Frederick Buechner famously wrote that one's vocation is "the place God calls you to, the place where your deep gladness and the world's deep hunger meet."

 

As we gather for worship on this Martin Luther King weekend and at the beginning of the week when a new president and vice-president will be inaugurated, the second of Isaiah's Servant Songs will help us to address the vocational question, individually and corporately, "What is God calling me/us to do and be?"  The Servant sings a song of God's call in 4 parts. First, God calls to us from before our births to bring the light of God into view.  Second, there is the honest acknowledgment that no vocation exists which does not involve seasons of fear and despair.  Third, in the midst of despair, we are called to remember God's high purposes for us.  And fourth, God is constantly enlarging our vocation so that we become a part of the renewing of all creation.