10 January 2011

Right vocatus

The Apostles complained rightly when they said it was not meet they should leave the word of God and serve tables; their vocation was to preach the word. But the person whose vocation it is to prepare the meals beautifully might with equal justice protest: It is not meet for us to leave the service of our tables to preach the word . . . .

The official Church wastes time and energy, and moreover, commits sacrilege, in demanding that secular workers should neglect their proper vocation in order to do Christian work – by which She means ecclesiastical work. The only Christian work is good work well done. Let the Church see to it that the workers are Christian people and do their work well, as to God: then all the work will be Christian work, whether it is church embroidery, or sewage farming . . . .

. . . when you find a man who is a Christian praising God by the excellence of his work – do not distract him and take him away from his proper vocation to address religious meetings and open church bazaars. Let him serve God in the way to which God has called him.

Dorothy Sayers, "Why Work?"

"There's ping pong games that must be played and songs that must be sung."

9 comments:

Thursday's Child said...

Oh! I love that!

Elizabeth said...

I just read the article by Gene Edward Veith in LW on Christians in Culture (brilliant!), and this post matches so nicely with the things he said. Well done! If there was a love button, I would love it. :)

nikki said...

excellent

etem said...

she's right. i love this essay.

there is, however, that thing about it that is quite middle-class and thus doesn't address some big questions and that might make this quite problematic for some.

such is the nature of writing.

etem said...

i'll add that some of the things i'm thinking about are contemporary problems that sayers could only just see coming. if she'd written this today i'm sure she'd have much more astute observations than i.

Rebekah said...

etem, the "do what you're good at" business does come off sounding pretty idealistic.

etem said...

yes. i feel like i know too many men suffering from dwyga syndrome when they should be feeding their families.

Kristi said...

I would love to read this article, is it available online? Thanks! :)

Rebekah said...

Whoops, sorry I didn't see this earlier, Kristi! I read it here: http://www.faith-at-work.net/Docs/WhyWork.pdf