Further thoughts on listening and answering a call from God by Fredrick Buechner. Thanks again to Seth for quoting it first.
“I hear you are entering the ministry,” the woman said down the long table, meaning no harm. “Was it your own idea or were you poorly advised?”
And the answer that she could not have heard even if I had given it was that it was not an idea at all, neither my own nor anyone else’s.
It was a stirring in the blood at the sound of rain. It was a sickening of the heart at the sight of misery. It was a clamoring of ghosts. It was a name which, when I wrote it out in a dream, I knew was a name worth dying for even if I was not brave enough to do the dying myself and could not even name the name for sure. Come unto me, all ye who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you a high and driving peace. I will condemn you to death.
As a follow up on Friday’s post, how to chastise–chastise, which is basically a tool to discipline–I wanted to look at how Jesus does discipline.
Here is how he does discipline with the sinner. There is a woman who is caught in the very act of adultery. The men drag her away from her lover, intent on stoning her, as is commanded by law, but Jesus confronts them.
He says, “If any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her.”
The men become unsure of themselves. As each looks to his conscience the mob mentality vanishes. Each man drops his stone. Each man walks away.
Jesus says, “Has no one condemned you? Then neither do I condemn you.”
Then he says something almost contradictory,
“Go now and sin no more.”
What is the key to Jesus’ way of discipline? Does he really expect the adulteress to “sin no more,” when even the fear of death by stoning couldn’t stop her?
Is there a more powerful motivator than fear?
Jesus performs miracles in the cities. Healing the sinner and the sinless alike.
Then again, almost contradictory, Jesus condemns the cities he performs miracles in because they do not repent. He says, “Woe to you, Korazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! If the miracles that were performed in you had been performed in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. But I tell you, it will be more bearable for Tyre and Sidon on the day of judgment than for you.”
What is it about the miracles which should cause people to repent?
Jesus’ message is the coming of the Kingdom of God. His miracles are a sign of the coming of that kingdom.
Jesus rarely motivates through fear. He offers something better.
He says, choose this, choose healing, choose life. That is the motivator, that is the discipline.
I heard two beautiful stories at Mount Calvary today, stories about people who forgave much, like Christ forgave much, when people do the wrong thing.
The First Story
There was a wise abbot in a monastery somewhere not too far away. One day, two monks came to him, out of breath. Wheezing, they told him of a young monk who they said was doing some very “un-monk-like” things in his cell.
The abbot got up and followed them to the young monk’s cell, but he walked slowly and talked loudly. When they got to the young monk’s room, the woman was lying under a basket. So the abbot sat on it and told the monks to search the room.
When they found nothing, he chastised the two monks for their quickness to judge and their willingness to condemn. Then he dismissed them.
Before he got up to leave, he put his hand on the young monk’s shoulder and said, “Care for your soul, my son.”
The Second Story
In 2006, a troubled man entered an Amish school, taking the children and teacher hostage. Then, he murdered the children and killed himself.
In a public press conference, the leaders of the Amish community stood up and said, “We forgive this man.”
They didn’t wait for a while to think about it. They didn’t go through years of counseling. They stood up immediately, and forgave him.
Here’s what a story on NPR said,
Last month, it was announced that the Amish community had donated money to the killer’s widow and her three young children.
It was one more gesture of forgiveness, gestures that began soon after the shooting.
Donald Kraybill, is a sociologist at nearby Elizabethtown College and co-author of Amish Grace: How Forgiveness Transcended Tragedy.
“I think the most powerful demonstration of the depth of Amish forgiveness was when members of the Amish community went to the killer’s burial service at the cemetery,” Kraybill says. “Several families, Amish families who had buried their own daughters just the day before were in attendance and they hugged the widow, and hugged other members of the killer’s family.”
What do we learn from forgiveness
If there was ever a reason not to murder Amish children, children of firm believers in Jesus and his mercy, it would be this: when you have died in your sin and shame, they will hug your widow and care for your children.
“If your enemy is hungry, give him food to eat; if he is thirsty, give him water to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head, and the LORD will reward you.” Proverbs 25:21-22
To me, it is clear why Carnegie said the best way to win someone to your way of thinking is to “be sympathetic with the other person’s ideas and desires,” and to “show respect for the other person’s opinions.” When you treat people with respect, when people feel heard, it opens up their ears to listen.
I posted on a blog run by One in Christ, a student ministry at my alma-matter, Westmont College, which aims to be a healer to a divided Church. The post talks about differences of ideology, and talks Dale Carnegie’s strategies for handling them as a model of discussion which puts relationship first.
I hope you’ll take a look and maybe leave a comment. Reconciliation is something I am passionate about, reconciling ourselves to eachother and to God. It is something which requires a lot of grace and a lot of effort, and even then we mess up.
Click here to read the post.
My computer just restarted on its own without saving a document I was working on. My writing was lost. We’ve all had moments where we’ve lost our work. I remember Hemingway once lost a suitcase containing most of a year’s worth of writing.
My writing obviously isn’t worth anything like his, but still, I am tempted to get frustrated. It was theoretically for myself, but I liked what I was writing and wanted to share it with others. It was one of those enthusiastic outbursts of imagery which I think are so powerful. A little like the way Cari writes.
However, at the same time it wasn’t mine. Those moments are like watching something unfold of which you have little power over, like being a conduit. How can I claim ownership of that, and therefore, how can I be frustrated now that it’s lost?
What do we do when the work of our vocation is lost? What do we do when our mission bears no fruit? Or if the fruit spoils or is ruined? Do we weep? Do we feel sad? Do we get angry? And with whom? Do we curse them?
This is where the rubber meets the road. Because it is in this very moment which we, in trying to use our gifts for the sake of the world, become someone who damages the world with our curse.
There was a movie in the 90s about a college student who was going to graduate with honors (it’s actually called With Honors), but he lost his senior thesis. A homeless man found it and made a deal with him, for every day he would feed and house him, the bum would give him back a page.
Eventually the homeless man became a sort of mentor to the Harvard student. In the end, the student never got his thesis back. He ended up pulling an all-nighter and finishing it, but it wasn’t very good. He didn’t graduate with honors. His horizons were definitely broadened though.
The point is, there is a blessing waiting for us when we lose our work. It might be a reminder that our gifts, and the fruit of our gifts, are not ours but God’s. It might be an opportunity to grow in understanding by re-doing the work. Or if redoing the work is like pulling teeth, it might be a soul searching opportunity where we can ask ourselves, is this really the work God wants for us?
The question is, will we allow ourselves to be blessed, or will we curse the world we’re trying to heal?
Seth Barnes has some good things to say about vocation, or rather, he knows someone who has some good things to say about it.
Fredrick Buechner writes:
In the year that King Uzziah died, or in the year that John F. Kennedy died, or in the year that somebody you loved died, you go into the temple, if that is your taste, or you hide your face in the little padded temple of your hands, and a voice says, “Whom shall I send into the pain of a world where people die?” And if you are not careful, you may find yourself answering, “Send me.” You may hear the voice say, “Go.” Just go.
Like “duty,” “law,” and “religion,” the word “vocation” has a dull ring to it. But in terms of what it means, it is really not dull at all. Vocare means “to call,” of course, and a man’s vocation is a man’s calling. It is the work that he is called to go in this world, the thing that he is summoned to spend his life doing. We can speak of a man choosing his vocation, but perhaps it is at least as accurate to speak of a vocation choosing the man, of a call being given and a man hearing it, or not hearing it.
And maybe that is the place to start: the business of listening and hearing. A man’s life is full of all sorts of voices calling him in all sorts of directions. Some of them are voices from inside and some of them are voices from outside. The more alive and alert we are, the more clamorous our lives are. Which do we listen to? What kind of voice do we listen for?
I have had quite a few conversations involving mission and vocation, and while I started thinking they were basically the same thing, now I am not so sure. I am not an expert on mission or vocation (yet!), and I feel insecure talking about the things I don’t know in this area.
I was talking about this with Liane on Sunday, and she reminded me I don’t need to know everything. In fact, I can even list the questions I have and invite others to help me.
Men are bad at asking for directions, but in times like these, I hear it’s best to listen and say, ”Yes dear. I think so too.”
So here are some key questions to mission and vocation as they relate to this blog:
- Are mission and vocation the same?
- Is mission a smaller piece of a greater vocation?
- Is the approach taken to discover mission the same as finding vocation?
- Is a job like a mission, and a career like the greater vocation?
I’m leaning toward mission and vocation being different somehow, if you couldn’t tell, but I am curious to hear your thoughts, reader. So… think about it!
