Vocation: Week 18 of Ordinary Time
Look: An Autumn Morning, Henry Herbert La Thangue - Source
Listen: Establish the Work of Our Hands, The Porter’s Gate, feat. Aaron Keyes & Urban Doxology - Bandcamp w/ Lyrics | Spotify | YouTube
I made us a new playlist - Work & Rest: Ordinary Time, pt. 3
Read: (Sunday) Numbers 11:4-6; Numbers 11:10-17; Numbers 11:24-29; Psalm 19:1-6; Psalm 19:7-14; James 4:7-12; James 5:6-20; Mark 9:38-48
Readings for the rest of the week*: Genesis 1:24-31; 2:1-25; Psalm 90; Luke 5:1-11; Acts 16; Romans 8:28-39; Colossians 3:22-41
Pray: Book of Common Prayer, Collect for the Eighteenth Week After Pentecost
O merciful Lord, grant to your faithful people pardon and peace, that we may be cleansed from all our sins and serve you with a quiet mind; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
Do: For the final seven weeks of Ordinary Time, we’ll consider God’s gifts of work and rest - both spiritual acts of worship.
Bobby Gross introduces this week’s chapter: “The word vocation derives from Latin vocatio, which means “calling.” Simply put, a calling requires a caller and implies a purpose. Nowadays we tend to use vocation to refer to a career. Fair enough, but the idea goes much deeper [as we read in this week’s Scripture passages}. Each of us, then, has a multilayered vocation.”
In the company of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, ask this question prayerfully: What is one thing you have learned about vocation that has a direct bearing on how you should think or go about your work, whether in a paid job or in you home or in your community?
Related: In between the lines of the thousands of posts I’ve logged into this website you can hear our aching questions of vocation and calling. If nothing else, nearly thirty years of our marriage have been trying to help each other figure out what we’re going to do when we grow up.
As a part of the inaugural Work Stories series, I wrote 3 stream-of-consciousness reflections on our journey: If you’re a Stories member, you can read through those posts here. If you’re not a Stories member, subscribe today!
*During Ordinary Time this year, I’ll be sharing readings from the excellent devotional guide, Living the Christain Year: Time to Inhabit the Story of God by Bobby Gross. While it’s not necessary to purchase the book to follow along with us, it’s an excellent resource we’ve dog-eared so often the pages are falling out of our copy!