A Thinking Reed

Vocation and the Disciplines of Place

Written by

Lee M.

in

Here’s another nugget from Fr. Jape on “practicing the discipline of place”:

It is the idea that to suffer one’s place and one’s people in the particularity of its and their needs is the only true basis for finding love, friendship, and an authentic, meaningful life. This is nothing less than the key to the pursuit of Christian holiness, which is the whole of the Christian adventure: live in love with the frailty and limits of one’s existence, suffering the places, customs, rites, joys, and sorrows of the people who are in close relation to you by family, friendship, and community–all in service of the truth, goodness, and beauty that is best experienced directly. The discipline of place teaches that it is more than enough to care skillfully and lovingly for one’s own little circle, and this is the model for the good life, not the limitless jurisdiction of the ego, granted by a doctrine of choice, that is ever seeking its own fulfillment, pleasure, and satiation. The Puritan heritage of America has long chafed against this discipline as it necessarily limits one to a small field of action in a world with seemingly little hope for eschatological fulfillment.

This resonates with Luther’s doctrine of vocation, at least as Lutheran theologian Gerhard Forde explains it (see, A More Radical Gospel: Essays on Eschatology, Authority, Atonement, and Ecumenism). According to Forde, what justification by faith does is put an end to all our projects for journeying out of the world, trying to reach God by our own efforts, along some path of “spiritual development” or moral and/or political overreaching. God’s kingdom comes to us as a gift and not by our efforts. Justification by faith spells the death of the old self, the self that is constantly trying to justify itself, and brings to life a new self that lives by faith.

What this does, Forde argues, is turn us back into the world – the concrete, eveyday world – freed from the need to escape the world via some project of transcendence. Because there’s nothing left for us to do “before God” we journey back into the world in all its quotidian messiness. Forde rejects the dictum that God became man so that we could become gods in favor of the idea that God became man so that we could become truly human. By which he means live within the limits of what it means to be a creature, caring for creation and our neighbors “for the time being.”

We do this primarily through our various tasks in the orders of creation: household, work, politics, culture, etc. “Vocation” in the Lutheran sense is not about “self-fulfillment”, much less making oneself pleasing to God, but about serving others in the specific needs. And since serving the needs of the neighbor is the telos of these orders, they can be altered as those needs change or in order to better meet them. Forde advocates the “political” or “civil” use of the law, not as a natural law that reflects an eternal law (as in some Catholic thought), but as the basic conditions for human life and community in the world.

The disciplines of place are, as a Lutheran would understand it, the opportunities we are given to serve our neighbors, which we can do with grateful hearts once we are freed from the anxiety of trying to justify ourselves and endow our lives with a self-created “meaning.”

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3 responses to “Vocation and the Disciplines of Place”

  1. Joshie

    • While I am, in general a supporter of Luther’s doctrine of vocation, the doctrine, as it is described by these two thinkers, at least, has some major, major flaws.

    First off, there seems to be very little biblical foundation for the doctrine as described. In Mark 1.16-20 (and parallels) Jesus _calls_ the disciples from their work as fishemen to a life of following Jesus around. Verses 18 and 20 clearly indicates that they left their nets immediately. Instead of keeping to themselves and their community, the Lord calls (vocat) them from their families and friends and into discipleship. In 1 Samuel 16.11-12, David is called away from his shepherding duties to become king.

    A second concern from a biblical standpoint is the prophetic demand (one often echoed by Jesus in his parables) to “do justice”. The famous passage in Micah 6.8 reads, “He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what the Lord does require of you but to DO justice, and to love kindness and to walk humbly with your God?” Justice, in the Hebrew mindset was not just making sure everybody gets an equal amount of pizza at suppertime, it was something that was DONE. It is to care for to poor and opressed (Amos 5, James 1.27). When we limit ourselves by this “disicipline of place” as described here, at least, we risk turning our backs on the poor and opressed in favor of “keeping to our own”.

    The implications of this idea of vocation are quite statling. If our requirement is to stay in our little corners of the world and “do our thing”, what becomes of mission? What becomes of spirituality? Liturgy? Was Martin Luther King Jr. merely on an ego trip? Should African-Americans have stuck with Booker T. Washington’s idea that the best way to liberate one’s self is to work hard and keep your mouth shut?

    If Luther, even, had held to this doctrine as described, would there have even been a Lutheran movement? Perhapas he should have stayed with the Augustinian friars and Jesus should have stuck to his carpenter shop.

    My point is not to denegrate the doctrine of vocation. It is a perfectly good and biblical doctrine. But I think Jape and Forde push it too far, beyond even Luther himself. To dismiss all efforts to deepen one’s faith as some sort of spiritual masterbation, if you will, is wreckless and contradicts the spirit of the prophets, Christ, and even Luther. Luther’s concern was that the religious life had been set up as the only possible path to holiness, to the point where everybody else was considered less than a genuine beliver if they did not enter an order. Luther’s doctrine liberated everyone from princes to peasents from the idea that they weren’t a part of God’s grace because of their position in life.

    He clearly did not mean that we are only called to serve in our own “place” and our own God-given duties while the world burns.

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  2. Lee

    I probably didn’t adequately represent Forde’s position, but I don’t think he would have a problem with any of the things you mention. Lutheranism has often been accused of leading to “quietism” (most notably by Troelsch and Niebuhr, I think), but I think Forde’s point is simply that no political quest for justice, no matter how laudable, can lead to salvation.

    That being said, there is positive work for justice to be done in the world. For instance, in speaking of the so-called political use of the law he says:

    “For faith in the end of the law leads to the view that its purpose is to take care of this world, not prepare for the next. That means we do not possess absolute, unchangeable laws. If the law no longer takes care of this world, it can and must be changed. As even Luther put it, we must write our own decalogue to fit the times. Furthermore, whenever anyone, be he reactionary or revlolutionary, sets up law or a system by which he thinks to bring in the messianic age, that is precisely the misuse of law against which Christians must protest. That is why, I would think, not even revolution is entirely out of the question for the Christian if that appears the only way to bring about necessary changes. But it must be a revolution for the proper use of the law, for taking care of the world, in the name of a purely natural and civil righteousness and not in the name of supernatural pretension.” (A More Radical Gospel, p. 49)

    And he would emphasize that it is precisely because we are justified by faith that we can be free to pursue justice. Since there’s no more work to do (in terms of justifying ourselves before God), we are set loose in the world to care for the needs of our neighbors, and seeking justice is undeniably one of the ways in which we do that.

    I do think, though, that there is a tension between caring for those close to us (which I think we have an undeniable obligation to do), and extending the “circle of concern” outward. But the point I was trying to highlight is that our obedience is “in the world” and not in some rarefied “religious” sphere. Nor does this eliminate the need for worship, prayer, etc. since we constantly (Forde would say) need to hear the Gospel again and again (cf. Luther’s notion of each day being a kind of starting over by remembering our baptism. I readily concede that the Lutheran notion of “simultaneously sinner and saint” probably differs from Catholic (and Methodist!) notions of progressive sanctification, but that’s another story…)

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  3. Joshie

    thanks for clarifying that for me Lee. I can see more where he’s coming from now. The concept of the law is a good balance to a potential overreach of the vocation doctrine

    I will be the first to decry an overemphasis on spirituality, our former church was a prime example of this. They were so “into” prayer that they amphasized it at the expense of all else. Feed the hungry? Nope just pray about it. Come up with deliberate strategies to reach out with the gospel and grow the congregation and the church at large? Just pray and they will come. There was even a group of ppl who would remove themselves from the sanctuary during worship service and spend the whole time praying for a good service, instead of participating and MAKING it a good service.

    But I think the best approach to service in the world and apirituality is a balanced one. Sure nothing gets done without prayer but if all you do is pray, then nothing gets done anyway. Spiritual growth and development is essential but if all you do is think about your own “walk” then you end up a selfish, navel-gazing person, like many of those ppl at our old church.

    I think the Lutheran concepts of sanctification can run into problems common to many “entire” sanctification Wesleyans in that they are in danger of spiritual stagnation if they begain to consider themselves as finished product. Paul uses the image of running a race, pressing on toward the goal. A Lutheran pastor friend of one of my seminary profs once said that for Lutherans, “Sanctification is getting used to your Justification.” I like that.

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