Our Common Calling

Micah 6:8

August 6, 2017

I follow a blog written by a guy in North Carolina named Hugh Hollowell. I’ve never met him, but he’s friends of friends I trust. I’ve found his writing incisive and insightful, and I borrowed from him a lot this week.

He does a lot of vocational discernment work with individuals and groups, and one of the exercises he invites folks into involves a 90-day commitment to writing down at least one sentence every day that begins, “I believe ….”

The sentence can be completed with anything that one believes – spiritually, politically, grammatically. His conviction is simple: our vocation – our calling – comes from what we believe. Moreover, if you write over the course of several months things that you believe you will begin to see patterns in your beliefs. That pattern describes a belief system, out of which emerges a sense of calling that frames true vocation.

It’s crucial to note, whenever one speaks of “vocation,” that vocation is not the same as job. There can, of course, be overlap between one’s vocation and one’s job, but it’s not necessarily the same thing. I’ve known more than a few folks whose vocation, for example, is in the arts, but whose jobs are in retails or service industries. Their jobs support them financially so that they can pursue the vocations that fulfill them.

I have spent a lifetime wrestling with the tensions between job and vocation, and I do not feel alone in that. Over the years, though I have never taken on the precise practice that Hollowell prescribes, I have written down what I believe often and in various contexts.

Thinking back on what I have written over the past 20 years or so prompted two thoughts: first, I can pretty quickly sum up what I’d call a mission statement for my life based on the common themes of that writing; and, second, I wonder what common mission statement we would draw as a community based on the core beliefs that we walk in with.

If asked to sum it up in a sentence, I would write, “I believe that we are called to do justice, and love kindness, and walk humbly with our God.”

Micah 6:8 is my mission statement. I certainly don’t measure up to it fully ever, but on my better days I lean that way.

Summer is a good time for pondering this stuff, because it is a time for planning for us, so I want to take a bit of quiet time in worship this morning and invite you to think about how you complete the sentence that begins, “I believe …”

Perhaps you’re feeling Jeffersonian this morning, so you’ll write “I believe that all people are created equal and endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights.” Maybe you’re feeling deep existential despair today, and “I believe that ‘man’ is a useless passion,” sums it up for you. I hope not, but, hey, some days you just feel like Jean Paul Sartre. We’ve all been there. Maybe you’re feeling hopeful and faithful, and “love wins” says all that needs to be said.

Whatever you can honestly say you believe this morning, jot it down on the slip of paper you received when you came in. When you’ve written whatever you have to write, just drop it in the basket.

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