Book Review: "Visons of Vocation" by Steven Garber

Visions of Vocation by Steven Garber

This is the book that I referred to as “A book magnifying the beauty and dignity of relationships in our occupations - which urges us to answer the question, "Knowing what I know, what will I do about it?” in the first post in this series.

Random - every time my wife walked by and saw this book lying out, she said it looked like I was reading a book about Winnie the Pooh. 😂 The color scheme and artwork do channel A.A. Milne.

When one of my church members recommended this book to me one morning, I had no idea that his advice would lead me on a reading journey I’ll never forget. Along the way in this hauntingly beautiful book, I felt I was walking with a Seer.

“Formerly in Israel, a man who was going to inquire of God would say, ‘Come, let’s go to the seer,’ for the prophet of today was formerly called the seer.” (1 Samuel 9:9)

Steven Garber’s book began its introduction with a quote from Vaclav Havel’s Civilization:

“Whenever I have encountered any kind of deep problem with civilization anywhere in the world—be it the logging of rain forests, ethnic or religious intolerance or the brutal destruction of a cultural landscape that has taken centuries to develop-somewhere at the end of the long chain of events that gave rise to the problem at issue I have always found one and the same cause: a lack of accountability to and responsibility for the world.”

Garber has written a book that helps us see. He has given us a great gift in page after page of well-written thoughtfulness that invites us to see the real world and to love it as God did and does.

True seers will not shirk from speaking prophetic words of truth to a world awash in relativism. Likewise, the heart of a prophet must care deeply for the world he must bring a message against. We must care. The uncaring prophet Jonah was rebuked for his detached bitterness over the spiritual repentance of Ninevah.

“We are called to be common grace for the common good… vocation is integral, not incidental, to the missio Dei… This book is an effort… inviting you in its own way to "come and see" that this vision of vocation is being lived into by men and women, younger and older, who are committed to a faith that shapes vocation that shapes culture.” (18)

Garber’s book urges us to see the world and to seek its well-being, as the rightful joy of God’s people.

“‘Seek the well-being of the city’ was Jeremiah's prophetic word to the exiles in Babylon, for ‘when it flourishes, you will flourish’ Jeremiah 29:7 paraphrase). To learn to see—to see ourselves implicated in history, to see that we share a common vocation to care not only for our own flourishing, but for the flourishing of the world.” (18)

Visions of Vocation asks a profound question that has an implied response.

Q: Seeing what you see… knowing what you know… what will you do about it?

That’s the question.

When what we see is evil, brokenness, rage and disappointment, what will we do about it? When what we see is praiseworthy, noteworthy and good, what will we do about it?

This book is an invitation to pay attention. To pay attention to your neighbor. To pay attention to the sadness of a nation. To notice. It sings a song that you your soul begins to tap its foot to of that urges us to dance again with carefree confidence that we were “put” here for a reason - to bless others. The sharp notes that the song dwells on at times demands that we put to death cynicism and stoicism. “Both of those, of course, are ways of protecting our hearts from being hurt again.”¹

“What will you do about what you know?”

I was confronted with this question in every chapter. Each time it made me both wince and smile. It confronted me gently in my oftentimes inaction. There are times I see things, or hear things, or become aware of things… and do nothing. This inaction applies equally to hesitance to getting "involved” in someone’s pain (not a great heart posture for a pastor) to speaking out about cultural issues.

It’s a question that demands an answer.

In chapter after chapter, Garber softly and artfully invited me to be a Seer again. I was reminded of the apostle James’ words:

“If a brother or sister is without clothes and lacks daily food and one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace, stay warm, and be well fed,’ but you don’t give them what the body needs, what good is it? In the same way faith, if it does not have works, is dead by itself.” (James 2:15-17 )

I cannot see/hear/be aware of the world and not match my faith with works.

In other words, there’s an easy answer to the recurring question of “Seeing what you see… knowing what you know… what will you do about it?”

I will care. Caring means “learning to live proximately.” (195) Proximate living urges us to care “even though.”

“When we find that all that we hope for does not happen, that sometimes the worst things happen, what then? When we discover that our best hopes have been disappointed, what then?

Some choose versions of stoicism or cynicism, deciding for very good reasons that "I have had enough."

But then, with surprising grace, some choose to keep at it, hard as it is - and slowly but surely discover different loves that become part of their different lives. Always and everywhere, they do so understanding that they are making peace with the proximate. With something, even if it is not everything. With something rather than nothing. They choose proximate happiness, knowing that a good marriage to a good person is a good gift. They choose proximate mercy for the disabled, knowing that doing something is better than doing nothing. They choose proximate satisfaction in work, knowing that even at our best we will not achieve all that matters to us and to the world. They choose proximate justice in the public squares… knowing that some justice is better than no justice. And on and on.

Even if people still die tragic deaths, which in this life will happen; even if people still suffer disabling diseases and accidents, which in this life will happen; even if our good cattle are used for purposes that we do not believe in, which in this life will happen; even if our best hopes for political life are frustrated, which in this life will happen, to enter in with personal passion that longs for systemic change is something, even if everything that might be is still undone.” (200)

When all is said and done, “it is a choice to live by hope, even when hope is hard.” (203)

That’s the role of a Seer. It’s a vision for a life’s vocation. Count me in.

(And read this book!)

1. Visions of Vocation: Common Grace for the Common Good by Steven Garber (Intervarsity Press: 2014), p29.