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There’s something I’ve been thinking about lately. Disgusted by the materialistic way so many in our society think about jobs, careers and education – as if it is nothing but a rat race to see who can get the most the fastest – I was struck by how long a time it has been since I heard anyone talking about callings. The idea that everyone has a calling in life was once in common parlance. Uses included ‘He’s found his calling at last,’ and ‘You missed your calling: you should have been a…’ (fill in the blank: often used in jest).
Since this is a Christian and Protestant concept, let’s backtrack in history a little. Mediaeval Catholicism insisted that only people in ‘religious’ orders, such as priests, monks and nuns, were following a calling from God. Everyone else was merely doing ‘secular’ work that was vastly inferior. Moreover, only the priests had a real connection with God: everyone else had to go to them as intermediaries.
The Protestant Reformation recovered many life-changing ideas, including the priesthood of all believers and the notion that everyone has a calling. “Even their seemingly secular works are a worship of God and an obedience well pleasing to God,” wrote Martin Luther.[1] He and other Reformers taught that all occupations are good if they serve a good purpose.
The prince should think: Christ has served me and made everything to follow him; therefore, I should also serve my neighbor, protect him and everything that belongs to him. That is why God has given me this office, and I have it that I might serve him. That would be a good prince and ruler. When a prince sees his neighbor oppressed, he should think: That concerns me! I must protect and shield my neighbor...The same is true for shoemaker, tailor, scribe, or reader. If he is a Christian tailor, he will say: I make these clothes because God has bidden me do so, so that I can earn a living, so that I can help and serve my neighbor.[2]
Besides, God created man to work. Therefore, Luther acidly pointed out, “every state of an idle or indolent life is condemnable – such for instance as the life of monks and nuns.”[3]
Meanwhile, over in England, William Tyndale declared:
Now if thou compare deed to deed, there is difference betwixt washing of dishes, and preaching of the word of God; but as touching to please God, none at all… Let every man, of whatsoever craft of occupation he be of, whether brewer, baker, tailor, victualler, merchant, or husbandman, refer his craft or occupation unto the common wealth, and serve his brethren as he would do Christ himself.[4]
The following century, the Christian poet George Herbert went so far as to liken this concept to the Philosopher’s Stone:
A servant with this clause
Makes drudgerie divine;
Who sweeps a room as for Thy laws
Makes that and th’ action fine.
This is the famous stone
That turneth all to gold…[5]
In later centuries, the idea was further refined, to mean that each of us (not just missionaries and such) has one specific task or occupation to which God is calling us. Of course, like all good ideas, this one can be taken too far: it can leave some people paralysed with doubt or indecision as they try to discern the call. (If you or someone you know is caught in this trap, I recommend reading Kevin DeYoung’s book, Just Do Something.)
But, generally speaking, the idea of callings is a very fine one and I would like to see a return to thinking and talking about it, rather than trying to calculate what will gain us the most money or the most prestige or the most position in society and then making a plan to get there. We can work the other way: assessing our gifts and abilities and interests and making a plan for how we can put them to good use for the benefit of ourselves and others. That, I think, is a better way to live. Indeed, if it is done for God, it turneth all to gold.
[1] Luther, Lectures on Genesis, vol. 2
[2] Luther, Sermon in the Castle Church in Weimar, translated by Frederick J Gaiser, his spelling
[3] Luther, Commentary on Genesis
[4] Tyndale, The Parable of the Wicked Mammon
[5] Herbert, “The Elixir”, in The Temple
