“Vocation: Everybody Has One”
Rev. Ronald Knott
January 26, 2014
If you are called, reply, “Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.
I Samuel 3:3b-10,19
What do you want to be when you grow up?” A lawyer? A farmer? A teacher? An actor? A doctor? What do you want to be when you grow up? A scientist? An engineer? A musician? An investment counselor? An accountant? What do you want to do when you grow up? An astronaut? A politician? An artist? A writer? You have heard these questions since you were a child! No doubt, you have been counseled, directed and pressured to choose one. You have been told that certain professions should be considered because they pay well and warned that others should be avoided because they don’t! In making your choice, you are, no doubt, under the gun to please parents, counselors, teachers and peers!
“What do you want to do when you grow up?” I believe that that question is the wrong question! The only question that really counts is the question: “What does God want you to do with your life?” Our first reading tonight, tells us of the call of Samuel, who is called three times before he is able to answer. His call reminds me of the call of another young man, Jeremiah, who hears God clearly the first time, but who resists and argues with God about his call. God tells Jeremiah:
Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,
before you were born I dedicated you.
Jeremiah argues back:
Look God, I am too young. I’m not a good speaker! I won’t know
how to do what you are asking!
God snaps back:
Don’t say you’re too young. Don’t be afraid. Don’t worry about
it beforehand I will be with you to help you. I’ll turn you
into a good speaker. I will put the right words in
your mouth. I’ll give you what you need for the job when you
need it.
My friends, each one of you is precious in God’s eyes. You are special. You are a unique expression of God’s love and creativity. In all the world there is no other person exactly like you. There never has been or never will be another person just like you! Besides being special and unique, you are not here by accident. You were sent here for a purpose. You have a mission. You have something to do here that can be done by no one else. Your responsibility is to find out what your mission is and then carry it out with all your might. Your purpose here is commonly called “your vocation” or “your call.” Because it is GOD who calls you to your special task, God will be there to help you carry it out.
With a hundred people pulling you this way and that, saying that “you ought to be this” or “you ought to be that,” how do you hear what God is calling you to do? We hear God by listening to our own hearts. To be able to hear God speaking to us, we must spend some quality time with God and with ourselves. That means that sometimes we need to turn off the TV, the radio, the head phones, the computer, the advice givers and just be quiet! That means you have to leave your friends, you family and your neighbors once in a while, just to be alone in the presence of God. For many people, just being quiet is extremely hard to do and it’s scary! Many people are not used to being without noise and without being with people every waking moment of the day. When we go off and listen to our own hearts, we will hear our call, our vocation, where we need to go.
A very few people hear God’s voice directly like Jeremiah seems to have done. More like Samuel who hears, but is confused. Most people hear their calls as “a hunch,” “a quiet knowing” or “a small still voice” that never seems to go away. They just know in their guts. Most people hear God’s call through the invitation of others, those who say to us over and over again, “you’d make a good doctor,” “you’d be a great teacher,” “you’d make a good priest,” “you’ll make a great parent.” If you hear people saying one of those things, over and over again, you ought to listen to see if your heart agrees! They just might be messengers from God himself!
What if we listen for God’s call? What if we don’t? God wants the best for us! If we do what he calls us to do, we will be ourselves, we will be what he created us to be. We will feel, and we will know, that we are in the right place. Our life’s work will fit who we are. When we follow our calls, we will be happy, not a “ha-ha” happy, but a deep down satisfaction, in spite of challenges.
However, sometimes people know what they are supposed to do in life, but they don’t do it because they are scared of its demands, scared of what other people will think, scared of failure or scared of disappointing their parents, peers and friends. We pay a price from not listening to God’s call. We pay a price for pleasing others instead of being who we are. When people go against their call and do something else, their lives will seem to be out of sync, they will be frustrated, their hearts will not be in their jobs or professions. They will go through life with a low grade depression, a restlessness that will follow them wherever they go! Then, when they are old and look back, they will be filled with regret, anger and frustration that life somehow passed them by! I got such a letter a couple of years back from one of my classmates who dropped out of the seminary and still lives in regret forty years later.
Everybody has a vocation, a call from God, to do something for him, to help him carry out some part of his work in the world. A call is not so much about what we want to do, but what God wants us to do! The famous Albert Schweitzer put it this way, “The only ones among you who will be really happy are those who have sought and found how to serve.” The famous Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. put it this way, “Life’s most persistent and urgent question is, “What are you doing for others?” Some of you are called to help God carry out his mission by being teachers, doctors, scientists and food producers. Others of you are called to help God carry out his mission by being politicians, lawyers and writers. Others of you are called to carry out God’s mission by being social workers, artists and scientists. Still others are called to help God carry out his mission by having children, by being a good husband or wife or by living the single life. Finally, some of you are called to be priests (like me), sisters, brothers and full time lay ministers, as well as parents (like Melanie and Karen).
The church especially today needs good priests: people to preach the gospel, celebrate the sacraments and lead our parishes spiritually. Who will take my place someday soon, here at Bellarmine? According to the most recent studies, no matter what the media says, 94% of all priests are happy or very happy as priests. In spite of the big mess we have been through, priests still have one of the highest satisfaction rates around, compared to other professions! But whatever your call, you are called to help God carry out his mission in the world in some way! As St. Theresa put it, “Anyone who realizes that he or she is favored by God will have the courage necessary for doing great things!”
Young adults! You have a call! Your job is to hear your call and dare to be all that you can be! Let me end this homily by quoting these words of Marianne Williamson, one of my favorite quotes:
Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate,
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us.
We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous – actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God.
Your playing small doesn’t serve the world.
There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people
won’t feel insecure around you.
We were born to make manifest the glory of God within us.
It is not just in some of us: it is in everyone,
and as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously
give other people permission to do the same.
The truth is the truth, no matter who says it. Buddha said quite well when he said: “Our goal in life is to find out what our purpose in life is and to give ourselves to that purpose wholeheartedly.”
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