Daily Life Is The Christian Life: Vocation In The Time Of Coronavirus

There are no special ways to be Christian. If you woke up today and thought to yourself, “I really want to do something special for God,” you might start with washing the dishes. And this because there isn’t a Christian life to live separate from your daily life. Pastoring, volunteering, none of these are particular forms of the Christian life. No, daily life IS the Christian life.

It’s hard to shake off our attraction to works of supererogation. We think, “There must be something more. Now that I’ve made the bed, put in my forty hours, cooked supper, and read some books to the kids, aren’t I supposed to fit in some super-Christian actions instead of taking a nap? I mean, Spiderman does, so why not me?!”

We naturally ask ourselves how to do all the Christian things. And that’s not a bad question per se. There are, of course, marks of the Christian life we can learn, doctrines and texts we can explore, faith communities we can join.

The problem arises when we consider these “Christian things” separate from or even above daily life. Placing food in a Little Free Pantry is not superior to feeding your children supper. Both are part of daily life, and daily life is the Christian life.

One of the least well-known and most often misunderstood parts of Lutheran teaching has to do with the Christian life. Other Christians may separate day-to-day tasks from truly “Christian” works (like prayer, fasting, and almsgiving), or they may make efforts to separate themselves from the world entirely–through communal living, retreats, or even certain types of prayer. Others, while eager to talk about Christian callings, reduce them to actions leading or supporting the Christian community or to one’s spiritual, baptismal calling… Lutherans, to the puzzlement of some and to the consternation of others, claim that one’s daily life is one’s Christian life–anywhere the neighbor is served in love and the Old Creature is driven to minister to the poor and needy in the world instead of fulfilling its self-serving ways (Wengert, 141-142).

Just a side note. In this quote, Wengert uses the phrase “Old Creature.” This is a quirky Lutheran idiom. We can also same the “Old Adam,” or the human before they are made “new creations” in Christ. It comes from 2 Corinthians 5:17: “So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!”

The unique perspective on vocation that emerged during the Reformation, and has remained central to the best forms of Lutheranism ever since, reminds us that serving the neighbor happens not in special works, like mission trips, or in special contexts, like soup kitchens. No, since everywhere you look you have neighbors, serving the poor and needy in the world includes your baby who needs their diaper changed, your employee who needs to be paid more than minimum wage to survive, and your restaurant server who needs both your kindness and a good tip.

The great problematic of the Christian life emerges if we overlook all these daily ways to live the Christian life, while hyper-focusing on supposedly special Christian acts.

In other words, don’t go sing in the church choir on Sunday morning and then act like an asshole to your waitress at Sunday brunch.

Luther would often even add a rhetorical flourish we could still add to this day. Being kind to your waitress is the holier of the two actions. Singing in a church choir is trash, or using your millions to help build a new wing of the church, if you think those are more Christian than paying your worker a living wage.

Over fifty years ago, Robert Handy, a professor of American church history, wrote a book entitled A Christian America, recounting the many efforts (mostly Reformed/Calvinist) Christians and their churches have undertaken to impose a Christian ethic upon the United States. Such eagerness to make America Christian again stands in stark contracts to the Augsburg Confess Article 16, which confesses that God is at work in every land and nation through government, public order, and family life. The gospel neither takes a person out of daily life nor insists that daily life need conform to some special, “Christian” ethic. For the first time in the AC we encounter the German word Stand. It is related to the legal term in English of having a ‘standing’ in a court of law. While older translations used the term ‘estate’ (as in the ‘estate of marriage’), the word really has a far richer meaning as the areas or ‘walks of life’ in with a Christian operates. Moreover, Article 16 introduces the word ‘calling’ (German: Beruf). This revolutionizes Christian good works by taking them out of the world of hyper-piety and placing them squarely in this world. Thus, for example, Luther finds good works in a father changing diapers (in faith), a pious hired hand hauling manure to the field, etc. It means that one’s Christian life is simply overflowing with opportunities for good works–ones that take place any time our behavior helps a neighbor in need and even include safe driving or paying taxes! (Wengert 148)

Perhaps these days, when daily life has become more constrained (due to quarantine and other measures) and more complex (public school teachers, I’m looking at you), it has become somewhat exhausting simply to do daily life every day.

If that’s the case, and I know it is for many, this doctrine of vocation is a word of grace. It’s gospel.

All the ways you are adapting to the pandemic, moving class-teaching online while also teaching in the classroom. That is the life of faith.

Don’t have time or opportunity to serve as usher in church every Sunday? No problem, just open a door for your own family members or bring them the newspaper from the driveway.

Have extra time to cook food with a feeding program, or show up for a city council meeting to advocate for reduced and racially just policing in your city? Awesome. Just don’t be under the illusion that some of your actions are more Christian than others.

Blessed to be a pastor with time on a Monday morning to blog? Just make sure you teach clearly that such writing, such “Christian” work, is no more Christian than your neighbor next door who is writing code for an amazing video game, or the guys up the hill replacing shingles on a roof.