Buffy the Vampire Slayer

The cult classic, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, ran from 1997-2003 and sparked both controversy and a strange cacophony of fans, from teenagers to professional academics to feminist scholars.

What is it about this show that caught the attention of so many? Why was this pop culture clip able to grab such a diverse audience and fan base?

These questions are not easy to answer. But the universal story of humanity and calling that is evident within the show, is a theme that is found throughout the life of all people. With that in mind this blog seeks to bring the cult classic Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Christian thought (both historical and contemporary), and us (you and I) into conversation with vocation.

Vocation - What is it?

"Vocation does not come from willfulness. It comes from listening. I must listen to my life and try to understand what it is truly about..."1

SNYDER: The first day back. It always gets me.

GILES: Yes.

SNYDER: I mean, it's incredible. One day the campus is completely bare. Empty. The next, there are children everywhere. Like locusts. Crawling around, mindlessly bent on feeding and mating. Destroying everything in sight in their relentless, pointless desire to exist.

GILES: I do enjoy these pep talks. Have you ever considered, given your abhorrence of children, school's principal was not, perhaps, your true vocation?

(Scene from, When She Was Bad, 2.1)

Vocation is a term that has been secularized and much of its original connotation has been lost. When vocation is heard it is often understood as "one's paid work."2 And while "one's paid work" can certainly be contained within one's vocation, there is much more to vocation than the place where the paycheck is earned. The word vocation comes from the Latin word vocare meaning to call, or to voice. Vocation then is not related in any way to compensation, but rather to that which one is called to do or be, or "a divine call to God's service or to the Christian life."3

Many of the episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer acknowledge this broader and deeper understanding of vocation and calling. Catheleen Kaveny notes, "The series is about vocation; it explores what it means for Buffy to be a vampire slayer, not merely to slay vampires for fun or profit. It shows her struggling to live up to the demands of the role, sacrificing the usual teenage pleasures to meet her unusual responsibilities. It also shows her growth in competence, wisdom, and confidence, and her eventual realization that the sacrifices are worth it. In exploring the meaning of vocation, the show suggests ways of overcoming several dichotomies that hamper a creative and humane response to the contemporary situation of women."4 Buffy's vocation is not to slay vampires, but is to be a vampire slayer with all that entails - adventure, struggle, and sacrifice. Her vocation has nothing to do with compensation, but rather is that which she is wholly and fully at the depths of her being.

Martin Luther speaks to this fullness of vocation for all people. He writes, "Every person surely has a calling. While attending to it [he] serves God. A king serves God when he is at pains to look after and govern his people. So do the mother of a household when she tends her baby, the father of a household when he gains a livelihood by working, and a pupil when he applies [himself] diligently to [his] studies...Therefore, it is a great wisdom when a human being does what God commands and earnestly devotes himself to his vocation..." 5 Every one of us has a vocation, for as Frederick Buechner said, “The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.”

Where is your deep gladness?

Where does this intersect with a deep hunger/need in the world?

1 - Palmer, Parker. Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 2000. p. 4.
2 - Schuurman, Douglas J. Vocation: Discerning Our Callings in Life. Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. 2004. p. 1.
3 - Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1). Retrieved February 24, 2007, from Dictionary.com website: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/vocation
4 - Kaveny, Cathleen. What Women Want: 'Buffy,' the Pope, and the New Feminists. Commonweal November 7, 2003, pg.18-24p
5 - Luther, Martin. Luther's Works, vol. 3: Lectures on Genesis. Pelikan, Jaroslav & Lehmann, Helmut T. , Eds. Philadelphia, PA: Fortress Press. 1995.

"Never Kill On A First Date" - Sacrifice and Vocation

GILES: I was ten years old when my father told me I was destined to be a Watcher. He was one, and his, uh, mother before him, and I was to be next.

BUFFY: Were you thrilled beyond all measure?

GILES: No, I had very definite plans about my future. I was going to be a fighter pilot. Or possibly a grocer. Well, uh... My father gave me a very tiresome speech about, uh, responsibility and sacrifice.

BUFFY: Sacrifice, huh?

GILES: (looks toward Owen) Seems like a nice lad.

BUFFY: Yeah. But he wants to be danger man. You, Xander, Willow, you guys... you guys know the score, you're careful. Two days in my world and Owen really *would* get himself killed. Or I'd get him killed. Or someone else.

(Scene from, Never Kill on a First Date Season 1:5)

As one reads through the biblical text and the stories/writings of historical (and 'common') Christian people, the themes of vocation and sacrifice quickly rise to the surface. All of this begins in the life and death of Jesus. In living into his being - his vocation - he offered himself up for the sins of the world, dying the most humiliating and painful death imaginable. Jesus sacrificed his life to live into his calling as Savior of the world.

Living into our vocation and calling will require sacrifice. It may be a sacrifice of relationship (like Buffy in the scene above), a sacrifice of financial stability, a sacrifice of time, a sacrifice of love... the list goes on and on. Indeed, living into our vocations will require a sacrifice, but this full living into our vocation is not without gain. In the Gospel of Matthew we read, "For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it." (Matthew 16:25)


Who are some biblical figures that face sacrifice as they lived out their vocational calling?

What might you have to sacrifice in order to live out your vocational calling?

'Random' Quotes on Vocation and Calling

"You ask: Why did not Christ and the apostles bear the sword? Answer: You tell me, why did Christ not take a wife, or become a cobbler or a tailor. If an office or vocation were to be regarded as disreputable on the ground that Christ did not pursue it himself, what would become of all the offices and vocations other than the ministry, the one occupation he did follow? Christ pursued his own office and vocation, but he did not thereby reject any other... Now, it is not essential to his kingdom that he be a married man, a cobbler, tailor, farmer, prince, hangman, or constable; neither is the temporal sword or law essential to it, but only God’s Word and Spirit...For each one must attend to the duties of his own calling."

Martin Luther in "Luther's Works: The Christian in Society II." pp. 100-101

"Vocation conveys "calling" and meaningful purpose. It is a relational sensisbility in which I recognize that what I do with my time, talents, and treasure is most meaningfully conceived not as a matter of mere personal passion and preference but in relationship to the whole of life. Vocation arises from a deepening understanding of both self and world, which gives rise to moments of power when self and purpose become aligned with eternity."

Sharon Daloz Parks in "Big Questions, Worthy Dreams." p. 30

"Vocational thinking is countercultural. It flies in the face of the message we receive daily from popular culture, which insists again and again that happiness and contentment in life can be found in gratifying our own desires and seeing to our own needs. "

Douglas J. Brouwer in "What am I supposed to do with my life?" p.5

"Vocation does not mean a goal that I pursue. It means a calling that I hear. Before I can tell my life what I want to do with it, I must listen to my life telling me who I am. I must listen for the truths and values at the heart of my own identity, not the standards by which I must live - but the standards by which I cannot help but life if I am living my own. life."

Parker J. Palmer in "Let Your Life Speak." p. 4

"A profession summons the best from you. A vocation calls you away from what you thought was best in you, purifies it, and promises to make you something or someone you are not yet."

Robert Lischer in "The End of Words" 2005. p. 30