A vocation of love
27th April 2017
Here is a story I have heard today.
She was born during the early years of the Second World War. She grew up in the Black Country. She met her husband in one of those happenstance events - just thrown together on a night out organised by mutual friends. They met before Christmas. were engaged within a couple of months and married by the Autumn. They had two lovely children. She devoted herself to them while he worked in a local factory. She inspired her children to live life to the full and gave a very loving foundation.
Then, aged 40, she took herself off to night school in order to get some qualifications to train as a nurse. Alongside a whole class of 18-year-olds she qualified after 146 weeks. And so began her new vocation. She rose to become a ward sister and combined her gifts of straight-talking and no-nonsense with her love and compassion. It was very fulfilling. She changed through it.
Then, after 49 years' marriage, during which she had also traveled widely to Asia and the far east, with her husband, her life took another extraordinary turn. She left her husband and, out of the shock and trauma of divorce, found a new vocation as grandmother to an adopted family from an Indian heritage.
For the last five years of her life, this new home expanded to welcome in her son and her daughter and her former husband. She poured out her life for this new family, somehow drawing in her blood family. Out of the mess came a new kind of family - not without pain and hurt, but overwhelmingly, full of love.
If our common human calling from God is to bear his image, tonight I have seen the beauty and diversity of God in an unprepossessing anonymous three-bedroomed home in the parish where a Black Country-woman united with love two families whose roots lie 5,000 miles apart.
Last night I watched a performance of a contemporary dance, called “Imbalance”. It was an incredibly evocative and powerful portrayal of how our lives can be lived out of balance because of our addiction to our mobile phones, computers, and social media, putting into jeopardy the beauty and joy of face to face personal and intimate relationships. The dance vividly portrayed how we can so easily spend time on our technology rather than with the people present with us in a room. By our free choice we can full into the trap of not fulfilling our calling to be image bearers of the God of love and life, the One who is fully present with us.
ReplyDeleteIn contrast, this morning, I have spent some time with one of the sisters at a convent in Handsworth, who is living out her own distinctive vocation, taking vows of poverty, chastity, obedience and service. I see in her the image of Christ’s joy and peace, born out of a life of prayer, scripture and worship, and lived out very much connected to the real world. This weekend the convent is hosting 16 young people from across the world who have come to Birmingham for the Taize event: Hidden Treasure. Hospitality, spending time face to face with people, listening attentively to one another, are all expressions of bearing God’s image, and are ways of fulfilling our vocation of love.
So I’m left wondering what, besides technology, can hamper our living out our vocation?
David began his life as a shepherd. How often did shepherds become kings, especially among a people who had never had a king until King Saul. When David offered to confront Goliath, he had come to deliver food to his older brothers who were serving in King Saul's army. David was the youngest of the siblings. While his brothers were off in the army, he remained at home caring for sheep. They were angry at him for his naïveté and impudence in offering to confront this giant that nobody else in the army, despite ample experience in war, would challenge.
ReplyDelete1Samuel: 17:28,29
28 When Eliab, David’s oldest brother, heard him speaking with the men, he burned with anger at him and asked, “Why have you come down here? And with whom did you leave those few sheep in the wilderness? I know how conceited you are and how wicked your heart is; you came down only to watch the battle.”
29 “Now what have I done?” said David. “Can’t I even speak?”
Is David left to tend the sheep because nobody thinks highly of him? When Samuel, the prophet, invites Jesse and his sons to participate in offering sacrifice to God, David is the only son not present. Even his own father appears to have written him off as a man without potential.....but God has not. This is what He says of Eliab who is handsome and apparently full of potential.
1Samuel 16:7
“Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The Lord does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.”
God sees our heart and knows what He has chosen for us. Let our outward appearance and other people's opinion of us not muffle God's call.