The Sense of the Call: A Sabbath Way of Life for Those Who Serve God, the Church and the World
By Marva J. Dawn
Eerdmans, Grand Rapids
Last summer when I heard Marva Dawn preach in Toronto, I saw a frail human being — physically. But there was nothing frail about her reading of Scripture and her preaching. The biblical text leapt off the page and inspired a kind of gospel-fuelled courage to be the church. Humbly she invited us do two things: face our own sinfulness and open ourselves to God's remarkable, enabling grace.
Dawn has a profound sense of call, not only for herself but also for the church which, in so many ways, has a frailty not always acknowledged. In order to assist congregations, pastors and other church leaders to be renewed and encouraged, Dawn begins this thoughtful book with a two-pronged strategy: an analysis of the world around us and a focused attention on our true calling.
The Sense of the Call begins with how the world hems us in and saps our morale so that the church becomes entangled and confused about its distinctive role and too easily accommodates itself to a consumer and entertainment culture. At a deeper level, she points out that our culture is unable “to digest wholesome dogma.” The world around us has largely lost any notion that there is a truth larger than one's own perceptions and self-interest. This, in turn, undermines ethical awareness, leads to polarizing rhetoric and, finally, to a disrespect for the common good. Eventually we also lose an awareness of purpose and meaning. Morality becomes utilitarian (do what's useful for us) and an expression of each person's individual will.
What we need is a renewed conviction that we are called by God to be the church. Or, to cite the subtitle, we need to recover a Sabbath way of life. What this means is not at first obvious since for many the phrase sounds anachronistic, perhaps even a bit negative. But for Dawn, it begins to open up a way of life that is alternative to the world, a way that is guided by a profound understanding of God's presence, and filled with hope and promise.
This is to say that Dawn roots the church and its leadership in theology, in what we believe. After an inspiring examination of 2 Timothy 4, she concludes that a sense of call arises from awareness that “God's Kingdom reclaims us, revitalizes us and renews us.” The rest of the book is an exposition on just how this conviction is to be grasped and lived. It implies Sabbath-keeping because the fundamental notion of Sabbath is stopping what we are doing and pondering who God is and how Jesus Christ guides and sustains his body, the church. The reign of God, she says, points to the fact that what is central in Christ's teaching is not God's love but God's rule — which implies that God is operative in the world now! Under the mundane there is a deeper reality and order of meaning.
All too often we in the church move toward self-help, our responsibilities, our programs and energies, and then wonder why we feel overburdened, depleted and discouraged. We count numbers, create better advertising, develop new ways of raising money and invest in the latest techniques. Dawn guides us to focus rather on what God enables and blesses. We may be filling our time with our actions instead of paying attention to God's. Gradually we begin to see that we are part of something much larger, namely, the reign of God inaugurated by Christ and energized by the Spirit.
This volume combines both serious thought and practical suggestions. I wished at times that she did not refer so often in footnotes to her own previously published books, many of which are helpfully listed in her extensive bibliography. I also wondered why she needed to draw as much attention to her own medical journey, though some of this often provided a certain necessary concreteness. But overall, the book is eminently readable and frequently forces the reader to ponder questions from a new angle.
For example, in her final chapter Dawn refers to a list of seven social sins compiled by Mahatma Gandhi: politics without principle, wealth without work, commerce without morality, pleasure without conscience, education without character, science without humanity, and worship without sacrifice. As she thinks about these, she wonders whether the church's tendency to practice worship without sacrifice has led to the other six failures in our society. If so, “how do we find the courage to lead people into sacrifice in the church and into a right harmony of the other six pairs in the world?” It is a provocative question, one well worth exploring. She even begins that exploration by proposing that we might think about painting the picture of God's Kingdom radiantly so that we are empowered with its joy to live its cost.
Some might think that following a Sabbath way of life as outlined in this volume is impractical and strange, but, in the long run, it has the potential to set the church on a path that is hopeful and enabling. Congregations, pastors and other church leaders who take such an approach to their lives might just discover that they really do have a new sense of call from God.
