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- The Relationship Between History and Vocation
This week, Carol Bechtel, the executive director of the American Waldensian Society, shares the third part of what she said at the February 17th celebration in Valdese, North Carolina. You can read her entire talk on the American Waldensian Society website.
Carol’s remarks are based in large part on the fourth and final volume of a new history of the Waldensians. The fourth volume, edited by Paolo Naso, covers the period from the second half of the 19th century to the late 20th century.
Presbyterian pastor and author, Frederick Buechner is famous for pointing out that “Vocation is the place where our deep gladness meets the world’s deep need.” Isn’t that a beautiful way of putting it?
He’s talking, of course, about more than just what we do for a living. That’s our occupation. But our vocation—that’s something much more profound. And every Christian has one. Call it a “calling” if that helps. But it’s that place where your deep gladness meets the world’s deep need.
All of us can—and should—ask what this is for us as individuals. But I wonder what it is for Waldensians. What is the “deep gladness” of Waldensians, and where might it meet the world’s deepest need?
The Waldensians, from their very start, have been a persecuted church, “reformed” before the Reformation, based in a dominantly Roman Catholic country which did not accept their beliefs for centuries. (That’s putting it mildly!) Waldensians understand how it feels to be an outsider. As an immigrant church in both North and South America, they remain connected to their country of origin, Italy—even in settings like this one in North America where they have been largely assimilated into other churches and communities in other ways.
But what if it is this very history that has formed a “deep gladness” for them?
Whenever anyone asks me, “What’s a Waldensian?” one of the first things I tell them is about the work our Waldensian friends in Italy are doing with immigrants and refugees. If you don’t know about that work, look them up on the American Waldensian Society website or google Mediterranean Hope. I promise, what you find will inspire you.
The more I learn about that work, the more I am convinced that it doesn’t come out of nowhere. I think it’s a calling—a vocation—that is directly related to that history of persecution and marginalization. Waldensians remember what it was like to be a stranger—so they go out of their way to welcome strangers. Yes, it’s also in obedience to the One who said, “I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me” (Matthew 25:35). But the fact that Waldensians know what it is to be a stranger is precisely what makes it easier to see the face of Jesus Christ in those strangers risking their lives to cross the Mediterranean.
Paolo Naso talks about how “historical conscience” has acted as a “compass” for Waldensians all over the world. It’s part of what defines their sense of vocation and gives such power to their testimony. In Buechner’s words, it’s where their deep gladness meets the world’s deep need.
When we remember and celebrate the Edict of Emancipation—where Italian Waldensians were first given civil rights, it makes sense for us to ask ourselves how we can “pay it forward” to others.
Here’s how Paolo puts it:
If at the beginning of the path we have outlined [how] the Waldensians had to resort to the law as a defensive tool for their identity, over time they have built a commitment to defend the rights of all.
I will leave it to each of you as individuals—and to all of us as a community—to work out with fear and trembling what that means. But it is a calling—a vocation—if you will. And I think that if we can figure out the way to embrace that calling, then we will ourselves be what the Waldensian candle purports to be—namely—a light in the darkness.