Location Vocation

World Magazine scores again with the terrific article, "Called to a Community." Making the point that vocation is more than profession or career or job, Timothy Dalrymple asks, "were we right to leave family and friends in the belief that our calling to particular careers trumped everything else?"

Well, in response, maybe we were right. Jesus sometimes calls us to leave and cleave. In the marital vocation it is certainly true to some extent. Jesus' "come follow me" sometimes takes us away from origin. Sometimes we follow Him closer in to where we have come from.

But the critique remains. Jesus didn't say "When your career calls, follow it." Your career can't talk. Jesus calls us to follow Him, and you can be sure it will be into the community of the cross. "Here are my mother and my brothers! For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother." Jesus points us a p

articular people and says, "Behold your mother," or "Behold your son."

COMMUNITY: Dalrymple says, "Vocation is less a profession than a purpose pursued through our careers but also through the common life we share."

CROSS: Dalrymple, "Christians in American culture struggle with a sort of vocational schizophrenia. We want to make a difference while making money, to remembered for serving the forgotten We want to give our cake to the poor and sell it too."

CONFINEMENT: Jesus says to "take up our crosses and follow Him "daily," never "tomorrow."

This message is not for me after I get "it" together. After you get your degree or certificate. After our facebook relationship status is at least semi-squared away. It is a call today.

It got me thinking. What ways are we living out our vocation to location here in San Pedro (and greater South Bay)? Jesus says to us who are here in the South Bay today, "Behold your mother--Behold your son." This is your family--your community. Even if He calls us somewhere else later, today He has called us here.

50 years from now (2060) when we are sitting down at Acapulco watching ships coming in and out of the harbor, what will we say, "I wish we would have done _________ in 2010."

"I wish we would have planted ______ in 2010."

"I wish we would have focused our energy in the _________ neighborhood in 2010."

"I wish we would have budgeted ________ in the class of 2010 (they would be 68 then--I will be 85, Lord-willing)."

"I wish we would have started a _________-language service/church in 2010"

Share your thoughts!