In Western Christianity’s liturgical calendar, Eastertide – or the Easter season – begins on Easter day and continues until Pentecost Sunday. The message of Eastertide is nothing less than profound: it is a paradoxical message of power and simplicity. We know the story well: entering Jerusalem, the gathering crowds enthusiastically welcome and celebrate Jesus as king, “the Lord of all Creation who will one day rule the nations.”
But this king of kings is unlike any earthly king.
Strangely, or so it seemed to the crowd, Jesus arrives on a lowly donkey, not on an ostentatious chariot surrounded by the retinues of power. Indeed, here is the essence of the story and the heart of the Christian Gospel: Jesus is King, the Lord of All Creation … but he is the humble, servant King. In our historical moment, this notion of a servant-King is so radically counter-cultural.
Our narcissistic, post-Christian culture is fixated on materialism, status, power, and relativism. Indeed, the central mantra of our time is, “It’s all about ME.” But Rick Warren, in his best-selling book of a number of years ago, reminds us of what followers of Jesus have always known, but are prone to forget; namely, that “[t]he purpose of [our] life is far greater than our own personal fulfillment, our peace of mind, or even our happiness. It’s far greater than … our wildest dreams and ambitions. If you want to know why we were placed on this planet, we must begin with God. We were born by his purpose and for his purpose.”
The late Christian philosopher Dallas Willard reminds us, too, that our personal fulfillment, happiness, dreams, and ambitions are not unimportant. To the contrary, Willard points out that we are all born with what he calls “a drive to significance.” God has placed each one of us in a specific context to count in ways no one else does. “Our heavenly Father,” writes Willard, “has in fact prepared an individualized kingdom for every person.”
It is from this affirmation that we understand that our endeavors are inextricably connected to God’s call in our life. This is what Christians mean when they talk about vocation. The English word vocation is derived from the Latin term vocatio, which means call. To Medieval Christians God’s call was a call away from the world to a life of prayer and contemplation. Since the Reformation, however, vocation has been understood as a call to reshape and transform creation. In the oft-recited words of 19th Century Dutch theologian, academic and political leader, Abraham Kuyper, “There is not a single inch of the whole terrain of our human existence over which Christ does not proclaim: Mine!”
Vocation certainly includes your job, but it implies something much more all-encompassing and transformative: namely, it is our life’s agenda which –as believers – is to be co-laborers with God in restoring the brokenness of the world around us. Vocation then, is about the business of restoration, and this is how we should think of the awesome tasks that we engage in our daily lives: we are restorers; we are transformers. We are Kingdom Builders.
This sometimes happens in big, dramatic ways – think of the lives of William Wilberforce, Mother Theresa, or Martin Luther King Jr.– but most of the time it happens in small and seemingly inconsequential ways; that is, in affirming relationships, kind words, helping hands, through living a life of integrity, and in unapologetically bearing witness to the ultimate Truth of Jesus Christ. This is what it means, in sociologist James Davison Hunter’s characterization, to live a life of “faithful presence.”
When reflecting on this, I am reminded of Stephen Spielberg’s cinematic masterpiece, Schindler’s List. Toward the end of the movie, with the war over and the Nazi surrender, Oscar Schindler bids farewell to the Jewish workers whose lives he saved by employing them at his factory. In the midst of his farewell, Schindler breaks down, begins to cry and profusely apologizes to his workers for not doing more to save more Jewish lives. Itzhak Stern, Schindler’s Jewish accountant at the Enamelware factory, consoles Schindler by telling him that he has, in fact, done much. He saved 1,200 lives and in doing so saved thousands of other lives through the generations. Indeed, it is estimated that today there are over 8,000 living descendants of the original Schindlerjuden, or Schindler Jews.
This is a weighty story because it reminds us that as the idealism of youth gives way to the routines of daily life, we are often tempted to wonder whether what we are doing really makes a difference in the grand narrative of humankind. But what Oscar Schindler’s life reminds us of is that God has given each of us a small corner of history to tend to, and it is in that corner that we can and do make a difference. This is how God’s Kingdom is built: individual men and women in all places, in all times, transforming each small space where God has placed them.
During this Eastertide we do well to remember the words of St. Paul: “Therefore, my beloved brothers (and sisters), be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor is not in vain.”
Dean C. Curry is past chair of the Institute on Religion & Democracy Board of Directors. He lives in the Lowcountry of South Carolina and has spent many years teaching and writing on subjects related to international relations, foreign policy, and religion and public life.
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