When God gave Man dominion over the earth, he gave Them three specific directions. They were to fill the earth, subdue it, and have dominion over it. This is Man’s vocation.

The purpose of the 21st Century school is prepare Man to carry out his vocation in a thoughtful, reasoned, creative and God pleasing manner. The following except from Gene E. Veith’s essay, Our Calling and God’s Glory, faithfully summarizes Luther’s theology of vocation.

'"Justification by faith alone" is surely the most important contribution of the Reformation. The second most important, arguably, is the "doctrine of vocation."

Whereas the doctrine of justification has wide currency, the doctrine of vocation has been all but forgotten. The word vocation can still be heard sometimes, but the concept is generally misunderstood or incompletely understood. The doctrine of vocation is not "occupationalism," a particular focus upon one's job. The term means "calling," but it does not have to do with God's voice summoning you to do a great work for him. It does not mean serving God by evangelizing on the job. Nor does the doctrine of vocation mean that everyone is a minister, though it is about the priesthood of all believers. It does not even mean doing everything for God's glory, or doing our very best as a way to glorify God, though it is about God's glory, at the expense of our own.

The doctrine of vocation is the theology of the Christian life. It solves the much-vexed problems of the relationship between faith and works, Christ and culture, how Christians are to live in the world. Less theoretically, vocation is the key to strong marriages and successful parenting. It contains the Christian perspective on politics and government. It shows the value, as well as the limits, of the secular world. And it shows Christians the meaning of their lives.

The Swedish theologian Einar Billing, in his book Our Calling, noted how our tendency is to look for our religion in the realm of the extraordinary, rather than in the ordinary. In vocation, however, God is hidden even in the mundane activities of our everyday lives. And this is his glory.

To understand fully the doctrine of vocation, one should begin not with the Puritans-who tended to turn the doctrine of vocation into a work ethic-but with Luther and with Lutherans, from the composers of the Book of Concord to modern theologians such Billing and Gustaf Wingren. It goes something like this: When we pray the Lord's Prayer, we ask God to give us this day our daily bread. And he does. The way he gives us our daily bread is through the vocations of farmers, millers, and bakers. We might add truck drivers, factory workers, bankers, warehouse attendants, and the lady at the checkout counter. Virtually every step of our whole economic system contributes to that piece of toast you had for breakfast. And when you thanked God for the food that provided, you were right to do so.

God could have chosen to create new human beings to populate the earth out of the dust, as he did with the first man. Instead, he chose to create new life-which, however commonplace, is no less miraculous-by means of mothers and fathers, wives and husbands, the vocations of the family.

God protects us through the vocations of earthly government, as detailed in Romans 13. He gives his gifts of healing usually not through out-and-out miracles (though he can) but by means of the medical vocations. He proclaims his word by means of human pastors. He teaches by means of teachers. He creates works of beauty and meaning by means of human artists, whom he has given particular talents.

Many treatments of the doctrine of vocation emphasize what we do, or are supposed to do, in our various callings. This is part of it, as are the various aspects that I outlined above, but it is essential in grasping the magnitude of this teaching to understand first the sense in which vocation is God's work.

God is milking the cows through the vocation of the milkmaid, said Luther. According to Luther, vocation is a "mask of God." He is hidden in vocation. We see the milkmaid, or the farmer, or the doctor or pastor or artist. But, looming behind this human mask, God is genuinely present and active in what they do for us.

The sense of God acting in vocation is characteristically Lutheran in the way it emphasizes that God works through physical means. Luther and his followers stress how God has chosen to bestow his spiritual gifts by means of his Word (ink on paper; sound waves emanating from a pulpit) and Sacrament (water; bread and wine). And he bestows his earthly gifts by means of human vocations.

More broadly, in terms Reformed folk can relate to, vocation is part of God's providence. God is intimately involved in the governance of his creation in its every detail, and his activity in human labor is a manifestation of how he exercises his providential care. For a Christian, conscious of vocation as the mask of God, all of life, even the most mundane facets of our existence, become occasions to glorify God. Whenever someone does something for you-brings your meal at a restaurant, cleans up after you, builds your house, preaches a sermon-be grateful for the human beings whom God is using to bless you and praise him for his unmerited gifts. Do you savor your food? Glorify God for the hands that prepared it. Are you moved by a work of art-a piece of music, a novel, a movie? Glorify God who has given such artistic gifts to human beings.

Of course, that vocation is a mask of God means that God also works through you, in your various callings. That God is hidden what we do is often obscured by our own sinful and selfish motivations. But that does not prevent God from acting.

Was the farmer who grew the grain that went into that piece of toast I had this morning a Christian? How about the artist whose movie made such a powerful impression? I happen to know that he is not a Christian. How can I glorify God for the work or farming-of an unbeliever? The doctrine of vocation answers that question. In his governance of the world, God uses those who do not know him, as well as those who do. Every good and perfect gift comes from God (James 1:17). But human beings sin in their vocations and sin against their vocations, resisting and fighting against God's purpose."'

The challenges Man faces today are the same challenges Man faced after the Fall: population growth, understanding the laws of nature so we can co-exist with all of creation, and finding solutions to distribute food, water, and other resources to all of His people. Graduates from Lutheran schools, whose foundation is built on the Lutheran doctrines of creation, vocation, and justification, are perfectly posed, to connect with 21st Century people. More on this next time.

In Genesis 1:1-25, we learn about the first five days of creation. All of creation is finished, except for the persons who would take care of it. In verse 26, God decides to "make man in our image," and to give them dominion over his creation. The Hebrew poetry is beautiful.

"So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them."

When God gave Man dominion over the earth, he gave Them three specific directions. They were to fill the earth, subdue it, and have dominion over it. All three of these jobs required special attributes. They had to procreate to fill the earth. They had to figure out how to subdue a creation of plants and animals, that had gone rogue after the Fall. Once subdued, they had to think of a way to keep it that way. To accomplish these tasks, Man had to be able to reason, communicate, create ideas and tools, problem solve, innovate, collaborate, and learn from His experience and accumulated knowledge.
This is why we still have schools today. Man has always needed to learn and grow.

Roman Catholicism in the Middle Ages, assumed that life in the religious orders was a more certain path to salvation than secular life. This monastic view is still prevalent in religious life today. American Christians, especially the evangelicals, give the impression that religious work is more God-pleasing than the work done in the secular world. John Pless, in Taking the Divine Service into the Week: Liturgy and Vocation, writes this:

“According to this mindset, the believer who makes an evangelism call, serves on a congregational committee, or reads a lesson in the church service is performing more spiritually significant work, than the Christian mother who tends to her children or the Christian who works with integrity in a factory.”

This same view existed among the mission executives I knew in this century’s first decade. Influenced by leading evangelical authors like Paul Borden, they recommended that all church ministries, have outreach to people of other faiths, as their primary (more than 50%) function. For many church functions that works pretty well, but I don’t think it caught on with guild members.

It makes no sense to schools either. Reaching out to people of other faiths, including post moderns faiths, has been part of our mission for 50 years. It’s the only way we’ve survived. We certainly couldn’t rely on pastors or evangelists to fill school seats or coffers.

It may be time for pastors, to listen to their teachers, if they want to know how to reach the hearts and minds of people of other faiths, instead of telling us how to do it.