+ Dropping Our Nets, Finding Vocation +
It’s kind of crazy...
The Jesus path as it is described in the gospel often seems to me to be a path of downward mobility. Jesus meets people, touches people, and suddenly they unclench their fists, releasing their anxious stranglehold on financial security. It’s kind of crazy. In the compressed gospel of Mark, he encounters Peter and Andrew, says something cryptic about making them fishers of men, and they drop their nets and walk away from the family fishing business, the only secure means of employment they have. And then there is Zaccheus, the tax collector, who after having dinner with Jesus, is inspired to give away half of what he owns and to give back four times as much as he has taken dishonestly in his work.
I like to fantasize about this happening...
I like to fantasize about this happening today: What if one of the executives of Bank of America were to have an encounter with Jesus and be inspired to give away half his (or her, but probably his) assets and four times as much as he profited from the foreclosure crisis? But then I catch myself, and I wonder, “What am I doing obsessing about the splinter in someone else’s eye without dealing with the log in my own? Heck, what if any of us ordinary Americans, like, say, me, would suddenly awaken to the ways in which our own prosperity, however modest, has been amassed at the expense of other people around the world--people exploited by our agricultural subsidies (e.g., the people of Mexico and Latin America) and trade agreements (e.g., the people of all third-world and second-world countries), deprived of their traditional livelihood by US military control of their fishing waters (e.g., the natives of the Marshall Islands, where the U.S tests nuclear delivery systems), and decimated by U.S. military intervention (e.g., the people of Iraq and Afghanistan, most recently), and be inspired to give away four times that much? We just might “make poverty history” by making affluence history.
At first these speculations and fantasies of mine might seem unrelated to questions of vocation. Why am I writing about downward mobility when I was asked to write about vocation? Well, until about seven years ago, all my thinking about vocation was distorted by an unquestioning belief in upward mobility. Oh, I was never concerned about making a ton of money, but I had bought in hook, line, and sinker to the notion that God wanted me to “be someone,” and gaining stature, acclaim, and followers would be the sign that I was doing God’s will. “Vocation” was about discovering the Very Important Thing that God was calling me to do (which, when I finally found it, would finally give me a sense of being okay). I would do something important to transform injustice, and everyone would see how wonderful it was!
At first these speculations and fantasies of mine might seem unrelated to questions of vocation. Why am I writing about downward mobility when I was asked to write about vocation? Well, until about seven years ago, all my thinking about vocation was distorted by an unquestioning belief in upward mobility. Oh, I was never concerned about making a ton of money, but I had bought in hook, line, and sinker to the notion that God wanted me to “be someone,” and gaining stature, acclaim, and followers would be the sign that I was doing God’s will. “Vocation” was about discovering the Very Important Thing that God was calling me to do (which, when I finally found it, would finally give me a sense of being okay). I would do something important to transform injustice, and everyone would see how wonderful it was!
Jesus’ call was not to look successful in the eyes of the world...
Of course, that way of thinking ignores what I have now come to see as the central point of the Jesus narrative, which is that Jesus himself did not appear to be successful during his lifetime. In fact, to the degree that people thought he was going to bring about a vindication of Israel in the short term, he was a colossal failure. He spent his life--not raising up an army and training for a final glorious battle with Israel’s oppressors--but wandering the countryside, healing some people, driving out some demons, raising some people from the dead, and trying to speak the truth as he understood it even when it was offensive to his listeners. And then he was killed by those who opposed him. What kind of success story is that? Jesus’ call was not to look successful in the eyes of the world but to remain faithful to the mission God had given him and to the Spirit of Love that animated that mission.
...humble things like doing the dishes...
I think it is possible that God utters a clear vocational call to some people that then leads them to be successful in their fields, but that is not my story. What has happened to me is this: I tried to do a variety of Very Important Things and worked very, very hard at them. Sometimes I had some moderate success; often I failed. I got really, really tired. I had to take some time off to recover. I joined Workaholics Anonymous and, after a while, started to get a little recovery from what I now think of as internalized capitalism, which equates human worth with productivity. During this time of intensive recovery, I did very little work--I just didn’t have it in me, although I railed against that reality as I struggled to find alternative sources of self-esteem. What I did do was to undertake simple service as often as I could--humble things like doing the dishes when my housemates were working really hard, or listening to a friend, or helping a neighbor get seen at a low-cost health clinic, or showing up at a demonstration after a young man from our city was killed by the police. Since I was no longer busy doing Very Important Things, I had more time to listen to people, give people rides here and there, intervene in injustice that affected people I loved, involve myself in a local church, and help people in small practical ways.
... to God’s people and to preach, write, and teach when I am asked...
Also during that time, I met Jesus anew. The more I meditated on people’s expectations of Jesus and his faithfulness to his call, which did not meet those expectations, the closer I felt to him. As my exhaustion abated, and I focused on doing what seemed like the “next right thing,” I found myself filling in for a friend at her dog-boarding business, just to pay the bills, and I discovered that I loved spending time with the dogs, who expressed joy so passionately and so completely without self-consciousness. I started poking around, and found that there was more animal care work to be had. I am now a part-time pet-sitter, making just enough to sustain an extremely simple lifestyle, and I still have a lot of time left over to be available to God’s people and to preach, write, and teach when I am asked--not in order to have some dramatic impact, but just to be of service and bear witness to what I think I am hearing from God. My self esteem comes not from productivity, accomplishments, or public acclaim, but simply from being a child of God.
I am not averse to receiving a call from God to do something else with my life, even something that is higher profile, but if that doesn’t happen, I am content to receive instructions moment to moment and to live a life--as we say in 12-step recovery programs--“of sane and happy usefulness.”
I am not averse to receiving a call from God to do something else with my life, even something that is higher profile, but if that doesn’t happen, I am content to receive instructions moment to moment and to live a life--as we say in 12-step recovery programs--“of sane and happy usefulness.”
Nichola Torbett +
Bio: The founder of Seminary of the Street, Nichola Torbett continues to do some teaching, preaching, and writing through that organization. When she is not walking dogs or feeding cats as a part-time pet-sitter, she spends her time trying to understand how she is indicted in the injustice she sees around her and what it means to live humbly and interdependently with all beings around the world.
