Vocation

"Vocation is a matter primarily of being" says Carolyn Gratton. It is not simply what I do to make a living, but in its deepest Christian sense, our true calling is to live in unbroken harmony with God, just as Adam and Eve did before the fall. Our vocation is to reflect the Imago Dei as we live in covenant relationship with Him. Out of this knowledge of who I am comes the knowledge of what I should do.
Walter Bruggeman states, "Vocation means finding a purpose for being in the world that is related to the purposes of God."

Jesus himself demonstrates this relationship of being and doing in his statements about Himself. As a boy of twelve he says to his astonished parents "Did you not know I must be about my Father's business?" Later he announces his ministry by quoting from Isaiah " The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, Because He anointed Me to preach the Gospel to the poor. He has sent Me to proclaim release to the captives, and recovery of sight to the blind, To set free those who are downtrodden, To proclaim the favorable year of the Lord." To His followers He proclaims, "I come that they might have life and might have it abundantly...And to the disciples, he says, "I am the Way the Truth and the Life; no one comes to the Father but through Me (Jn. 14:6)...He who has seen Me has seen the Father( Jn 14:9)...the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many..(Mt 20:28) Prophesying his death he says, "(the Son of Man) will be delivered to the Gentiles, and will be mocked and mistreated and spit upon, and after they have scourged Him, they will kill Him; and the third day He will rise again (Lk. 18:31).

These statements all show that Jesus' sense of being or identity was intricately linked with his sense of mission in the world. Both of these in turn constituted His Vocation. Expressed in a formula, it looks like this: Identity + Mission = Vocation.