Christian Vocation in a Time of Rupture

In January, speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney characterized our present global moment as a time of “rupture, not transition.” By this he meant that the world is no longer moving steadily from one stable order to another. Instead, the assumptions that once governed global politics, economics, and power have fractured. The era of relative superpower hegemony is giving way to instability and realignment, as old structures that once provided stability and order lose their coherence.

In such a world, middle powers can no longer rely on inherited arrangements for security or flourishing. The guarantees once supplied by dominant powers no longer hold, leaving fragility where stability was once assumed. Carney argued that this moment of rupture leaves middle powers with little choice but to act together—forming new partnerships grounded in shared principles of truth, honesty, and responsibility. He also framed this rupture as a pivotal moment of choice in human history, warning that “nostalgia is not a strategy” in a world that has fundamentally changed.

Taken together, Carney’s diagnosis resonates deeply with Christian theology. Scripture tells us that human beings live in the time of the “now and the not yet”—a world that exists between the times. Now, in the sense that Jesus Christ has already come into the world. He has entered human history, inaugurated the coming of the Kingdom of God, and begun the great work of the renewal of creation through his death on the cross and his resurrection. Because of Jesus, the Kingdom has broken in—the Kingdom where God reigns and his will is done on earth as it is in heaven. The Kingdom is here. It is now.

And yet, it is also not yet. The Kingdom has not been fully consummated. Death remains, sin still corrupts, and sorrow and pain persist. Scripture speaks of a coming day when Christ will return to renew all things—a day when resurrection will embrace not only individuals but all creation itself. Until that day, the people of God live in the in-between: the time between redemption and resurrection, between promise and fulfillment, between what Christ has begun and what he will one day complete.

This in-between is a messy middle. Brokenness and injustice are visible everywhere—not only in personal lives and local communities, but also in the public life of nations, where questions of belonging and exclusion strain societies, families are torn apart, political divisions harden, and forms of resentment and hatred grow more openly expressed. Confidence in democratic institutions grows increasingly fragile. The instability and uncertainty of the present moment are not anomalies; they are characteristic of life between the ages—an age in which, as Paul reminds us in Romans 8, creation itself is groaning, caught between suffering and glory.

In times such as these—what has been described as a moment of rupture rather than transition—the question of Christian responsibility becomes unavoidable. When familiar structures are unraveling and long-held commitments to honesty and truth no longer seem secure, what posture does God call the Church to adopt? Is faithfulness found in mourning the passing of an earlier world and its forms of stability? Is it found in withdrawal from public life, waiting quietly for the Kingdom of God to arrive in its fullness? Or is there a different calling altogether—one that neither clings nostalgically to what has been lost nor retreats into passivity, but instead seeks to join in the mission of God for the redemption of his world?

In Luke 4:18–19, the mission of God is publicly inaugurated. Jesus stands in the synagogue and reads from the scroll of the prophet Isaiah, declaring:

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives
and recovering of sight to the blind,
to set at liberty those who are oppressed,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

With this declaration, Jesus presents himself as the one who has come to initiate the redemptive work of God—the work of making the world right again. He is fulfilling the Old Testament promise of God’s Jubilee, a time when God commanded his people to pause and restore what had been broken: relationships with God, justice among people, and harmony within creation itself. Jubilee was meant to be a season of economic, social, and communal renewal—a reordering of life toward flourishing. By announcing that this promise is fulfilled in him, Jesus makes clear that the work of redemption for all creation has begun in his own person and presence.

This is the very mission of God: the work of making creation right again, fulfilled through the coming of Jesus Christ, his earthly ministry of bringing the life of the Kingdom and restoring people, and culminating in his death on the cross for the forgiveness of the sins of the world and his resurrection. In his resurrection, Christ decisively overcomes sin and death, revealing God’s saving power to renew all things—a power that, by the Spirit, is now at work in his people. Flowing from this saving work, our Lord Jesus sends his people into the world, inviting them to participate in this grand mission of redemption. In doing so, he calls them to bear witness to—and to join in—the ongoing work of God in renewing the world and making it right again.

The book of Acts picks up this story precisely at that point. It is the narrative of mission moving into action—the account of how the risen Lord sends his disciples into the world and carries forward the work of renewal through them by the power of the Holy Spirit. What Jesus began in his earthly kingdom ministry does not end with his resurrection; it is extended, embodied, and carried outward through a Spirit-filled community.

Before his ascension, Jesus makes this clear to his disciples. He promises that they will be given power when the Holy Spirit comes upon them, and that they will become his witnesses—beginning where they are, moving outward to neighboring regions, and ultimately to the ends of the earth. This promise comes to fulfillment in Acts 2, on the day of Pentecost, when the Spirit descends upon the gathered believers. The same Spirit who anointed Jesus for his mission now fills his people, equipping them to participate in the mission of God in the world.

What follows in Acts makes clear that this mission is far more than verbal proclamation alone. It is the embodied life of the Kingdom—the Jubilee of God taking visible shape within a renewed community. In the early chapters of Acts, believers share their possessions, care for the vulnerable, and refuse to allow need to persist among them. Social, economic, and ethnic divisions begin to give way as Jews and Gentiles, men and women, rich and poor are gathered into one family. This is the mission of God made visible in practice: the Jubilee of God embodied in a community renewed by the Spirit, where generosity replaces greed and love overcomes division, bearing witness to the Kingdom that has come and is still coming.

In Acts 9:32–43, we see the Spirit’s work continuing in concrete and differentiated ways. The mission of God takes visible form through the apostle Peter and through a disciple named Dorcas. What unfolds in this narrative is not the inauguration of a new initiative, but the extension of the same redemptive mission begun in Christ. Yet, Luke presents this continuation in a layered manner. The passage reveals three interrelated dimensions of God’s work in the world: restoration, renewal, and resurrection. Together, these movements offer a theological portrait of how the Kingdom advances in the time between redemption accomplished and consummation awaited.

First, we see the work of restoration. Peter goes to a town called Lydda, where he finds a man named Aeneas, who has been paralyzed and bedridden for eight long years. And Peter says to him,

“Aeneas, Jesus Christ heals you; rise and make your bed.” (Acts 9:34–35)

Here, Peter continues the Lord Jesus’ work of restoration. Just as Jesus’ Kingdom ministry involved not only the proclamation of good news but the tangible renewal of broken bodies and broken lives, Peter now carries that same ministry forward. Immediately, Aeneas gets up—and those around him are filled with awe. This is the work of restoration. It is, at its heart, the work of healing, the in-breaking of the Kingdom into ordinary life, where what has been immobilized is made whole again.

This is why Jesus came—not merely to offer spiritual comfort, but to begin the renewal of the whole person and, ultimately, the whole creation. When Peter heals Aeneas, he is not performing an independent act of power; he is participating in Christ’s ongoing mission. The healing does not point to Peter. It points to the risen Lord. It becomes a sign of the Kingdom—a foretaste of the world God is bringing, where all that is broken will be made right and whole again.

Second, in this chapter, we see not only the work of restoration through Peter, but also the work of renewal embodied in the hands of Dorcas. Luke turns our attention to Joppa, where we meet a disciple named Dorcas—also known by her Aramaic name, Tabitha. Here we see the work of renewal—the quiet, steady outworking of God’s redemptive grace in ordinary life. Luke tells us that Dorcas is “full of good works and acts of charity.” What are those good works? The following verses make it visible: she makes tunics and garments for the widows in her community. Dorcas is not performing a public miracle. She is not preaching in the synagogue. She is sewing. And yet Luke calls her a disciple.

For Dorcas, sewing is not incidental; it was her ministry. Through her craft, she cares for the vulnerable, strengthens the weak, and clothes those who have little protection in a precarious world. Her needle and thread become instruments of mercy. In the ordinary rhythm of her work, the grace of God takes tangible form.

Dorcas’ good works are not an attempt to earn favor with God; they flow from a life already redeemed. As Paul writes in Ephesians 2:10, “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” The grace that saves is also the grace that sends, sending us back into the world, into our callings and vocations, as instruments of his renewing work. When Dorcas dies, the widows gather around Peter, weeping and showing him the tunics and garments she had made while she was with them (Acts 9:39). Notice what they hold up. They do not recount abstract virtues. They display fabric. Thread. Stitches. Evidence.

These garments are not merely clothing; they are embodied mercy. They are tangible signs of a life shaped by the Kingdom. In the first-century Greco-Roman world, widows were among the most vulnerable members of society. Without a husband, many faced economic instability, limited legal recourse, and social marginalization. Their survival often depended upon extended family or communal support. At the same time, within Israel’s Scriptures, widows are repeatedly named as those whom God defends and commands his people to protect. To care for widows is not optional—it is a sign of covenant faithfulness. In her sewing, Dorcas steps into that sacred space. She renews dignity where society offers little security. Through faithful presence and skilled hands, she strengthens fragile lives and weaves together a community shaped by the mercy of God. In doing so, her vocation becomes participation in the mission of God—the ongoing work of making the world right again, thread by thread.

In Genesis 1, God calls his work “good” when it brings life, beauty, and order into creation. Good work is life-giving work. It pushes back against chaos. It restores what has been diminished. It reflects the righteousness of God—not merely moral correctness, but right relationship: with God, with neighbor, and with the created world. In Dorcas’s hands, sewing becomes the practice of that righteousness. Her vocation becomes the place where the God’s grace takes visible form. Through the ordinary rhythm of her craft, she stitches together a glimpse of the Kingdom—where generosity replaces scarcity, where the vulnerable are not forgotten, and where dignity is restored thread by thread. In her vocation of sewing, the mission of God to heal and renew the world is stitched into ordinary life.

But in this narrative of Acts, suddenly we are confronted with tragic news: Dorcas is dead. The work of renewal she embodied now appears interrupted. The hands that stitched dignity into garments lie still. The life that strengthened widows and wove together a vulnerable community has come to an end.

Yet into this silence, the third and climactic movement of the narrative—resurrection—breaks in with quiet authority.

“But Peter put them all outside, and knelt down and prayed; and turning to the body he said, ‘Tabitha, arise.’ And she opened her eyes, and when she saw Peter she sat up.” (Acts 9:40)

When Peter says, “Tabitha, arise,” his words closely echo the words of Jesus in Mark 5:41, when he raised Jairus’s daughter: “Talitha cumi… Little girl, I say to you, arise.” The resemblance is not subtle. In Aramaic, the difference between Talitha and Tabitha is a single consonant. The rhythm is nearly identical. The sound is nearly identical. Even the structure of the command is the same. Luke wants us to hear it. The scene in Joppa is meant to recall that earlier scene in Galilee. The echo is deliberate.

Peter is not inventing a new ministry. He is walking in the footsteps of Christ. The same life-giving voice that once spoke over a little girl now speaks again through his servant. The same Spirit who empowered Jesus’ ministry is now at work through his Church. What Jesus began, he continues. This is the work of resurrection—the decisive sign that death does not have the final word. Restoration heals what is broken. Renewal sustains what is fragile. But resurrection declares that even what is lost can live again.

What is particularly significant is the placement of the Dorcas narrative within the broader literary and theological structure of Acts 9. Her story is framed by two dramatic acts: the healing of Aeneas and her own resurrection. Between restoration and resurrection stands renewal. Luke situates Dorcas precisely within this middle space. This narrative positioning mirrors the structure of redemptive history itself. The Church lives between Christ’s accomplished redemption and the final consummation of all things. The Kingdom has been inaugurated, but it has not yet been fully realized. Dorcas’ vocation unfolds within that same interval—after the decisive work of Christ and before the ultimate renewal of creation. Her life is emblematic of existence in the “now and not yet.”

The socio-political context of the first-century Greco-Roman world further sharpens this observation. Roman imperial rule provided relative order, but it was sustained by hierarchy, economic disparity, heavy taxation, and social stratification. Ethnic tensions between Jews and Gentiles persisted, and vulnerable groups—particularly widows—often depended upon fragile communal networks for survival. Stability was neither universal nor secure.

It is within that environment that Dorcas practices her craft. Her sewing does not overthrow imperial structures, nor does it resolve systemic inequality. Yet through ordinary vocational faithfulness, she embodies an alternative social logic—one shaped by covenantal mercy rather than patronage, generosity rather than accumulation, dignity rather than marginalization. Her work becomes a localized manifestation of the Kingdom: a modest but real anticipation of the reconciled order God has promised. In this sense, Dorcas’ story offers more than an example of individual charity. It provides a theological vision of vocation in the in-between—where the mission of God advances not only through moments of dramatic intervention, but through sustained practices of renewal embedded in everyday life.

Through the intertwined works of restoration, renewal, and resurrection in this narrative, we see not only transformed lives but also transformed allegiance. The Kingdom does not remain invisible. It is witnessed, and it draws response. After the healing of Aeneas, Luke records: “And all the residents of Lydda and Sharon saw him, and they turned to the Lord” (Acts 9:35). The work of restoration leads to recognition and repentance. Similarly, in Joppa, Dorcas’s life had already borne quiet witness. The widows stand holding the garments she had made—evidence that the Kingdom had been taking shape in their midst long before Peter arrived. Then, following her resurrection, Luke writes: “And it became known throughout all Joppa, and many believed in the Lord” (Acts 9:42). Resurrection amplifies what renewal had already prepared. The miracle does not replace the ordinary; it confirms and reveals what God had been doing through faithful vocation.

What this chapter makes clear is that people come to know the Lord not only through dramatic supernatural intervention, but also through sustained, embodied faithfulness. The healing of Aeneas, Dorcas’s sewing, and her resurrection together offer glimpses of the Kingdom breaking into the world. Through both the extraordinary and the ordinary, the mission of God becomes visible—and belief follows.

Specifically, Dorcas’s story reminds us that in the world of the middle—in this messy and often fragmenting social moment—the mission of God is not suspended. It continues. And it often continues through ordinary work.

Last year, I had the privilege of attending the topping-off ceremony for Menno Hall, a student housing project near the University of British Columbia designed as a gathering place for living, learning, and belonging. The building did not emerge overnight. Quite the contrary: it was the result of years of vision, negotiation, planning, modeling, and coordination—countless hours of labor by architects, engineers, financiers, consultants, and community partners.

In the months leading up to that moment, my colleagues and I had been immersed in pro formas, financing structures, lender negotiations, and reconciled spreadsheets. Much of the work felt abstract—numbers, assumptions, sensitivities, risk analysis. Yet at the topping-off ceremony, as the final piece of mass timber was lifted into place, something shifted. What had lived in models and projections now stood in wood and steel against the Vancouver skyline.

Among those gathered were long-standing partners: members of the Mennonite community, local contractors, municipal and provincial representatives, and many other supporters. The ceremony took place during a period of real economic uncertainty in British Columbia. Trade tensions beyond our borders had introduced volatility into construction markets. Questions surrounding tariffs, supply chains, and material costs created unpredictability in pricing and financing. Developers, lenders, and contractors alike were recalibrating assumptions almost monthly. Stability could no longer be taken for granted.

Against that backdrop, the raising of the final mass timber beam carried additional weight. Premier David Eby and others wrote words of blessing on the beam before it was lifted into place. As it rose, there was a collective pause. For many of us, it represented not only the near-completion of a building, but the perseverance of a shared vision amid instability. It was a quiet act of resolve—a decision to build even when the broader environment felt uncertain.

In that sense, Menno Hall offers a contemporary analogy to Dorcas’s vocation. It is work that seeks renewal amid difficulty, stability in seasons of uncertainty. Like her sewing, it does not overturn the structures of its age, but it quietly mends what can be mended, strengthening what is fragile. The project seeks mutual flourishing—for people, for place, and for the created world. In this way, it gestures toward God’s Jubilee vision: its design reflects care for the earth; its purpose responds to a housing crisis with a commitment to communal reconciliation; its partnerships embody shared responsibility across sectors.

More than anything else, the building is not only intended to house students; it will also include a Centre for Peace Studies—a mission rooted in the Mennonite community’s long heritage of seeking peace. It will be a space dedicated to reflecting on the challenges of our time and to forming vocations oriented toward reconciliation, responsibility, and public good.

Standing there that afternoon, I was reminded that even the vocation of development—spreadsheets, budgets, negotiations, risk modeling—can participate in God’s renewing work. In a world that often feels disordered and uncertain, such labor can offer glimpses of the Kingdom breaking in. Yet the building was not finished. Much work remained before its final completion. That unfinished structure became a quiet reflection of our time.

With Christ’s coming, the foundations of redemption have been laid. Signs of renewal are visible; lives are restored; communities are strengthened. And yet the structure is not complete. The work of consummation still awaits its appointed day. Our age is marked by perseverance—by sustained faithfulness amid unfinished realities and partial restorations. In this in-between time, we are called neither to triumphalism nor to despair, but to steady fidelity: to labor patiently in our respective callings, trusting that the renewal in which we now participate anticipates a consummation that only God can bring.

As many recent reflections on our global moment have observed, we inhabit a time marked by institutional fragility, political polarization, economic uncertainty, and social distrust. In such a climate, it is easy to assume that meaningful participation in God’s mission requires extraordinary platforms or dramatic interventions. Yet Dorcas suggests otherwise. Her vocation was sewing. Ours may be baking, banking, developing, teaching, caregiving, designing, legislating, building—or something less visible but no less significant. None of these tasks appear overtly miraculous. Yet when undertaken in faithfulness to Christ, they can become signs—indeed, signposts—of renewal.

In the in-between time—between redemption accomplished and consummation awaited—ordinary labor can become participation in God’s healing work: restoring trust where suspicion has hardened, practicing honesty where credibility has eroded, cultivating reconciliation where divisions have deepened. Yet such participation is never merely the product of human resolve. It is sustained by the Spirit who animates the Church and empowers faithful witness. In a cultural moment described as one of rupture rather than transition, renewal rarely arrives through spectacle. More often, it is built slowly—through Spirit-formed character and disciplined faithfulness within institutions that feel fragile and systems that feel strained. What appears mundane may, in fact, be the quiet arena in which the Kingdom takes visible form—in the messy middle of history, where perseverance, integrity, and steady vocation become instruments of God’s renewing grace. It is the Spirit who gives such labor its coherence and hope, bearing witness through ordinary faithfulness to the greater Kingdom that is still to come.