I love Gene Veith’s understanding of vocation, and I am all for joining with him, and celebrating today, not Labor Day, but Vocation Day!
“This blog has, for a number of years, been engaged in a crusade to co-opt the secular Labor Day and to get it on the church calendar as a holiday that celebrates the Christian doctrine of vocation. I think it is working. I’ve been hearing people making the connection. (Did you hear that on Sunday?)
Remember that vocation does NOT just mean your job, which is important for the over 9% of Americans who do not have one. Our calling from God also and even more importantly has to do with our positions in our families (as son or daughter; husband or wife; father or mother), the church (pastor or “hearer”), and the state (ruler or citizen). All of these are estates to which God stations us to live out our faith in love and service to the neighbors that each office brings into our lives. “Only let each person lead the life that the Lord has assigned to him, and to which God has called him” (1 Corinthians 7:17).
The reason we celebrate Vocation Day by NOT working, even though we are honoring economic labor, is to give recognition also to our other vocations: our families (by spending time with them) and our country (to share in a national holiday doing cultural-specific activities such as grilling out and thinking about sports).”