June. In fact, his graduation ceremony is the morning of Saturday, June 9 in Indianapolis…when I am supposed to be leading the last day of the 2012 Indiana-Kentucky Synod Assembly in Covington, KY.
Do you ever find yourself in this sort of vocational conflict?
Interpreting scripture, Martin Luther spilled a good deal of ink on the concept of vocation. As baptized people, marked with the cross of Christ and sealed with the Holy Spirit, our central and primary vocation – or calling – is to shine the light of Christ in the world: “Let your light so shine before others that they see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.” Other vocations, or “callings,” spring from and are means by which we express this central calling: parent, child, student, spouse, sibling, worker, friend, steward, activist, caregiver, diaconal minister, bishop…
In fact, one theologian has said that, “Seen through the lens of vocation, all human work becomes a means to participate in God’s creating and sustaining activity on earth…Luther is fond of saying that one’s own roles and relationships surely give one more than enough God-pleasing work to do without having to look for more.”[1]
Yes, indeed, there is more than enough work to do! We know that well. We are sometimes overwhelmed at our more than enough “callings” to shine the light of Christ. And, sometimes those more than enough callings conflict with one another, forcing us to make a decision about which one to give priority at any given moment. In some ways that is the dilemma of our often over-busy lives. How do we balance all these vocations, these callings?
We pray. We weigh the various aspects of each situation and related consequences. We seek the counsel of others. We tend to the primary relationships God has entrusted to us. And then we take a leap. We “sin boldly” by following the leading of God’s Spirit to privilege, at least for the moment, one vocation over another in service to the one overarching calling, and we entrust ourselves and our decisions to God’s amazing, forgiving, transforming grace.
So this year, leadership of the last few hours of the Synod Assembly will be in the very capable and generous hands of our Synod Vice President and others. That Saturday morning, I will rise early to drive back to Indianapolis just in time to sidle up next to my wife, Janet, and daughter, Kira, to beam with parental pride while Nathan strides across the dais into his future.
May God grant us all continued grace with ourselves and with one another as we tend all of our more than enough vocations.

Bishop Bill Gafkjen

[1] Kathryn Kleinhaus, “The Work of a Christian: Vocation in Lutheran Perspective,” Word and World, Volume 25, Number 4, Fall 2005 (download at http://www.elca.org/Growing-In-Faith/Vocation/Word-and-Service.aspx)
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Table Scraps by William O. Gafkjen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.