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I’ve been writing here recently on the subject of call and vocation.  I firmly believe that our call or vocation flows from discipleship to Jesus Christ.  That is why the terms “call” and “vocation” do not solely or primarily apply to those doing “ministry” in a professional or other ecclesial sense.  Call is a disciple’s life. 

Often, people I am discipling or counseling are flustered when I propose that we should seek the will of God and expect an answer.  Nevertheless, I must continue to propose that the entirety of a disciple’s life is subject to the will of God.  There is nothing that can be set aside.  By becoming disciples of Jesus Christ, we have submitted ourselves to a long, deep obedience to Jesus in order that we may be children of our Father in Heaven.  This obedience is long, because it will last the rest of our lives.  It is deep, because it touches every fiber of our being.  It touches every place where we have to make a choice. 

At first, this might seem overwhelming to disciples who realize that they do not know what God’s will is or how his character works.  Nevertheless, over time, through being discipled and mentored and through the discipleship norms of the called community - the church - a disciple discovers how to discern and do the will of God.  As maturity develops, certain things become a given.  Other things are still battled out day to day. 

One of the first habits of this kind of discipleship that may develop is the perpetual, momentary inquiry as to what God desires us to do with the next moment or the next several moments.  Surprisingly, even when we have a relatively structured day, we have a lot of moments in which God may speak.  We have a lot of moments in which he can guide us into something we never would have expected.  This could occur in conversation, in thought, and in action.  Often, this is strengthened by mini-pauses between events, so that we may listen to God’s “well done!” and discern further direction.

There is no escaping this long, deep obedience, once we have committed to discipleship.  God will not allow any part of our life to escape transformation.  And this is to our benefit.  For we must always remember that any untransformed, unredeemed part of our life will not survive the transition to the New Heavens and the New Earth.  God found it good, right, suitable and excellent to put that part of us there in the first place, and now he still finds it good, right, suitable and excellent to be transformed into something that we will have for eternity. 

Thus, such submission to transformation - as unpleasant as it may be - is worth the effort, the pain, and the difficulty - in order to have something that will last.  So let us away with the survival mode tactics of what I can get away with and still be in the will of God, or it hurts too much so I’ll wait, and dive in!  We will find the reward worth the struggle - and more.

I’ve just been listening to a lecture given by N. T. Wright, Bishop of Durham (Episcopus Dunelm), on Jesus’ knowlege of his own identity.  Vocation has been on my heart of late; not only in the missiological necessities but in its relationship to our true identity. 

Wright manages to do something that I have rarely seen among true scholars - and even among many who merely bear the name “teacher” - including myself: he is able, through his deep scholarship and understanding, to lead us, not into an academic exstasy, but into true worship and discipleship.  Even amidst the fluency of many languages - Greek and Hebrew being the most obvious here - Wright leads us to a deep understanding of Jesus which inspires true relationship with God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit, rather than footnotes.

I have long held that Christian scholarship and education, rightly practiced, is a true vocation in and of itself.  As such, it can be, for the scholar/educator, an act of worship, a source of true joy, and a vector for others to be drawn up into worship.  Nevertheless, my experience has been that many scholars take so much pride in questions and deconstruction, in academic debates and frank scoffing that rarely has scholarship led me to worship.  The exceptions, of course, are many of my truly Christian professors from Seminary, and a few other scholars whom I have met in books.  In these cases even the footnotes were the adornment of the priestly uniform as we act as the kingdom of priests serving God for the world’s renewal.

As a teaching preacher, I must remember that this mature expression of scholarship need not work itself into a frenzy to bring out passion, but instead speaks so lovingly of the God whom it has come to know academically that, even where we differ or do not understand, we still resonate with to the glory of God. 

Ah, that one day I may become like that.

Late last week, I completed the second chapter of my discipleship curriculum draft and passed it on to the curious onlookers.  Chapters 1 and 2 are intended to be preparation for baptism in our congregation - an outline of the basics of Christian faith and the lifestyle of a disciple.  Today, I began re-formatting an existing part of the curriculum dealing with evangelism and outreach based on finding points of connection with God’s “Great Story” - creation, fall, incarnation, participation.  That re-formatting should be finished soon.

Chapter 4 will be on learning how to pray via the Lord’s Prayer

Chapter 5 will be on discerning and practicing Spiritual Gifts

Chapter 6 will be on discovering and practicing Spiritual Disciplines. 

All told, there will be ten chapters in this first edition.  Please pray as I continue in its development.

As you have probably already seen, I’ve been working on a new discipleship curriculum for our church - a curriculum which I am hoping to publish eventually.

The second chapter of the curriculum is an introduction to Christian lifestyle and commitments.  Thus, I am working on a basic summary of the Ten Commandments, taken from the perspective of Jesus.  Therefore, two of the Ten have become rather complicated.

The fourth commandment, that to keep the Sabbath, is difficult to work out, but here’s my general drift so far: in light of Jesus’ healing on the Sabbath and pretty much his out-and-out provocation of the Pharasaic approach to the Sabbath, it seems that God is commanding Sabbath so that his people will have time for healing, restoration and rest.  It’s not so much a commandment against work - it’s more a commandment to genuinely rest and experience God’s restoration and sustenance.  Jesus’ healings, occurring as often as they did on Sabbaths, are somehow very significant for his interpretation of the Sabbath, and I know I’m missing something here.

The fifth commandment is also difficult for us.  First of all, this commandment was written as much to adults as it was to children - if not more so.  The adults are the ones to be honoring their parents, not just the children.  Only secondarily is this taught to minors.  That’s the first thing we have to get straight in our interpretation of the commandment to honor parents. 

But the big question for our day and time comes from the context in which I minister.  Many teens and young adults - as well as many other older adults - come from families that are just plain dysfunctional.  How do you honor a father whose presence in your life was over before the cells that became you were even fertilized?  How do you honor parents who are verbally (or otherwise) abusive?  How do you honor parents who are acting like total fools? 

Understanding an “honor and shame culture” such as the Old Testament might shed some light - but it’s hard to describe this commandment negatively.  We could write it “Do not shame your parents” instead of “honor your parents,” and that could lead us to understanding, but does it still miss the point?  For in the OT culture, honor and shame were opposites - and there was no middle ground.  If you do not shame your parents, that makes some sense, even for this culture. 

I’d appreciate some dialogue and feedback on these two commandments, since I think they have deep significance for being truly Christian in our culture.  I don’t want to see us go back to even the Pharasaic laws of the 19th century Christianity that kept the world shut down on Sundays.  That doesn’t make any sense to me at all.  Then your doctors and other emergency personnel have to break the Sabbath to heal - and that seems to go against Jesus’ own practice.  And we all need to find ways to honor parents - even when they’re totally disrespectible.  I don’t know how to deal with that: I grew up in a (relatively) sane family and my parents are pillars of the community, honorable on all fronts.  Yet somehow this “honor one’s parents” must speak both to me and to the fatherless kids I deal with regularly. 

Help?