I Have A Vocation, Just Not That Vocation or Responsibility, What's That?

In an older era, when the lines between academic and religious instruction were far more blurry, professors were described as being "called" to their professorships, just as we speak of clergy being called to their cures.

In that light, I am in my first call and feel an odd affinity with my clerical analogs. If I were a regular/ordinary professor, the parallels would be more striking. I would teach on a regular basis. Note, for instance, that early Protestant New England used to refer to a ceremonial centered around the preaching of the Word as "lecture."

My job also familiarizes me with the roles that clergy have beyond their primary job description. I raise money (or at least try to do so). I advise on the purchase of equipment. I go to and sometimes lead meetings. I have control over a small budget and must watch carefully to make sure it is being spent properly.

Now, most white collar workers share these secondary roles in one way or another. The commonality between professors and clerics is a central focus on the proclamation and interpretation of texts, an unusual freedom from bureaucratic forms of control, the need to be mostly self-directed, and the sense that one's most valuable and efficient interactions are on the personal level. The cure of souls and the education of the mind most naturally occur on the scale of the individual, so we both recognize the importance of collaborative development in the realm of both the spirit and the intellect.

Older language again teaches us something. George Fox used to roam around 17th century England harassing the professors in their steeple houses, by which he meant priests of the Church of England in their parish churches. In this thinking, the priest, elder, presbyter etc. is always a professor of "religion" or of the things of God.

Recently, Derek posted on his concerns about a curious phenomenon: "Clergy tend to be folks who didn't/couldn't find fulfillment in the church as laity."

One part of his discussion (oft mentioned in the comments) touches my experience. If you're bright and have a devout, yet geeky interest in Christianity, people are always wondering why you don't become ordained. My answer is very simple: my vocation is not to be a priest. My vocation is to keep people from dying on other planetary bodies, unravel and meditate upon the history of Earth and other planetary bodies, and possibly figure out to how make other planetary bodies more like Earth (or otherwise flourish).

Not all of us are going to have such engaging and time-consuming vocations, but most of us are not going to have clerical ones. What we need to think about is how being a lay person can be more fulfilling. And part of that is understanding that the vocation of a lay person is often complementary to what they do in the world. In some cases, it's analogous. How many of your church's Sunday School teachers are teaching or have taught elsewhere? Do you have interior decorators, hair dressers, florists, and other aesthetic experts on the Altar Guild?

Sometimes, what the laity does in church is not analogous, but still complementary. A lawyer may enjoy helping out with the emergency homeless shelter, because she enjoys ministering to the material needs of the disadvantaged rather than their legal ones. The concern I have for the laity is that we too often are repeating the patterns of our vocations in the world within the church, or the exact, yet kindred opposite, we pretend that the standard operating procedure of human institutional structures does not apply on Sunday morning. And I see danger in both of those bad habits for clergy-lay relations as well as the general health of our parishes. If we want a church that serves the world as Jesus calls us to do, we need a laity that feels empowered and renewed by what they do in the church, not a laity that is simply transferring their skill set from the world to the church.

As Derek mentions, we can do this, because we have means that the world does not know. I truly believe that God does empower, restore, and direct us by the things we do and that this process can happen more effectually if we have a better sense of who He is, what He has done, and what we can do to relate to Him, as he always is seeking to relate to us.

The other issue that comes up in the comments is what happens when a lay person is better educated in the intellectual content of the faith and/or perhaps better formed spiritually than the clergy. The church is a hospital for sinners. The Three Holy Hierarchs and the Desert Fathers and Mothers are constantly reminding us that the soul and the body are cared for by analogous means and arts.

In medicine, basic science researchers without M.D.'s are common. Excluded from clinical practice, by their own choice, they explore fundamental biology, chemistry, and even physics in search of ways to improve the standard of care. In collaboration with physicians, nurses, pharmacists, and others, they have helped bring medicine to extraordinary, if imperfect heights in comparison with the 19th century. There is jealousy and conflict in this relationship, but it tends to be generational. Doctors believe the science of their own day over the bleeding edge.

In that light, it's not surprising to me that there's tension between clergy and other theologically educated individuals. Clergy, like many allied professionals, suffer from a little impostor syndrome.

Clergy need to realize that their specialness does not lie in how smart they are or how fit they are for ministry. We set them apart in particular because they meet a standard, but once they've met that standard, we set them apart because they have made a choice, vows, and taken on the high responsibilities that come with the cure of souls, the preaching of the Word, and the celebration of the Sacraments. Their specialness lies in the acceptance of that responsibility, just as my project responsibilities change between when I'm Principal Investigator of a grant or I'm just being paid off the grant. If I'm PI, my specialness does not change if my student is more brilliant and better-educated in physics than I am. (Which I'm sure is going to happen some day.) I'm responsible for directing their abilities to the best project outcome I can.

I wish I could separate out what clergy do and laity do and talk about spheres and onlapping magisteria etc. But when I read the Gospels, I don't see Jesus or the Apostles, our clerical prototypes, keeping to that kind of script. Our lay prototypes are the ones who Jesus heals and are sent out to proclaim what has been done for them. The only true distinction I see is one of responsibility, "Feed my sheep."