THE BIBLICAL NARRATIVE OF VOCATION

[Prof. Antonio C. Cayetano, J.D.]

I. THE CALL OF ABRAHAM.

When seen from beginning to end, it is clear that Genesis is a literary whole, yet
it falls into two distinct parts.

1. The first part (Gen. 1-11) deals with God’s creation of the universe, then
traces the development of humanity from the original couple in the Garden of
Eden to the three sons of Noah and their families who spread out into the
world. This section closes on a low note when people from the whole world
gather in unity to construct a city to make a name for themselves and instead
experience defeat, confusion, and scattering as judgment from God.

2. The second part (Gen. 12-50) opens with the Lord’s call to the particular
man, Abraham. God called him to leave his homeland and family to set out
for a new life and land, which he did. The rest of the book follows the life of
this man and the next three generations who begin to experience the
fulfillment of the divine promises made to their father Abraham.

Genesis chapters 12 through 50 tell about the life and work of Abraham, Sarah,
and their descendants.

1. God called Abraham, Sarah, and their family to leave their homeland for the
new country that God would show them. Along the way, God promised to
make them into a great nation: “In you all the families of the earth shall be
blessed” (Gen. 12:3). 

2. The story of Abraham and Sarah’s family is perfused with work.

2.1. Their work encompasses nearly every facet of the work of

seminomadic peoples in the ancient Near East. At every point, they
face crucial questions about how to live and work in faithful
observance of God’s covenant.

2.2. They struggle to make a living, endure social upheaval, raise children
in safety, and remain faithful to God in the midst of a broken world,
much as we do today. They find that God is faithful to his promise to
bless them in all circumstances, although they themselves prove
faithless again and again. 

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 But the purpose of God’s covenant is not merely to bless Abraham’s family in a
hostile world. Instead, he intends to bless the whole world through these people.

1. This task is beyond the abilities of Abraham’s family, who fall again and again
into pride, self-centeredness, foolhardiness, anger, and every other malady to
which fallen people are apt. We recognize ourselves in them in this aspect
too.

2. Yet by God’s grace, they retain a core of faithfulness to the covenant, and
God works through the work of these people, beset with faults, to bring
unimaginable blessings to the world.

3. Like theirs, our work also brings blessings to those around us because in our
work we participate in God’s work in the world.

God called Abraham into a covenant of faithful service, as is told at the beginning
of Genesis 12. As he embraced the call and the covenant which God had entered with
him, he had shown the following traits of his commitment to the vocation for which God
had called him:

1. First, Abraham puts his trust in God’s guidance, rather than on human device

2. Second, Abraham trusted God’s promise that He would make Abraham’s

name great (Gen. 12:2). God did indeed make Abraham famous, not for his
own sake but in order that “all the families of the earth shall be blessed” (Gen.
12:3).

3. Third, Abraham was willing to go wherever God led him, while the builders
attempted to huddle together in their accustomed space.

3.1. God made Abraham into the original entrepreneur, always moving on
to fresh endeavors in new locations. God called him away from the city
of Haran toward the land of Canaan where Abraham would never
settle into a fixed address. He was known as a “wandering Aramean”
(Deut. 26:5).

3.2. This lifestyle was inherently more God-centered in that Abraham would
have to depend on God’s word and leadership in order to find his
significance, security, and success. As Hebrews 11:8 puts it, he had to
“set out, not knowing where he was going.” 

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 4. Fourth, Abraham was willing to let God lead him into new
relationships. Abraham trusted God’s promise that his family would grow into
a great nation (Gen. 12:2; 15:5).

4.1. Though they lived among strangers in the land of Canaan (Gen. 17:8),
they had good relationships with those they came in contact with (Gen.
21:22-34; 23:1-12).

4.2. This is the gift of community. Another key theme thus emerges for the
theology of work: God’s design is for people to work in healthy
networks of relationship.

5. Finally, Abraham was blessed with the patience to take a long-term view.
God’s promises were to be realized in the time of Abraham’s offspring, not in
the time of Abraham himself.

5.1. The Apostle Paul interpreted the “offspring” to be Jesus (Gal. 3:19),

meaning that the payoff date was more than a thousand years in the
future. In fact, the promise to Abraham will not be fulfilled completely
until the return of Christ (Matt. 24:30-31).

5.2. Its progress cannot be adequately measured by quarterly reports! The

tower builders, in comparison, took no thought for how their project
would affect future generations, and God criticized them explicitly for
this lapse (Gen. 11:6).

In sum, God promised Abraham fame, fruitfulness, and good relationships, by

which meant he and his family would bless the whole world, and in due course be
blessed themselves beyond imagining (Gen. 22:17).

1. Unlike others, Abraham realized that an attempt to grasp such things on his
own power would be futile, or worse. Instead, he trusted God and depended
every day on God’s guidance and provision (Gen. 22:8-14).

2. Although these promises were not fully realized by the end of Genesis, they
initiated the covenant between God and the people of God through which the
redemption of the world will come to completion in the day of Christ
(Phil. 1:10).

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 3. God promised a new land to Abraham’s family.

3.1. Making use of land requires many kinds of work, so a gift of land
reiterates that work is an essential sphere of God’s concern.

3.2. Working the land would require occupational skills of shepherding,

tent-making, military protection, and the production of a wide array of
goods and services.

4. Moreover, Abraham’s descendants would become a populous nation whose

members would be as innumerable as the stars in the sky.

4.1. This would require the work of developing personal relationships,

parenting, politics, diplomacy and administration, education, the
healing arts, and other social occupations. 

5. To bring such blessings to all the earth, God called Abraham and his
descendants to “walk before me, and be blameless” (Gen. 17:1).

5.1. This required the work of worship, atonement, discipleship, and other

religious occupations. Joseph’s work was to create a solution
responding to the impact of the famine, and sometimes our work is to
heal brokenness.

5.2. All these types of work, and the workers who engage in them, come
under God’s authority, guidance, and provision.

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II. THE CALL OF JONAS.

As is typical with Twelve Prophets, the Book of Jonah begins with a call from
God to the prophet (Jon. 1:1-2). Unlike the others, however, Jonah rejects God’s call.

1. Foolishly, he attempts to flee the presence of the Lord by taking a ship to

foreign shores (Jon. 1:3).

2. This imperils not only him, but his shipmates, for—as we have seen
throughout the Book of the Twelve—breaking covenant with God has tangible
consequences, and the actions of individuals always affect the community.
God sends a storm.

2.1. First, it ruins the mariners’ commercial prospects, as they are forced to
throw all the cargo into the sea to lighten the ship (Jon. 1:5). Eventually
it threatens their very lives (Jon. 1:11).

2.2. Only when Jonah offers to be thrown into the sea—which the sailors
reluctantly accept—does the storm abate and the danger to the
community subside (Jon. 1:12-15).

The purpose of a call from God is to serve other people. Jonah’s call is for the
benefit of Nineveh. When he rejects God’s guidance, not only do the people he was
called to serve languish, but the people surrounding him suffer.

1. If we accept that we are all called to serve God in our work, then we
recognize that failing to serve God in our work also diminishes our
communities.

2. The more powerful our gifts and talents, the greater the harm we are apt to do
if we reject God’s guidance in our work.

Undoubtedly we can all bring to mind people whose prodigious abilities enabled
them to do great harm in fields of business, government, society, science, religion, and
all the rest.

1. Imagine the good they could have done, the evil they could have avoided, if
they had submitted their skills first to the worship and service of the Lord.

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 2. Our gifts may seem puny in comparison, yet imagine the good we could do
and the evil we could avert if we did our work in service to God over the
course of a lifetime.
III. THE CALL OF MOSES.

Although Moses was a Hebrew, he was raised in Egypt’s royal family as the
grandson of Pharaoh. His revulsion to injustice erupted into a lethal attack on an
Egyptian man he found beating a Hebrew worker. This act came to Pharaoh’s attention,
so Moses fled for safety and became a shepherd in Midian, a region several hundred
miles east of Egypt on the other side of the Sinai Peninsula.

We do not know exactly how long he lived there, but during that time he married
and had a son. In addition, two important things happened.

1. The king in Egypt died, and the Lord heard the cry of his oppressed people
and remembered his covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (Exod. 2:23-
25).

2. This act of remembering did not mean that God had forgotten about his
people. It signaled that he was about to act on their behalf. For that, he would
call Moses.

God’s call to Moses came while Moses was at work. The account of how this
happened comprises six elements that form a pattern evident in the lives of other
leaders and prophets in the Bible. It is therefore instructive for us to examine this call
narrative and to consider its implications for us today, especially in the context of our
work.

1. First, God confronted Moses and arrested his attention at the scene of the

burning bush (Exod. 3:2-5). A brush fire in the semi-desert is nothing
exceptional, but Moses was intrigued by the nature of this particular one.
Moses heard his name called and responded, “Here I am” (Exod. 3:4). This is
a statement of availability, not location.

2. Second, the Lord introduced himself as the God of the patriarchs and

communicated his intent to rescue his people from Egypt and to bring them
into the land he had promised to Abraham (Exod. 3:6-9).

3. Third, God commissioned Moses to go to Pharaoh to bring God’s people out

of Egypt (Exod. 3:10).

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 4. Fourth, Moses objected (Exod. 3:11). Although he had just heard a powerful
revelation of who was speaking to him in this moment, his immediate concern
was, “Who am I?” In response to this, God reassured Moses with a promise
of God’s own presence (Exod. 3:12a).

5. Finally, God spoke of a confirming sign (Exod. 3:12b).

These same elements are present in a number of other call narratives in

Scripture—for example in the callings of Gideon, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and some of
Jesus’ disciples. This is not a rigid formula, for many other call narratives in Scripture
follow a different pattern. But it does suggest that God’s call often comes via an
extended series of encounters that guide a person in God’s way over time.

Notice that these callings are not primarily to priestly or religious work in a

congregation.

1. Gideon was a military leader; 

2. Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel were social critics; and

3. Jesus a king (although not in the traditional sense).

In many churches today, the term “call” is limited to religious occupations, but this
is not so in Scripture, and certainly not in Exodus.

Moses himself was not a priest or religious leader (those were Aaron’s and
Miriam’s roles), but a shepherd, statesman, and governor. The Lord's question to
Moses, "What is that in your hand?" (Exod. 4:2) repurposes Moses' ordinary tool of
sheep-keeping for uses he would never have imagined possible (Exod. 4:3-5).

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IV. THE CALL OF MARY.

Mary—Vocation of the Mother, Mother of the Vocation

That vocations come from God is something all of us believe. Very few callings,
however, are first heard from the lips of an angel. For most of us, God works
mysteriously:

1. In everyday circumstances and events, in relationships and encounters, in the

inspirations born of good example and dedication that leap, like words off a
page, from people around us.

2. The Gabriels who step into our lives have flesh and blood. Their approach
may be less spectacular than apparitions, but they make the presence of God
every bit as real.

The Call of the Mother

Paintings of the annunciation, such as the well-known scene of Fra Angelico,

give us a visual representation of the supernatural encounter, but one usually needs to
look closely to appreciate how they also highlight Mary’s faith—her relationship with
God before the annunciation took place. Mary may be praying when the angel arrives,
or devoutly reading scripture. Yet how, we might ask ourselves:

1. Did Mary come to be a woman of prayer?

2. How did the word of faith get sown in her heart, and in what ways was it
nourished?

A spiritual path had to be prepared in order for her to be able to hear the
heavenly voice when it broke into her life. The Lord called, and she responded.

But faith does not suddenly appear, in full blossom, in someone’s life; it has a
history. Our relationship with God has to be awakened, cultivated, stretched and tested.
Mary’s faith, too, must have had its history.

What is the history behind Mary’s vocation?

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 1. In trying to answer this question, our minds turn automatically toward her
family, the friendships she must have had, and the people she prayed
alongside in worship services each Sabbath.

2. Without such human contacts and exposure to the faith of others, it is hard to
imagine how Mary would have ever been able to hear the angel’s message,
let alone comprehend it.

3. If she had not been raised in an atmosphere that fostered openness to God,
she would have had no context in which to receive the angel’s words and
grasp their meaning. The language faith speaks takes time to learn and years
to master.

The Mary who gives us the Magnificat was well schooled in the religious
traditions of her people and the great lessons of biblical faith.

1. She knew the story of Abraham and how God had revealed himself to
Abraham in the call to take a great risk: “Go from your country and your
kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you” and “So
Abram went” (Gen 12:1, 4).

2. Perhaps Mary had pondered the words of Ruth, whose son would become
the great-grandfather of David: “Where you go, I will go; where you lodge, I
will lodge; your people shall be my people and your God my God” (Ruth
1:16).

3. If Mary was familiar with the thanksgiving song of Hannah, Samuel’s mother,
she must also have known the words spoken later by the young boy in the
temple: “Speak, for your servant is listening” (1 Sam 3:10).

More often than not, however, the word of God needs human instruments to help
with its translation. What this means, concretely, is that God’s call frequently comes
“from below,” from within the community.

Granted, the sense of being called is a graced inspiration, and the potential
shape of a call may emerge as a result of reading the biography of an exemplary
Christian or from meditating on a portion of Scripture.

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 But callings do not bypass ordinary human experience; in fact, they run right
through it. The needs of people—their need for reassurance, their need of other men
and women to accompany them along the journey of faith, their thirst for freedom and
life—become a call of the Spirit.

1. Sometimes the call seems but a whisper, at other times it feels like a mighty
rush;

2. But the vocation is always heard through the people, since God reaches into
our lives through theirs.

3. Mary could hear God’s call because her people lived inside her, especially the
lowly and the poor ones among them.

Few things so confirm one’s experience of God and steady one’s religious
commitment as living among families struggling to survive, sharing their world, and
joining one’s life to theirs.

1. Artists have depicted Mary as reading, but it’s not likely that she was so
literate.

2. The Scripture Mary learned she would have known largely from hearing, while
faith would have enabled her to “read” the word of God in the faces and
events that made up the everyday world of Nazareth.

Annunciation in the Spiritual Exercises

In his Spiritual Exercises, St. Ignatius intertwined the contemplation on the

annunciation—the divine call to Mary— with the Trinitarian conversation about the state
of the world. For the first thing the Trinity does, after viewing what has been going on in
human history, is to call upon Mary of Nazareth to be the mother and teacher of the
“one who was to come” (Luke 7:20). In the imaginative narrative sketched by St.
Ignatius, the Divine Persons, witnessing the tragic loss of soul that is taking place in
human lives, say, “Let us bring about the redemption of the human race.” Ignatius then
adds “etcetera,” in order to invite the one contemplating to imagine more details of that
conversation, filled so richly with compassion and divine humility.

For Ignatius, divine initiative is unthinkable without human response, and the
human world would be without meaning unless it were founded on a relationship with
God.

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 While the Divine Persons are contemplating the world, Mary at the very same
moment is responding to the profound longing of God’s people for a new and definitive
exodus.

She is both handmaid of the Lord and handmaid of the Lord’s people. “Then the
angel departed from her,” Luke writes. “Then”: that is to say, “only then,” because the
heavenly messenger could not depart until Mary took the risk of faith, just as Abraham
had once done. For the word of the Lord never returns to him empty: “so shall my word
be that goes forth from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish
that which I purpose, and succeed in the thing for which I sent it” (Isaiah 55:11).

Saying yes to God’s call leaves Mary rejoicing, trusting (for she cannot see the
future) and eager to talk with someone in the family who had also received vocational
grace. She sets out from Nazareth, in haste, for “a Judean town in the hill country” in
order to share her experience with Elizabeth, and to listen to Elizabeth share hers.

The divine Persons “speak,” and their speech becomes a call. The two mothers
likewise speak.

1. Both are to have sons, whom they will hold for a while; and then they will lose
them.

2. But during the precious time they hold them, they will become the mothers of
two vocations. The faith of the mothers will prepare the way for their sons to
hear the voice of God and respond as prophets.

The Call of the Son

We may not be used to thinking of Jesus as having a vocation, but that is exactly
what is suggested by the account of his baptism. At the Jordan, Jesus said yes to God,
just as his mother had done in the hour he was conceived. The gospels are reticent
when it comes to giving details of Jesus’ upbringing. Luke’s verse “And Jesus increased
in wisdom and in years, and in divine and human favor” condense in a few words the
years of adolescence and young adulthood during which his interior life widened and
deepened.

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 The heavenly voice that said “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well
pleased” is informing us, not Jesus, about his identity. These words were spoken, and
are always being spoken, for the benefit of his followers, for those witnessing the event
in their imaginations. The fourth evangelist reminds us, “This voice has come for your
sake, not for mine” (John 12:30).

Still, the baptism in the Jordan marked the moment when Jesus began his
mission, and the heavenly voice, echoing a text from Isaiah, affirmed his readiness and
his call. “Here is my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen, in whom my soul delights; I
have put my spirit upon him” (Isaiah 42:1).

Years of learning, thinking, observing, and of growing; years of being schooled

by Mary’s word and example in the ways of God; years of Sabbath instruction and
praying with the villagers of Nazareth; years of internalizing the historical fortunes of his
people; years of conversing with friends about the hopes they shared for the restoration
of Israel; years of learning what it meant to live, not for oneself, but for the people of
God; years of hearing his mother hymn, perhaps like a mantra, “He brings down the
powerful from their thrones and lifts up the lowly; he fills the hungry with good things,
and sends the rich away empty”: these are the hidden years Luke was summing up
when he reports, so succinctly, “And Jesus increased in wisdom and in years.”

The lessons and experience of those years accompanied Jesus to the Jordan.
Without them, the heavenly voice would have fallen on deaf ears. In a most real, most
human sense, if Mary had not been a woman of faith, Jesus would probably not have
known how to answer the divine call. Not even God’s call to Jesus would bypass his
humanity.

Mary’s response at the annunciation, therefore, needs to be taken with the

utmost seriousness.

1. She was not lending only her body to the divine initiative but her very
humanity.

2. Her vocation was to nurture the vocation of her son. And in this way Mary
would nurture the vocations of all those who would later follow him.

The Mother as follower

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 The Son of God, in all humility, acquired much of his sensitivity and openness to
the mystery of God from the mother who taught him to pray and how to live. If Jesus
knew how to hear the word of God and put it into practice, then Mary must be credited
with having given her son more than milk (Luke 11:27-28). And yet their relationship
changed, for as the story unfolds further, Mary becomes increasingly the model disciple.
The son learned from his mother, but afterwards the mother was learning from her son.

To draw once again on the Spiritual Exercises, the first Easter contemplation St.
Ignatius presents is the appearance of the risen Jesus to his mother. Scripture makes
no mention of an appearance to Mary, but the piety and devotion Ignatius inherited took
such an encounter as all but certain.

Now, why an appearance to Mary? Perhaps the motive behind this presumed
apparition was simply the special bond between mother and son. But all the Easter
experiences mentioned in the gospels concern disciples, namely, the men and women
who followed Jesus because they believed in him. For St. Ignatius, it could well be:

1. That the appearance to Mary underscored the affectionate bond between

teacher and the most outstanding follower;

2. Mary truly understood the mystery of the kingdom of God.

3. When Jesus “appointed and sent out seventy others” (Luke 10:1), perhaps
Mary was among them, even at their lead.

4. In Christian piety:

4.1. to find Mary is to find her son, for everything in her life points to him.

4.2. And conversely, anyone who finds Jesus is sooner or later drawn to
Mary, because the shape of his humanity cannot be understood apart
from hers.

The regular contemplation of the annunciation sensitizes one’s imagination to the

reality of divine intrusion.

1. The presence of an archangel at the beginning is not going to make our

journey of faith or the unfolding of our call any easier.

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 2. Nevertheless, mindfulness of what happened to Mary enhances our
anticipation, indeed our desire, that God would call us to be more than mere
spectators as the Divine Persons decree the redemption of the human race.

V THE CALL OF THE 12 DISCIPLES.

One of the first things Jesus does after beginning his public ministry is to call
disciples. In the Gospels of Mark and Matthew, Jesus has barely announced his
message when he passes by fishermen (Simon and Andrew, James and John) and
invites them to follow him: “Come after me, and I will make you fishers of people” (Matt
4:19; Mark 1:17). He has not yet performed even one miracle.

In the Gospel of Luke, however, that call takes place after several healing
miracles. The call of Simon Peter and others takes place after a miraculous catch of fish
(Luke 5:1-11). In Jesus’ day individuals sought to be disciples of the rabbis, who
themselves rarely initiated the master-disciple relationship. In these three Gospels,
however, it is Jesus who takes the initiative and invites certain chosen individuals to
follow him (that is, to become a disciple).

In the New Testament, it is only in the Gospel of John where the first disciples
begin the relationship by approaching Jesus and asking him where he is staying (John
1:35-42). They have been prompted to do so by John the Baptist, the church’s first
vocation director, who points Jesus out to them and calls him the Lamb of God.

Unlike the Synoptics, the Fourth Gospel indicates that Andrew and some other
unnamed individual are the first disciples of Jesus. Simon becomes a follower of Jesus
only on the second day when his brother Andrew looks for him and recruits him for
Jesus’ band.

Matthew notes that Peter and Andrew, as well as James and John, immediately
abandon their nets and boat and family to follow Jesus. The word “immediately” does
not appear in the texts of Mark, Luke, or John. This is especially surprising for Mark,
who tells his story at a fast pace and uses the Greek word euthus (“immediately”) 42
times. Interestingly enough, the word occurs only seven times in all of Matthew and only

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once in the Gospel of Luke. Matthew prefers to use a related Greek synonym, eutheōs,
which also means “immediately” and which Mark never uses.

In Matthew, eutheōs occurs 12 times, two of which can be found in the story of
the call of the first disciples. The word gives a sense of urgency to this call. The
disciples don’t wait, don’t ask questions, and don’t know the consequences of their
decision.

However, they get up, abandon what they are doing, and follow Jesus.

1. One gets the impression of total dedication, total abandonment, total

commitment to Jesus and his cause.

2. One also gets the impression that Jesus expected a total and prompt
response to his call.

In gathering disciples Jesus obviously did not want to accomplish his mission by
himself. He felt the need of companionship and he recognized that others needed to
continue his mission after him. We can hardly call this band of disciples a “church,”
which really formed after Jesus’ death and resurrection.

Yet the action of calling disciples was the first stage of establishing a church, the
community of those gathered in Jesus’ name. The Gospel of Matthew is concerned
about the community of disciples called the church. Jesus is presented as the creator of
a new community, founded on his own righteous words and deeds. The reign of God in
Matthew is clearly identified with the community of the disciples, and that community is
identified with Jesus himself. Jesus is present where two or three are gathered in his
name (Matt 18:20), and he remains with the disciples until the end of time (Matt 28:20).
Matthew sees God’s reign as one that includes everyone.

The kingdom of God is somehow identified with the Christian community, and yet
the church does not exhaust that kingdom. The reign of God is completely realized only

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at the end of the world, but it begins with the church. Jesus’ disciples are not meant to
be mere passive spectators of Jesus’ life and ministry. Jesus calls these men to a future
in which they will continue their job as fishermen – except that from this time on their
“catch” involves human beings, those who will respond to Jesus’ message.

Discipleship requires an active involvement – not only with Jesus but with others.
They too become part of a community, part of a church. In a very subtle way from the
very beginning this community is already diverse culturally. The first two disciples called
are Simon and Andrew. Although they are brothers, Simon is the Greek form of a
Hebrew name (Simeon), while Andrew is a Greek name. It was not uncommon for Jews
in the days of Jesus to have two names, one Hebrew and one Greek or Latin. Another
example is Paul (a Greek name), who was also known as Saul (a Hebrew name).

Today we do not have the advantage of the first disciples, who actually saw what
Jesus looked like, heard his voice, and touched him. Yet vocations today are also
initiated by Jesus, who expects us to answer his call promptly

A religious vocation requires discernment, a process which helps us to recognize

the voice of Jesus and the will of God in our lives. That is often accomplished through
others, that is, through the church, through the community where Jesus is present.
Anyone in the church today can – and should – play the role of John the Baptist and
encourage vocations. In today’s world a religious vocation requires an intimate
relationship with Jesus, a willingness to follow him, and an active participation in a
church that is diverse, inclusive and open to the guidance of the Holy Spirit.

To sum up, Jesus selected the twelve apostles for several clear purposes:

1. They were to be his companions — they would learn by being with him.

2. He sent them out to do what he had been doing — preaching the gospel of
the Kingdom.

3. He gave them authority and power to serve, cast out demons, and heal
(Matthew 10:1).

His plan for the development of these disciples, most of whom became leaders
after his death, is a good one for us to follow. If we want leaders who can make a huge
difference in the world, we need to train them, task them, and trust them.

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 Training means that we don't just give them a manual or a book, but that we help
them learn by serving as apprentices to proven leaders.

Tasking means that we give them a clear mission or task to perform and hold
them accountable to fulfill that task.

Trusting means that we actually give them the authority and power to do what
needs to be done.

Unfortunately, the whole body of Jesus is not turned loose to work as it could
because we are afraid that some leaders won't live up to the holy task they are to
perform. So let's be honest with the examples of the apostles Jesus chose. Did these
twelve all live up to their holy task? How long did it take for even the best of them to get
it right? How many of them failed at some point? How many of them failed completely?
Get the point? Let's prayerfully call more people to serve and then follow Jesus'
example.

SPC / AS-Theosophy Div. / THEO 500 / The Biblical Stories of Christian Vocation / AC Cayetano 17
VI. THE CALL OF PAUL.

The opening verse of Romans announces Paul’s own vocation, the work that
God has called him to do: proclaiming the gospel of God in word and deed. So what is
the gospel of God? Paul says that it is “the power of God for salvation to everyone who
has faith, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is
revealed through faith for faith; as it is written, ‘The one who is righteous will live by
faith’” (Rom. 1:16–17, NRSV). For Paul, the gospel is more than words:

1. The Gospel is the power of God for salvation.

2. He emphasizes that this salvation is not for one group of people only but is
intended to help anyone on earth to be among the people of God, by faith.
Romans, then, is above all about God’s salvation.

What is salvation?

Salvation is the work of God that sets human beings in right relationship with God
and with one another.

1. As we will see momentarily, what we are being saved from are broken
relation-ships—with God and with other people—that unleash the evil forces
of sin and death in the world.

2. Therefore, salvation is first of all the healing of broken relationships,

beginning with the healing that reconciles the Creator and the created, God
and us. Our reconciliation with God leads to freedom from sin and a newness
of life that is not limited by death.

Christians have sometimes reduced Paul’s gospel of salvation to something like,

“Believe in Jesus so that you personally can go to heaven when you die.” This is true,
as far as it goes, but grossly inadequate.

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 1. To begin with, a statement like that says nothing about relationships other
than between the individual and God, yet Paul never ceases talking about
relationships among people and between people and the rest of God’s
creation.

2. And Paul has much more to say about faith, about life in Jesus, about God’s
kingdom, and about the quality of life both before and after death than could
ever be encapsulated in a single slogan.

Likewise, salvation cannot be reduced to a single moment in time. Paul says both
that we “were saved” (Rom. 8:24) and that we “will be saved” (e.g., Rom. 5:9).

1. Salvation is an ongoing process rather than a onetime event. God interacts

with each person in a dance of divine grace and human faithfulness over
time. There are decisive moments in the process of being saved, of course.

2. The central moments are Christ’s death on the cross and resurrection from
the dead. “We were reconciled to God through the death of his Son,” Paul
tells us (Rom. 5:10), and “He who raised Christ from the dead will give life to
your mortal bodies also” (Rom. 8:11).

Each of us might also regard the first time we said we believe in Christ as a
decisive moment in our salvation. Romans, however, never speaks of a moment of
personal salvation, as if salvation happened to us in the past and is now in storage until
Christ comes again.

1. Paul uses the past tense of salvation only to speak of Christ’s death and
resurrection, the moment when Christ brought salvation to the world.

2. When it comes to each believer, Paul speaks of an ongoing process of

salvation, always in the present or future tenses. “One believes with the heart
and so is justified, and one confesses with the mouth and so is saved” (Rom.
10:10). Not “believed” and “confessed,” past tense, but “believes” and
“confesses,” present tense. This leads directly to, “Everyone who calls on the
name of the Lord shall be saved,” future tense (Rom. 10:13).

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 3. Salvation is not something that was given to us. It is always being given to us.

We take the trouble to emphasize the ongoing action of salvation because work
is one of the preeminent places where we act in life. If salvation were something that
happened to us only in the past, then what we do at work (or anywhere in life) would be
irrelevant.

But if salvation is something going on in our lives, then it bears fruit in our work.
To be more precise:

1. Since salvation is the reconciliation of broken relationships, then our

relationships with God, with other people, and with the created world at work
(as everywhere in life) will be getting better as the process of salvation takes
hold.

2. Just to give a few examples, our salvation is evident when we take courage to
speak an unpopular truth, listen to others’ views with compassion, help
colleagues attain their goals, and produce work products that help other
people thrive.

Does this mean that we must work—and keep working—to be saved? Absolutely
not! Salvation comes solely through “the grace of God and the free gift in the grace of
one man, Jesus Christ” (Rom. 5:15). It depends on faith” (Rom 4:16) and nothing else.
Whatever language or terminology we use to talk about the great gift that the one true
God has given to his people in and through Jesus Christ, it remains precisely a gift. It
never is something we can earn. We can never put God into our debt; we always
remain in his. We do not work to be saved. But because we are being saved we do
work that bears fruit for God (Rom. 7:4).

In sum, salvation is the ultimate work of Christ in the world, the goal toward which
believers always “press on,” as Paul puts it (Phil. 3:12). Salvation underlies everything
Paul and everything believers do in work and life.

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