Worship Weblog

Thursday, February 14, 2008

Jeremiah, vocation, and hope, in Interpretation

Phillip Thompson gives a provocative ode to vocation in the current issue of Interpretation:

Jeremiah 1:1-10.(Between Text & Sermon).
Philip E. Thompson.
Interpretation 62.1 (Jan 2008): p66(3). (1474 words)

Vocation is a divine gesture toward a world under God’s reign. As such, Gilbert Meilaender reminds us “vocation exacts a price and not all can pay it. Even though it may seem to draw us, its point is not happiness.... To follow the vocation does not mean happiness; but once it has been heard, there is no happiness for those who do not follow” (The Freedom of a Christian, 2006, 105). Vocation is compelling, and yet can create a pronounced lack of fit. Such was the case with Jeremiah (see 20:7-9). ...

[A]s a divine gesture toward a different world, to pursue a vocation is to hope. The final two verbs of Jeremiah’s call, “to build and to plant,” bespeak an assurance that God can work newness ex nihilo and create historical possibilities out of unmitigated chaos (Brueggemann, 24). Thus, even as vocation may create a lack of fit and even bring about separation, in so doing, it constitutes us as pilgrims who live in hope (Meilaender, 112).

continued ...

Also see our worship service series on faith and work

Posted by Nathan Bierma on 02/14 at 05:09 PM
Interdisciplinary Application • Leadership • Preaching • Reading • (0) Comments • Permalink
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