Recently a good friend accepted a pastoral position in congregational ministry and no fault to her declared in her joy, "I got a job!" While I celebrate with her, I also wonder, "Is pastoral work a job or a calling?" Eugene Peterson has something excellent to say about this in his book Working the Angles (a must read for all seminary students - if not all pastors). Peterson says,
At some point we realized the immensity of God and of the great invisibles that socket into our arms and legs, into bread and wine, into our brains and our tools, into mountains and rivers, giving them meaning, destiny, value, joy, beauty, salvation. We responded to a call to convey these realities in word and sacrament and to give leadership to a community of faith in such a way that connected and coordinated what the men and women, children and youth in this community are doing in their work and play...In the process we learned the difference between a profession or craft, and a job. A job is what we do to complete an assignment. Its primary requirement is that we give satisfaction to whomever makes the assignment and pays our wage. We learn what is expected and we do it. There is nothing wrong with doing jobs...we all have them.
But professions and crafts are different. In these we have an obligation beyond pleasing somebody: we are pursuing or shaping the very nature of reality, convinced that when we carry out our commitments we actually benefit people at a far deeper level than if we simply did what they asked of us.
With professions the integrity has to do with the invisibles: for physicians it is health; with lawyers, justice; with professors, learning. And with pastors it is God.
