Vocation

Subtitle: is it all its cracked up to be?

Yesterday I noticed something I hadn’t seen before in Ezekiel’s prophetic call. He belonged to a priestly family, and was alive during the time of the Exile, around 600BC. He had a vision of God’s glory such that he struggles to find words to describe it (Ezekiel 1), and then God comissions him to speak to his rebellious and hard-hearted people (Ezekiel 2). In a devastating statement of his people’s stubbornness, God tells Ezekiel he would be better understood and listened to by a nation who speak a different language than his own people (Ezekiel 3.4-7).

Then one of the famous moment comes as Ezekiel is transported in the Spirit – somehow and somewhere – for seven days, and we get the first hint of God’s glory departing (3.12 – see chapter 10). He writes:

A wind lifted me up and carried me away. I went bitterly, my spirit full of fury, and the hand of the LORD rested powerfully on me.

Ezekiel 3.14 (NET)

This is not the description of a happy man!

It got me thinking about other people with a clear call and vocation in the Old Testament. So many of them complain and try to get out of it – e.g. Moses, Gideon, Saul, Esther, Jonah – with an ‘anyone but me’ attitude, even on occasion physically hiding. Elijah and Jeremiah seem to have spent most of their ministry complaining. Even those that go willingly – e.g. Samuel, Ezra, Nehemiah – almost always have a really tough time.

What does that tell us about vocation, i.e. God’s call to his people to serve him? (Note: although in the Old Testament ‘vocation’ was limited to certain people, now in the age of the Church God has poured his Spirit on all people, so this applies to everyone, not just vicars.)

First, it tells us that our created nature is corrupted. God created us to live in obedience to him, but our corrupted nature cannot so we rebel instead. This means when God comes calling our natural instinct is to shrink away, to say, ‘No!’ and wish it on someone else. The irony of Ezekiel is that he responds with bitterness and even fury when God sends him to his hard-hearted and rebellious people.

Second, serving God is hard. In fact it’s really hard. In fact it’s impossible. In his vision Ezekiel is given a scroll to consume (2.9 – 3.3), and then ‘a wind’ comes and fills him (3.24) – symbols of God’s Word and Spirit filling him, equipping him for the task ahead. Without these he simply could not follow where God was sending him.

Third, serving God is going to hurt. God tells Ezekiel, ‘I have made your forehead harder than flint’ (3.9) because otherwise opposition from the people would break him. This is the side of vocation that I think is most overlooked, and the thing I’ve been reflecting on. How often have you (have I!) talked about God ‘opening doors’ or ‘making a way’, how often have we treated ease as the primary way that we discern how and where and to what God is calling us? And how often have we treated challenge and difficulty as a negative sign that God doesn’t want us to do this or be there?

We might not say it out loud, but we are betrayed by our attitude to struggle. Almost never in the Bible is vocation followed by an easy ride. Jesus himself told us to expect difficulty, persecution, hardship (e.g. Matthew 8.18-22; Mark 8.34-38, 10.30; Luke 14.25-33). He described discipleship as ‘taking up your cross’ – i.e. walk in public humiliation carrying the method by which you are going to be killed!

Now, all this is not to say that we must always plough on regardless, treating every difficulty as confirmation we are on the ‘right’ path. That would be to make the equal and opposite error to treating ‘ease’ as the primary way of discerning God’s call! No: I am saying that discernment is complicated, and that God calls his people to a life of long and hard obedience. Why? Because we are constantly fighting the brokenness of creation, within our own hearts and out in the world – and against spiritual forces of darkness and opposition to God.

What do we make of all this?

1. When sharing the gospel, our (modern) instinct is to make it sound so easy – because it is. Salvation is free, God’s gift to us in Jesus, to which we can never add nor take anything away. But the life that follows is much harder, which is why Jesus tells us to count the cost (Luke 14.28-30). What if our evangelism was more honest up front about how hard it is to follow Jesus?
2. As God’s children we all have a vocation: to live a holy life in everything we do (i.e. not only in ‘big’ decisions). This must surely drive us to our knees, to ask God for the strength to endure the challenges of living faithfully as his children in a corrupt and broken world (and as corrupt and broken people). We simply cannot do it without him.
3. When we are trying to discern a particular call – perhaps to do with work, relationships, whatever – we need to resist the temptation to be drawn to what is easy over what is hard. (In fact, if the Bible is anything to go by, God is more likely to be calling us to what is hard than what is easy!)
4. Whatever decision we make, wherever we end up, God is there. Despite the vision of God’s glory departing the Temple, actually Ezekiel is about God’s presence with his people everywhere. He is with his people, devastated in Exile. He is with his people, complacent and sinful in Jerusalem. They might not realise or recognise it, but he is there.

So to return to my original question: vocation – is it all its cracked up to be? I heard a phrase recently that I love: following Jesus isn’t easy, but it’s better. It might not be glitzy, but it’s true.