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Deep within each human being is an urge to discover one's truest goals and destiny and then to build a life around this desire, to refine one's talents and address one's limitations in a lifelong movement toward achieving these goals. Over and again in the biblical material comes the refrain, "I have called you by name" and "You are called to follow in a way." Vocation is both a process of discerning and a journey of formation.
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One of the significant persons in the establishment of Claremont School of Theology was Dr. K. Morgan Edwards.
Near the end of his life, he was asked: "Based on your experience, are preachers born or are they made?" Though ill, Dr. Edwards straightened himself and took a long dramatic pause, responding in a clear voice, "Preachers are born! But they are born raw!"
We are all born with certain gifts as our callings, our talents. But we are "born raw"-there is a journey of improvement and clarification ahead for each of us. At Claremont School of Theology one of our primary emphases, along with rigorous academic work and social engagement, is focus on the discernment and formation of vocation.
The search for vocation is not just a narrow Christian or even religious reality. It is not merely an organizing principle of scripture. It is a primal topic of great literature, poetry and social philosophy through the ages.
We at Claremont School of Theology believe that the human response to the call of God for each person is to be a part of the creation of transforming communities of well-being in our world. Vocation is both personal and social. It is personally and socially discerned and formed. We must listen for our name even as we journey ahead to a destination that is not always apparent. We are aware that the opportunity to study theology as part of this gaining of vocational clarity is a privilege and wonderful responsibility.
There are multiple definitions of vocation.
- Paolo Freire suggested, "We have a vocation to be fully human."
- Barbara Brown Taylor, in thinking of her work as a pastor and priest, said vocation involves, "Being just who she already is and doing just what she already does, with one difference: namely, that she understand herself to be God's person in and for the world."
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- Parker Palmer writes: "Vocation means a calling that I hear. Before I can tell my life what I want to do with it, I must listen to my life telling me who I am. I must listen for the truths and values at the heart of my own identity, not the standards by which I must live-but the standards by which I cannot help but live if I am living my own life."
- Possibly the best known statement on vocation comes from author Frederick Buechner who writes: "Vocation is the place where your deep gladness meets the world's deep need."
To study theology is a remarkable gift because it allows one to explore the heart of the human vocational search. In a world like ours, filled with terror and injustice, one of the ways one can respond is to seek first to know oneself and one's destiny. In such self-knowledge is the seed for the care of others and our world. In making peace with my own broken identity and forgotten purposes in life, I can begin to find the way toward being a mediator and peacemaker in the world around.
It is not that any one of us is special. In fact, a vocation is what each person is offered in life although most of us seem to think it is elusive. It eludes us perhaps because it cannot be purchased and in a consumeristic, market-driven society this is confusing. A sense of vocation is something that is slowly discovered through study, meditation and community interaction. In his Address to the German Nobility, Luther made careful distinction between a Christian's vocation and office. Luther suggests that our offices are what we do for a living but our vocation is held in common. One's vocation is to be God's person in the world, and that makes each the same as those among whom I serve.
Do students come to Claremont School of Theology to prepare for the office of pastor, teacher, counselor, chaplain, social service director or community leader? Of course they do. However, we believe any human being performs these "office" roles with grace and self-awareness when they are also acting with a sense of vocation-vocation meaning to respond to God's call to create transforming communities of well-being.
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