By Aaron Schian

He deserves to be called a theologian, however, who comprehends the visible and manifest things of God seen through suffering and the cross.

–Luther’s Heidelberg Disputation

In the liturgy God gives to us sacramentally and we receive these heavenly treasures in faith. The liturgy after the liturgy is our vocations where we give ourselves sacrificially to our neighbor in love. Our vocations leads us to forgiveness which is found in the liturgy and the liturgy leads us to our calling in our vocations and so the two are connected.

Faith receives the gifts from God in the liturgy and then takes on flesh and bone to serve our neighbor in love. Here a relationship is established between the liturgy and vocation that gives us an understanding of how God’s sacramental relationship with us leads us to a sacrificial relationship with our neighbor. The hinge between liturgy and vocation is Luther’s post communion collect: “We give thanks to thee, Almighty God, that thou hast refreshed us through this salutary gift; and we beseech Thee that of Thy mercy Thou wouldst strengthen us through the same in faith toward Thee and in fervent love toward one another.”