11
VOICES AND VISIONS"
. . a· sermon
.,
de 1 i ve red i n
Duke University Chapel
by
The Reverend Helen G. Crotwell
Associate Minister to the University
September 25, 1977
Scripture Lessons--Old Testament--Genesis 1:27~28
Epistle--Romans 12:1-8
Gospel--Luke 4:16-21
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Saturday a week ago I walked across this campus when it was deserted
except for some guests gathering for a wedding in the chap~l and a
few students here· and there. Se 1dom have I seen the· campus.· when the
university was in full session and there were so few people· around.
It meant that as I walked to the Dope Shop I could see the millions
of announcements stuck on .every conceivable place- and some inconceivable places. So many · that l. ·was discouraged from any attempt to
sort out the opportunities which were being offered to us.
This is what some of you must feel like when you start making your
vocational decisions. Many visions and voices calling to you, saying:
Here's an urgent need. You have ·a voice which should be shared with
the world. The medical profession needs people with your concern for
persons and your scientific competence. Law is the best way to bring
about lasting social change. You ought to be a· preacher like your
dad. And on and on these voices come to you.
Are you aware of the voices which are helping you determine your
major? · Or influence the decision of what will be your life work?
Some of these voices may come from the expectations of your parents,
or of your husband or wife or the attraction .of prestige or money or
power or the call of compassion to respond to human need or the word
from your vocational counselor saying you have a choi~e - you could
be a great machanic, minister, or interior decorator. If all these
voices say the same thing - no problem. But they d.on 1 ·t! What work
will you do? What is important enough to you that you want to give
your self to it, to commit energy, your time, and your .talents to it.
These are life-time questions. They are always with .us. We answer
them now. But we will ask them again and again. · The next answer may
be the same as the one you give now, but it may not .be. That's alright. You change, the world changes.
Today I want to sort out some of the voices and visions which come to
us as we try to answer the vocational question. First voices from
the Bible:
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I
From Genesis we heard that we were created in the image of God,
blessed and then given responsibility to have dominion over the nonhuman dimensions of this world. To be created in the image of God
means we have been given freedom, and responsibility. We are created
beings, creatures with limitations, but we have been given freedom
and responsibility.
If we read further tn Genesis we would have heard the story which
describes our living in a world which bears the marks of our freedom.
Our world Is not a Garden of Eden, with no decisions, to make no pain,
no unfulfilled needs, but is one in which we, and the generations
after us, benefit and suffer as a result of our use and misuse of our
freedom. And because of this, our work in the world will be a struggle. The garden we live In is not Eden, but one that has briars and
thorns~ brokenness and ·paln.
In the next Scripture lesson read from Paul's letter to the Romans ~
Paul was writing to those who had -been arguing over which responsibility is most important, teaching, preaching, feeding the hungry.
Paul uses the image of the body, for all parts are equally important.
While the letter was written about work within the Christian community,
it is applicable to all of our work. We are called to present ourselves and our gifts to God~
We are called not to think of ourselves more highly than we should,
not to think we are better than our neighbors, for we are all important parts of a single body - the different gifts and different
·
functions being equally important.
What a radical voice this is in our world so full of important and
unimportant jobs. It is easy as we are together in worship to accord
full respect and dignity and value to all work which is essential to
our living in this world. We can say that the work of a secretary is
as important and valuable as the work of the person who needs a
secre.tary. We can say that a person whose work 1s to c 1ean houses,
or cook, or dfspose of our garbage, whether by personal choice or
because they had no choice, that thi -s work is as important as the work
of those persons who are freed from these jobs in order that they can
care for the sick, or teach, or clean up the mess we have made out of
this world. We can say this In worship, but it is difficult to
remember when we move around in our world in which certain people,
certain jobs, certain professions are affirmed by prestige, high
salaries, and other ways by which we accord more value to certain
people and jobs.
And we in the university community are keenly aware that we have been
much, that we are an elite group, that we have opportunities
and choices for our life work that many people cannot even imagine.
And so we recall Jesus• words that to those whom much has been given,
much -is expected.
~iven
When Jesus was asked what was the most important commandment, he
responded, 11 Love God and love your neighbor as yourself." Much of
Jesus• work was helping us to understand what it means to love our
-3- ·
neighbor - the one in need· - in specific ways and not in general or
theoretical ways. This vision completes the picture which was begun
In Genesis. We have been given responsibility to have dominion over
all creation, with the exception of our brothers and sisters. Our
relationship and responsibility to our brothers and sisters is to love
and care for them as we do ourselves.
The ~ospel lesson reported Jesus reading from Isaiah at the beginning
of has public ministry- after he had spent time in the wilderness deciding on the form of his public work. "God has annointed me to bring
good news to the poor, release the prisoners, to give sight to the
blind, to let the broken victims go free."
Many of you in deciding on what will be your work are looking at such
issues of critical human need ln relation to your interests and
abilities; asking what are the most Important tasks which need doing
ln order to make and keep human life human.
Now hear some implication which we can draw from these Biblical voices.
We can be responsible to God ir. any work we choose if we are caring
for our neighbor or the world. In fact, it may be that this is the
only way, or at least a very important way, that God works in our
world, that God cares for us. This makes our choice of work a very
important decision, but one we can make with ease tf we also can
affirm that we are continuing God's work, and we are not left alone.
God is working through us, guiding us, supporting us, and healing us
when we get stuck by the briars and thorns we encounter in our work.
There is no work, not even work within the church, especially not wor.k
within the church, which does not have briars and thorns. Don't
search for a vocation in the Garden of Eden. That's not where we l ive.
Such affirmation is freeing and liberating- if we believe that we are
not totally, solely, responsible for the whole world- This responsibility is God's, but is shared with us. Such assurance does not remove the destructiveness of our irresponsibility, but it provides a
basts for hope. God has the last word. There will be a new heaven
and a new earth. Such assurance frees us to make decisions, to take
risks, to fold our tents and move on.
These Biblical voices and visions give us a context to answer the
question of what form our work will take and provide the basis of our
experience which we share with one another. I chose Home Economics
as a major in college, because I wanted to help people live a better
life, have a more nutritious diet. I was being obedient to God, and
still can affirm that this was a responsible choice. But after one
year of work l discovered that my interests and energies, the voice
within me, kept leading me to find my work within the church. So I
folded my tent and went back to study ln a school of theolo~y. Now,
either wo·rk offered an opportunity for me to respond to Gods call to
care for my neighbor. The difference was that I was claimed, caught
up, and could give myself tn one work in a way that l could not in
the other.
There are people who's story is the reverse of this. They started
work within the church and moved into a so called secular work, where
they were more able to be responsible in what they knew God was
calling them to do. This may happen in one year- or ten years later.
. -4Now once you decide, a student ·asked, what happens if the work which
uses your talents and abilities and meets an urgent human need is one
in which you cannot find a job? Such questions . keep us from liv i ng
in a fantasy world. Often times our vocation, that which we do in
response to a call to a specific need, is not our work, that which we
do to "earn a living". In fact, some people say that anything we get
paid to do- whether as a minister, a physician, teacher, or what,
anything we get paid to do is our work and we will use other of our
time for our vocatio~. Such emphasis keeps our work in perspective.
We do need to be rem[nded from time to time, that no part of our life,
not our family, our work; our leisure, will provide ultimate meaning
for our lives . To invest any part of life with such ultimacy means
we have made it a god.
Back to the hard question, what do you do if you can't find a job that
lets you do what you have com~itted yourself to? And more and more
people find themselves in this place. Some start over, looking at
where they can match their ability, a critical need, and there are
potent i al jobs. Others able to find work which allows them to meet
their physical needs, and then volunteer their time for that to which
they have been called. I recently heard of a man who is committed to
work to solve some of our environmental problems, but he cannot find
a job whi ·ch will pay him to do this. His wife, a physician, earns enoug:
money so that he is able to work full time in the area he has been
called, but as a volunteer~ Fortunately he is a secure man, who is
not threatened by our valuation of people, particularly men, by the
amotm t of money tn~y earn.
It may be, it just may be, that some of you here are gol .ng to be
called to provide vision and models of alternative ways we can structure our work so that all people may work and so that ·some people do
not have to spend all of thei ·r time and energy eeking out a living,
with no time left for famity, or for leisure, or for civic activities.
Rosemary Ruether in an article 11 Toward New Solutions: Working Women
and the Male Work Day" explores some alternatives, projecting the
possibility of a couple each working a 25 hour work week, thus receiving adequate income, and thus allowing them time to spend with
each other, with their children, and also having time to spend in
activities - related to their personal development and their interest
in civic and social concerns.
Now, finally, a vision from Will Campbell 1 s article on nvocafion a~
Grace." A call to us to recognize the gifts which are ours. Any
talent and ability we have is truly a gift to be shared, to be given.
Will says,
"Once my Grandma Bettye got a new plaid flannel bathrobe for
Christmas. It was a present from her son in another state who
worked for the government and who, we all assumed at that time,
had lots of money. It was red and green with black stripes
dividing the colorful squares. The very first Sunday after
Christmas my Grandma wore it to the meeting. She sat right up
on the front row of the section that ran perpendicular to the
pulpit. It was where all the older women sat, along with the
'
-5the middle sized granchildren- those who no longer had to
sit with Mamma but had not yet discovered that it was more
fun to sit in the back. Some of the more sophisticated of
Grandma's daughters-in-l~w were embarrassed and had some
rather caustic things to say to Grandma for wearing a bathrobe to church. But Grandma Bettye handled it well, 'Just
hush. It's the prettiest thing I have ever seen and the Lord
deserves the best.• And she added, 'Anyway, I ain't got no
bathroom. 1 It was the middle of the depression. Maybe
that's all vocation is. But the moral of the story is not
just that Grandma showed off the prettiest thing she had to
Jesus. That is part of lt. But the real moral is that the
prettiest thing she had had been given to her. It was a
~a~ter of grace.