Unholy Underwear

The following is from a paper I am working on for school on the subject of "calling." It highlights some things that I believe are important to remember as we seek God to know what we are called to do.

One of the areas that we must address when it comes to the subject of calling is the relationship between that which is considered sacred and that which is considered secular. The Old Testament - particularly the Torah - spends a great deal of time explaining to the people of Israel the difference between sacred and secular. There are holy days and unholy clothing, sacred implements and unclean animals, a most holy place in the temple and everywhere else. I believe that it was not God’s purpose to teach the Jews that certain aspects of his creation were good and others bad, but to teach them that he himself is a holy God. With pantheism and nature-worship so prominent at the time of the writing of the books of the law, God was teaching his people that he was separate from and transcendent over his creation.

In the New Testament, however, we begin to see a fuller picture of how God desires us to relate to all of his creation. In his conversation with the Samaritan woman, Jesus explains to her that the location of the worship is not what is important, but that we must worship God “in spirit and truth.” (John 4:24) At the moment of Jesus’ death, the curtain that divided the most holy place from the rest of the temple was torn in two. We later read in the book of Hebrews that the priests are now no longer the only people who have access to God’s holy presence, but that all who believe in Jesus now have access “by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh.” (Hebrews 10:20) Paul too, in his writings, affirms the thought that now all things are sacred before God because of what Jesus did on the cross, even as he instructs us to deal humbly with those who still wrestle with these distinctions. “I know and am persuaded in the Lord Jesus that nothing is unclean in itself, but it is unclean for anyone who thinks it unclean.” (Romans 14:14)

When we hold to the idea that some things are sacred and others are secular, we run the risk of missing out on the calling of God that is right under our nose. We imagine that certain tasks - preaching, teaching, leading worship - are somehow more valuable than others. The mother who stays at home with her children may miss the fact that she is the primary preacher, teacher, and worship leader to those children. The young man working at a restaurant may not value the opportunities he has to show God’s love to his patrons because he is caught up in the thought that what he is doing is not particularly sacred. In the book of Ruth, we see the example of the businessman Boaz, who, because of his financial success, was able to be the kinsman-redeemer for Ruth. Because of their marriage, Boaz became an ancestor of King David and, ultimately, Jesus of Nazareth. Was his vocation any less important to God’s purposes than the “holy men” and priests who served in the temple? Of course the answer is no. Or take for example Aquilla and his wife Priscilla, the tent-makers from the city of Corinth. Even though they were tent makers, not priests in the temple or rabbis in the synagogue, they were able to have a major impact on the spread of the gospel by correcting the theology of Apollos, a powerful teacher and apologist for the gospel. Were they any less faithful to the call of God because they weren’t public teachers or preachers themselves?

It should be noted here that there are going to be certain tasks that will have a more immediate impact or a more noticeable influence than others. If God calls a person into the realm of education, the impact that they have on a young child’s life is immeasurable. But if God calls someone into the realm of administration or office management so that the teacher can be free to teach, it should be understood that the administrator’s time and effort is every bit as valuable as the teacher’s. When we start to understand that there are fewer distinctions between the sacred and the secular, it frees us to begin to live out our calling right here and now.