St. Francis of the Islands Episcopal Church, Savannah

Propers: Jeremiah 1:4-9; Ps 84; 2 Corinthians 4:1-6; Luke 22:24-27

In the name of the Father, and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

We come here this day with joy to celebrate the ordination of five of our own to the sacred Order of Deacons in the Body of Christ. You and I are fortunate to live in the day in which we live because with all the bad things there are also a lot of good things. And one of the good things that has happened in recent years is the recovery of ministry and what ministry means. It’s the recovery of ministry in the Body; it’s a renewal that all persons are ministers in the Body of Christ. So what I want to do this morning is first look at ministry in the New Testament and then turn to the diaconate.

Ministry in the New Testament is first and foremost the ministry of the Laos, the people of God. Every person is a minister, as in the First Letter Peter writes, “You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people that you may declare the wonderful deeds of him who calls you out of darkness into light.” The New Testament uses priesthood in only two places. It refers to the Laos – to the people of God. Ministry belongs to all of us, for we are a royal priesthood, a chosen nation. Again in Ephesians, Paul writes, “Grace was given to each of us according to the measure of Christ’s gift and his gifts were that some should be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers,” And why? To equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ. The first great truth about ministry in the New Testament is that it is servant ministry and each of us is gifted and empowered to do ministry by virtue of our baptism. The second great truth about ministry in the New Testament is that it is servant ministry stemming from the servant himself, as you heard in the gospel this morning. And also as Paul writes in Philippians, in what to me is one of the great passages that we are called to live by: “Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death – even death on a cross.” (2:5-11) And again in the gospel of Mark, at the end of the way of the cross section, Jesus turns to the disciples who want to sit at his right and his left and be judges over all and rulers over all and he says, “That’s the way the gentiles do it. They are rulers who exercise authority and want to put everyone under them. It shall not be so with you. You’re called to be servants. I did not come to be served but to serve, to give my life as a ransom for many.

By the early second century we had bishops, priests and deacons as ordained ministers but they still belonged to the Laos. They were set aside to symbolize order and equip the Body to do ministry. Of course then came the great change that has hurt us ever since: ministry became hierarchical. Some of us grew up with the idea – hopefully less so as we’ve gone along – that clergy are somehow first class Christians and laity are second-class Christians. In the ordination of deacons in the 1928 Book of Common Prayer we read “that they may so well behave themselves in this inferior office that they may be found worthy to be called into the higher ministries of the Church.” Thus somehow if a deacon prays for you, that’s better than if a layperson prays for you, and if a priest prays for you, that’s even better than a deacon. And if you can get the bishop to pray for you, it’s a sure bet!

But what we are about to do today is not to downplay the ordained ministry, being set aside in ordination is serious business. But the purpose of ordination is to set aside persons to symbolize to us what our ministry is supposed to be – all of us – not to do ministry for us. Let us turn and look at the diaconate as one of these great symbols. Persons are called by God and the Church to be set aside as deacons and to symbolize to the Body was servant ministry is all about. In just a few moments the bishop is going to say to these five who are being ordained today that God now calls you to a special ministry of servanthood directly under your bishop. In the name of Jesus Christ you are to serve all people, particularly the poor, the weak, the sick and the lonely. You’re to make Christ and his redemptive love known by your word and example among those whom you live and work and worship. You are to interpret to the Church the needs, concerns and hopes of the world. At all times your life and teaching are to show Christ’s people that in serving the helpless they are serving Christ himself. And this servant ministry identity is never imposed on anybody, you have to voluntarily assume it. That’s what you’re being asked to do: to voluntarily assume the whole understanding of servanthood in order that this entire Body might become servants. Imposed servanthood means passive obedience with fear of punishment or hope of reward as the motive. Voluntary servanthood has a new dimension. We call it humility. As Richard Rohr says, the virtues of humility and detachment are not in vogue today. But they are in the words of our Lord and they are in the Book of Common Prayer, they are in the ordination service, and they certainly are in the diaconate. One of my favorite authors is Anthony Bloom. His father was an ambassador from Russia. When the Communists took over control in Russia, his father felt like his whole life had been a failure and he would never take anything but a blue-collar job from then on as penance for allowing that to happen. When asked about his father, in this little book called “Beginning to Pray,” Anthony replied that there were two things he remembered about him. First was when Anthony returned from vacation and his father told him he’d been very worried about him. “Why? Did you think I’d died?” “No, that wouldn’t have made any difference. I thought you’d lost your integrity.” Then he told him that the two most important things in your life are what you are willing to live for and what you’re willing to die for. Then Bloom tells the story in this book of when he was a doctor during the Second World War in France, and then later became a priest and went on to become an archbishop in the Russian Orthodox Church, but always as an émigré, separate in a way from the church back in Russia, although he stayed in communion with them. He talks about this young girl who came into his office and noticed a bible on his desk and wondered why on earth an educated man would follow such a stupid thing as that. And then he said, “Have you read it?” And she said, “No.” “Well, it’s very stupid of you to denigrate something that you haven’t even looked at.” So she began to read the gospels and she was converted. Later on as an adult, she became sick with an incurable disease. She wrote to him while he was in England and said, “Since my body as begun to grow weak and die, my spirit has become livelier than ever and I perceive the Divine Presence so easily and so joyfully.” Bloom wrote to her again, “Don’t expect it will last. When you’ve lost a little bit more of your strength you will no longer be able to turn and cast yourself Godward and then you’ve feel you have no access to God.” After a while she wrote again and said, “Yes, I am so weak now I can’t make the effort to move Godward. I even long actively and God is gone.” And Bloom said, “Now try to do something else. Try to learn humility in the real, deep sense of the word.” He writes, “The word ‘humility’ comes from the Latin word ‘humus’ which mean fertile ground. To me, humility is not what we often make of it: the sheepish way of trying to imagine that we are the worst of all and trying to convince others that our artificial ways of behaving show that we are aware of that. Humility is the situation of the earth. The earth is always there, always taken for granted, never remembered, always trodden on by everyone, somewhere we cast and pour out all the refuse, all we don’t need. It’s there, silent and accepting everything and in a miraculous way making out of all the refuse new richness in spite of corruption, transforming corruption itself into a power of life and a new possibility of creativeness, open to the sunshine, open to the rain, ready to receive any seed we sow and capable of bringing thirtyfold, sixtyfold, a hundredfold out of every seed. I said to this woman ‘Learn to be like this before God; abandoned, surrendered, ready to receive anything from people and anything from God.’ Indeed she got a great deal from people; within six months her husband got tired of having a dying wife and abandoned her, so refuse was poured generously, but God also shone His light and gave His rain, because after a little while she wrote to me and said ‘I am completely finished. I can’t move Godwards, but it is God who steps down to me.’”

Servant ministry means meeting people where they are, appreciating them for who they are without always imposing our expectations on them. Allowing them to be who they are and let them develop in quite surprising ways. Servant ministry means loving others with all our hearts and leaving the result in God’s hands. Nothing is more pitiful or destructive than some ordained person who sees himself or herself as the controller of the destiny of the congregation.

The power of servant ministry is the power of suffering love, it’s the power of humility, the power of accepting with great thanksgiving everything that is with the faith that God is in this situation and somehow he will bring something great out of it.

The diaconate as servant ministry is the foundation stone for all ministry – all priests, bishops and laypeople. And when you become a priest, for God’s sake don’t you forget it! There’s a grace of ordination that will enable you to be an humble servant if you will but only open yourselves to it. Allow this grace to permeate your soul and your ministry will never be in vain but to the glory of God.

In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.