That’s Some Body

“Just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others. We have different gifts, according to the grace given us. If a man’s gift is prophesying, let him use it in proportion to his faith. If it is serving, let him serve; if it is teaching, let him teach . . . ” Romans 12:4–7

We come to our career choices in many ways. Some of us went to college with one career firmly in mind. Since we were children, it seems, we knew what we wanted to grow up to be. Others of us attended college completely undecided. Choosing a major was difficult. We felt as if we had no clear direction. Even at graduation, we wondered if this was the right choice.

However we went about choosing a career, most of us faced still another decision: Within that career, which job? Of course, in these times, we might feel fortunate to receive one job offer, much less two or three. But if we find ourselves in the happy circumstance of having to choose, how do we go about it? Does our faith commitment enter the process? And if so, how?

When our spiritual forebears addressed these questions, they found help in the parts of St. Paul’s letters that referred to the church as the body of Christ. Clearly not only the church, but society at large, operates like a body—like a system of interdependent parts, each reliant on the whole for life, each with important, unique contributions to the whole. Just as church members receive spiritual gifts to edify the body of Christ, God distributes natural gifts to the organism called society.

When we decided on a career, we in effect chose our place in the social body. Before we accept a job offer, we should carefully consider that part of the body’s structure. For God had in mind to benefit the entire body when he gave us the gifts we now possess.

Questions for discussion:

• In a number of Bible stories, God miraculously communicated his will to the people who would follow him. In the Christian life, is this the rule or the exception?

• Is it possible that God would call us to something for which we have no talent or ability? Something for which we are spectacularly unqualified?