The Rev'd Jesse L. A. Parker, Rector of Saint John's in the Village, Baltimore
It is clear to anyone who lives in our Episcopal Church today that there is a wide diversity of opinion on matters of faith and morals, and that much of what was at one time taken for granted as Christian teaching has not only been called into question, but abandoned.
Let it be equally clear, from this point on, that this is not a new phenomenon in the life of the Church and in the progress of a living Faith. The Church has many times moved from one point of view to another in presenting the essentials of Christianity to a new generation and a new era as the ever-increasing treasury of human thought, experience, and learning has been enriched through the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Wisdom and Truth. We have often seen, unquestionably and in many ways, in our long history as a people following Christ, that, as the old hymn says, "time makes ancient good uncouth".
Nevertheless, many would argue that never before in our history as the people of the New Covenant has the Church strayed so far from its original understandings of life and our relationship to God, each other, and creation itself.
What I hope to do, in my role as teacher and pastor to our congregation, is to put forward in a small series of Pastoral Letters, issued over a period of time, a brief contemporary presentation of essentials of our Christian Faith and practise. These are to serve as very simple and basic starting points to help foster a renewed understanding in the present flux of modern opinion, while keeping congruence and respect with our past. I do not intend to offer the definitive, nor the exhaustive exposition of the topics of these Letters. I do intend to teach the basics of the Catholic Faith once delivered to the saints as it might and may be understood in this our present century. I believe that under God these Letters might prove helpful to our members and friends in the midst of all the current debates.
It seems most appropriate to begin with a Letter which applies to everyone personally: the Christian Vocation.
The primary, essential, fundamental belief of a Christian is that God (whatever that may mean) was somehow 'found' in Jesus of Nazareth, a Jewish male born in the reign of Caesar Augustus in the era of Roman ascendancy in the Mediterranean basin. This rooting in history is what puts the "Christ" in Christianity. The man Jesus was experienced and proclaimed among his people as "the Christ", a term which comes to us from the Greek-speaking ancient world. This was the early Greek rendering of the Hebrew word "messiah". Both words translate into English as "anointed one". Jesus of Nazareth was said to be God's "anointed one", in the belief of the Jews of that time, the one whom God would choose and send to lead them out of ignorance of God and away from evil.
A fundamental presupposition of the religion out of which Christianity evolved was that humanity needed divine intervention to be able to see the truth about itself, to order itself aright, and to enjoy this life. It was believed, and inspired men prophesied, that God would intervene in a man of his own choosing to be this intervention. Many people around Jesus came to believe that he was the man God had chosen to be the divine intervention. These people were first called "Christians" in Antioch in Syria, the Greek-based word coming into general use since Greek was still the region's common language.
The whole of Christianity rests on this belief that Jesus of Nazareth is the man in whom God himself lead people out of the darkness of their ignorance about the meaning of life, from their death-giving ways, and into the way of ever-deepening enlightenment of truth about reality and relationships in life itself, and that God still does it through Jesus today. Indeed, it is the assertion of Christianity that God himself may be uniquely and ultimately experienced in coming to know Jesus of Nazareth as his Messiah, the medium and the message inextricably bound, the substance of each the same. To be a "Christian" is to believe that Jesus of Nazareth is the messiah of God, and, equally important, to accept the call of God which is revealed in Jesus.
Now in general, a "vocation" is defined as "a calling" (from the Latin vocare: to call). One of its definitions from a dictionary on my desk is, "…a function or station in life to which a person is called by God". Christians believe that Jesus of Nazareth, in God's Name, called and still calls each individual to a new life, a new way of seeing the world and new ways of living our relationships in it. When someone hears, understands, and accepts this calling, he becomes a Christian. His new function in life, above all else and through all else, is to become a living example of that call in action; to show others the way to a full and genuine life; and to join together in a communion of Spirit with God himself. Their life now, whether born high or low, rich or poor, is ultimately for each individual, that of a servant to make what is found in Jesus known, for the sake of others. One of the great saints, Paul of Tarsus, put it this way: "It is no longer I who live, but Christ who is alive in me." This attitude is what it means to "follow" Jesus.
Christians are called by God in Jesus out of the ordinary way of living, the "every man for himself" way. They are called into a new way of being in the world. They are called to live justice, mercy, truth, and real piety. Christians consider themselves as having as their calling to show in their own lives the way that people may have full and whole lives, not living in fear and self-destruction, or at the mercy of their out-of-control appetites. The result of such living is ever more life, more deeply lived life, and the calling of others into the celebration of life. Christians believe that Jesus of Nazareth lived in a manner which embodies the way to true living, with the added promise that real life will never end. The teachings of Jesus preclude acts of terror and coercion; they are about life and the choice of love.
Christians' calling then, their vocation, is to live in such a manner that anyone looking at their lives would recognise the very qualities of life which people found in Jesus of Nazareth. These are the qualities which turn hearts to God. Christians are not called to slavishly do just what Jesus did, and that in every situation, but rather to reveal today in themselves and in their own actions the same seeking after God, the same desire to reconcile one to another and all to God, which was so apparent in the life and activity of Jesus, the Messiah of God. Christians are called to a life motivated not by need or greed, but by the same thing which propelled the life of the Christ: love.
What God revealed in Jesus, above all else, was this: the whole of point of life is love. Not sentimentality, not affection, not even empathy and compassion, though all these are useful and good, but rather that love is at the root of what the Christian understands as the meaning of true living in this wondrous creation.
Christians believe that God calls everyone, that the vocation to live a life of true love is given to all. Nevertheless, in the complexity of our world not everyone has heard of Jesus of Nazareth, yet the same God calls out to each responsive soul the same vocation: come out of the ordinary, learn a better way, come to me, learn to live: Love! And then, go and tell this truth to others. People of all sorts genuinely do respond to this call of the Spirit. This is expressed and lived out in countless religious traditions, often in uniquely profound ways and from which the Christian has much to learn, while in other instances less skilfully and with less ability to generate a loving spirit. What the Christian has to offer is the utter clarity, poingancy, and unique spiritual life of Jesus, and the insights, or truth, gained from living his way. The Christian can, in all humility and sincerity, offer to anyone seeking it, the way, the truth and the life in the reality which is Jesus of Nazareth. In making this offering, Christians offer faith, hope, love, and in the end, salvation itself from the many ways of death.
This vocation to show, or to enflesh, the way to truth and life in order to enable others, is indeed a high calling for all. And the Christian knows how far from the ideal he or she so often is. We know how often we shy away from the service and the sacrifice we know to be the justice of Jesus' Way. Failure always to respond to the call of Jesus does not mean that the vocation- the call - does not exist. Nor does our failure to commend the faith we have negate the truth about life which is revealed in Jesus. What these failures of ours do is to starkly expose in us and to all the crushing brutality of ignorance, fear, small-mindedness, prejudice, self-aggrandisement and greed. In short, they cast a floodlight on death's way in a grim witness to an old way of life with what we used to call the seven deadly sins: pride, covetousness, lust, envy, gluttony, anger, and indifference. The example of Jesus was to overcome these death-dealers with faith, hope, and above all with unflinching love, and to prevent their recurrence with prudence, temperance, fortitude and justice. This, too, is our vocation.
The Christian vocation is the same calling which Israel had and has: to be a light to lighten the world, to reveal God in his creation to all. The Christian does this uniquely through embodying the powerful living Spirit of Jesus of Nazareth. The Christian's mission, his high calling, is to carry on Christ's work of reconciliation in the world, to be the body of Christ for this generation through the power of that Spirit.
To begin to accomplish this as an individual Christian, insofar as is possible, I must first know who I am in relation to God, what I believe about him and where I stand with him. Then I must know who Jesus is, what he said and did, what he instructed those who would be his followers; in other words, what his vocation for them is. And I must then decide whether or not I choose to be one of his followers, whether or not I accept his call, the vocation he lays before all of us. When I have searched out these things and chosen to accept, then I am obliged to begin to examine my own daily life and distinguish its every aspect with regard to my new life's vocation. Am I married? How does that show forth Christ's message of reconciliation? Am I a hospital worker, an asphalt layer, a NASA scientist, a librarian, a landscaper? How do I show Christ to the world in what I do? Suppose I am retired, or disabled, or rich, or in politics, or an artist. How shall I fulfil the compelling call of Christ Jesus to be a light to the world? The vocation is one, but its expression is as varied as the gifts we are. It is a simple calling: "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and your neighbour as yourself." "You shall love one another as I have loved you." This foundational love is the Christian Vocation. The honest question is this: Have you really thought about your vocation and accepted it? Think about it.
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