I Envy The Man With A Vocation

There is a particular loneliness in sitting next to somebody who loves their work.

Picture the man it happens to. He is at a wedding, at a table of eight, and the man opposite him is a paramedic and has been talking about it for about twenty minutes.

And he is good company. That is the thing. He is not showing off. He is describing a thing he genuinely loves, and he lights up doing it, and everybody at that table is enjoying him.

And the man listening is asked, eventually, what he does.

And he says he works in procurement for a company that makes packaging.

And the table is perfectly nice about it, and somebody asks a polite question, and the conversation moves on within about ninety seconds.

He has done that job for sixteen years. He is very good at it. Several hundred people get paid on time partly because of decisions he makes, and a supply chain that would otherwise be chaos is not chaos, and none of that is sayable at a wedding table because there is no story in it.

And what he felt, sitting there, was envy, and he is not proud of it and has not mentioned it to anybody, including his wife.

And underneath the envy, which is the part that actually needs answering, is a conclusion he has drawn without noticing. He has concluded that the paramedic got a life and he got a job.

The argument that is absurd on purpose

There is a passage in First Corinthians about a body where Paul does something unusual. He argues by making the alternative ridiculous.

If the whole body were an eye, where were the hearing? If the whole were hearing, where were the smelling? (1 Corinthians 12:17, King James Version)

If the whole body were an eye.

That is a deliberately absurd picture, and it is meant to be. He is answering people who were ranking the parts, and rather than telling them off he shows them what their logic produces if you follow it: a body consisting entirely of the most impressive organ, which is not a better body, it is a horror.

And the application here is exact. A world made entirely of paramedics has no packaging, no supply chains, no wages paid on time, and no ambulances either, because somebody procures those.

You are looking at an argument built to be absurd, and 1 Corinthians 12 asks where the hearing would be if the whole body were an eye (1 Corinthians 12:17), and the Holy Spirit is the one who makes a two thousand year old joke settle something at a wedding table.

And then comes the verse that answers the ranking directly.

But now hath God set the members every one of them in the body, as it hath pleased him. (1 Corinthians 12:18)

As it hath pleased him. The placing is described as a matter of God's own preference, which removes the whole question of which part is better, because nobody argues with a preference.

You have been placed as it pleased Him rather than assigned what was left, and 1 Corinthians 12:18 makes the setting a matter of His pleasure (1 Corinthians 12:18), and the Spirit of God is the one who is described in that same chapter as dividing to every man severally as He will.

Gifts differing

There is a line in Romans that says the same thing with a phrase worth keeping.

Having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us. (Romans 12:6)

Gifts differing.

Not gifts ranked. Not gifts in order of impressiveness. Differing, which is a word about kind rather than about degree.

And the list that follows in that passage is instructive, because it is a mixture. Prophecy is on it, and so is ministry, and so is teaching, and so is giving, and so is ruling, and so is showing mercy. Nobody has ever preached a stirring sermon about administration, and it is on the list, in the same sentence, with no apology attached.

You have a gift that differs rather than one that ranks lower, and Romans 12 uses a word about kind and lists administration beside prophecy (Romans 12:6), and it is the Holy Spirit who distributes those and is not in the habit of apologizing for any of them.

You are not holding the smaller half of a comparison, and Romans 12:6 puts them all in one sentence without an order (Romans 12:6), and the Spirit of God is the one who did the distributing in the first place.

What this is not

Let me be plain, because this could turn sour.

This is not saying the paramedic should be quieter about his work. He should not. He loves it, and a man who loves his work and says so is a good thing at a table.

It is also not saying the envy is fine and needs no attention. It is honest, and it is worth naming, and it is also the kind of thing that curdles if it is left alone for years.

And it is not saying procurement is secretly as thrilling as an ambulance. It is not. That is not the argument. The argument is that thrilling was never the measure.

And plainly: if this has grown into a settled belief that your life did not amount to anything, if you cannot get out of bed, or if some part of you wants it all to stop, that is bigger than a wedding table. Call or text the 988 crisis line, and say the true version out loud to a doctor or a counselor or a pastor you trust. Getting help is not a failure of faith.

You are not being told to stop feeling it, and 1 Corinthians 12 answers a ranking rather than rebuking anybody for noticing one (1 Corinthians 12:17), and the Holy Spirit is the one who can settle a comparison without shaming the man who made it.