Who’s Calling? Whose Calling?

Dr. Kit KleinhansMcCoy Family Distinguished Chair in Lutheran

Heritage and MissionWartburg College

Vocation

• All work done responsibly for the sake of others is a calling

Areas of Responsibility in Daily Life

• Home• Society• Church• Workplace

“Good Works”“For faith alone can justify;works serve our neighbor and supplythe proof that faith is living.”

“Salvation unto Us Has Come” (ELW 590:4)

“Now our neighbor is any human being, especially one who needs our help, as Christ interprets it in Luke 10:30–37. Even one who has done me some sort of injury or harm has not shed his humanity on that account or stopped being flesh and blood, a creature of God very much like me; in other words, he does not stop being my neighbor.”

Martin Luther, Lectures on Galatians, 1535 (LW 27:58)

Explanation to the First Commandment• Although much that is good comes to us from human beings,

nevertheless, anything received according to his command and ordinance in fact comes from God. Our parents and all authorities—as well as everyone who is a neighbor—have received the command to do us all kinds of good. So we receive our blessings not from them, but from God through them. Creatures are only the hands, channels, and means through which God bestows all blessings. For example, he gives to the mother breasts and milk for her infant or gives grain and all sorts of fruits from the earth for sustenance—things that no creature could produce by itself. … Therefore, we should not spurn even this way of receiving such things through God’s creatures, nor are we through arrogance to seek other methods and ways than those God has commanded. For that would not be receiving them from God, but seeking them from ourselves.

• Large Catechism I:26-27

Apostles CreedExplanation to the 1st Article

• I hold and believe that I am God’s creature, that is, that he has given me and constantly sustains my body, soul, and life, my members great and small, all my senses, my reason and understanding, and the like; my food and drink, clothing, nourishment, spouse and children, servants, house and farm, etc. Besides, he makes all creation help provide the benefits and necessities of life—sun, moon, and stars in the heavens; day and night; air, fire, water, the earth and all that it yields and brings forth; birds, fish, animals, grain, and all sorts of produce. Moreover, he gives all physical and temporal blessings—good government, peace, security. Thus we learn from this article that none of us has life—or anything else that has been mentioned here or can be mentioned—from ourselves, nor can we by ourselves preserve any of them, however small and unimportant. All this is comprehended in the word “Creator.”

• Large Catechism II:13-16

Lord’s PrayerExplanation to the Fourth Petition

• “Give us this day our daily bread.”

• To put it briefly, this petition includes everything that belongs to our entire life in this world, because it is only for its sake that we need daily bread. Now, our life requires not only food and clothing and other necessities for our body, but also peace and concord in our daily activities, associations, and situations of every sort with the people among whom we live and with whom we interact—in short, in everything that pertains to the regulation of both our domestic and our civil or political affairs.For where these two spheres are interfered with and prevented from functioning as they should, there the necessities of life are also interfered with, and life itself cannot be maintained for any length of time. Indeed, the greatest need of all is to pray for the civil authorities and the government, for it is chiefly through them that God provides us daily bread and all the comforts of this life. Although we have received from God all good things in abundance, we cannot retain any of them or enjoy them in security and happiness were he not to give us a stable, peaceful government. For where dissension, strife, and war prevail, there daily bread is already taken away or at least reduced.

• Large Catechism III:73-74

The Role of Government

Grounding, Tracking, and Crossing

1. When people ask you about your work, what word(s) would go into the blank? “I'm a _________________?”2. When you go to bed tired at the end of a working day, what all have you done that leaves you tired? Use verbs.3. What's the best thing about this daily work? [You wake in the morning and say: "Yup. I want to do that again today!"]4. What's the worst thing? [You wake in the morning and say: "Yuk. Another day of that again!"]5. What benefit do you get from the work that you do? 6. Who else benefits from the work you do?7. If you get paid for the work you do, is that pay a fair wage? If not, how much more would it take to be fair pay? If you are not paid, does it matter? Why or why not?8. Do you make connections between your daily work and your faith? If so, what? If not, why not?9. What does or should the Church say about your daily work?