Thought for the Day: Priorities and Ministry

This is a version of a sermon I gave at a conference for ministry in the Church in Wales, where we were looking forward with hope and creative vision to the future.

There is so much wonderful Christian ministry taking place in communities across Wales. Yet the workers in the field are few and resources are limited, so continuing to bring God’s light, life, and love to people and places across Wales requires difficult decisions – we have to ensure our prioritising is intentional, considered, and wise. The pandemic lockdowns led so many of us to realign previously-skewed priorities, as we zoomed isolated loved ones and embraced a new-found appreciation of the beauty of the outdoors. In a similar way, the rapidly-changing Wales of today is challenging us to realign our concerns and priorities and to reconsider what ministry and service entails.

According to business leader Stephen Covey, it is not hard work, good luck, or shrewd human relations that primarily leads to success. Rather, the one denominator that successful people share is prioritising well. As German philosopher Goethe put it: “Things which matter most must never be at the mercy of things which matter least”. But most clergy will tell you how living that out is no easy task – after all, it’s so difficult to decipher what matters most and what matters least. From my own recent parish experience, I know all too well that the stresses of service and the strains of selecting what needs to be prioritised can wear clerics down. Recently, I watched a video of the sermon by someone who was stepping down as vicar in his church because of the huge strain ministry was exerting on his, and his family’s, wellbeing. At the beginning of the sermon, as he stood in the pulpit, he rolled up the sleeves of his cassock and starts to juggle more and more apples to illustrate the difficulty of juggling duties and expectations. Once the apples had fallen and were rolling around the aisles, he related his sermon to the difficult decision he’d made to stop juggling all the demands of service and to prioritise wellbeing.

Prioritising is certainly at the heart of contemporary ministry and mission. We are facing challenges that exceed those of previous generations – an increasingly secular society, fewer vocations, expensive upkeep of church buildings, a marked difference in generational viewpoints, social and economic injustice, political polarisation, and cultural divisions. And the reality is that we don’t have the time, resource, or energy to do everything we want to do. This urgent challenge of working out priorities, though, is not a new challenge. In the Old Testament, Jeremiah chastising his fellow Judeans for their skewed priorities (cf. Jeremiah 7:21-28). The people of Judah were confronted with war, destruction, and exile. Jeremiah holds up a mirror to his compatriots and tells them: “you’re getting your priorities all wrong”. He says that their sacrifices and worship mean nothing if their lives don’t reflect the fact that they are God’s people. He urges them to realign their priorities away from greed, idolatry, and false prophets and to turn towards obedience to God’s commandments.

In fact, the call to prioritise obedience comes up again and again in the Old Testament and invariably it’s related directly to God’s commandments. There’s certainly something there we can take into our own lives and ministries. Our call is to take all the duties and passions that we juggle in our daily lives – to take our hearts that are burning for justice and compassion, to take our enthusiasm for sharing the good news of Jesus’s life, to take our need to look after our own mental well-being, to take our need for cherishing the life-giving tonic of friends and family, to take our desires and hopes and needs – and to consider them in light of that call to obey his commands. And, as Christians, Jesus was unequivocal about what those commands were. All the commandments are summed up in loving God and loving neighbour – caru Duw a charu cymydog. And so all our priorities need to be assessed in light of those two directives. Never before have two commands been so simple and straightforward. Never before have two commands been so demanding and difficult.

When I was a curate, I remember confidently reading Jesus’s words at a service at a care home: ‘The greatest commandment is love God with all your heart, your mind, and your soul; and the second is this: Love your neighbour as yourself’.  Without warning, an elderly woman at the back of the room suddenly shouted: ‘I don’t love my neighbour’. I was left speechless. I looked at the care assistants, they looked at me.  But the moment of silence gave the woman the opportunity to add: ‘and, listen ’ere vicar, if you knew her, you wouldn’t love her either’.

Those words from the elderly resident have remained etched on my heart long after she has departed this earth – listen ’ere vicar, if you knew her, you wouldn’t love her either – they have forcefully brought home to me how onerous and ominous is the seemingly simple command to love. Easy to preach, difficult to live. After all, the commands to love God and love neighbour are not some fanciful, sweetly-saccharin idealistic objectives. They are the foundations of all we do. Jeremiah and his contemporaries had 613 commandments to ensure purity and justice. The Welsh Government has the 56-page Future Generations Act to ensure all public decisions are made in light of social, cultural, environmental and economic well-being. But we Christians simply have four words. Love God – Love Neighbour. These commands are the heartbeat of our ministry, our mission, and our faith.

So that’s the challenge that hovers over all our mission and ministry. How do these new priorities that we need to decide upon in the coming months and years align with the commands to love God and love neighbour? They are the touchstone, the yardstick, of all our service. They are what reassure us that we build on rock and not sand; they are what guarantee us that we are with him and not against him. So, whether we are considering our dioceses, our churches, our personal ministries, our families, our own well-being, there are only two priorities that must underpin and sustain us. All other priorities are simply building blocks to construct on those firm foundations – caru Duw, caru cymydog – love God, love neighbour.

Addiction: Radical Compassion and the Spirituality of Imperfection (Ministry Blog Series – 7)

I have been sharing a number of theological papers on ministry that I have written down the years. This paper was given at a conference in Bangor in North Wales hosted by Cynnal, the clergy counselling service, and the Living Room, a community-based recovery centre in Cardiff. With thanks to Wynford Ellis Owen for inspiring my ideas on the spirituality of imperfection.

Some years back I was taking a service at a care home. I read confidently from Matthew’s Gospel: ‘The greatest commandment is love God with all your heart, your mind, and your soul; and the second is this: Love your neighbour as yourself’.  Without warning, an elderly woman at the back of the room suddenly shouted: ‘I don’t love my neighbour’. I was left speechless. I looked at the care assistants, they looked at me.  But the moment of silence gave the woman the opportunity to add: ‘and, listen ’ere vicar, if you knew her, you wouldn’t love her either’.

That woman, of course, had stumbled across a timeless truth – it’s easier to preach love and compassion than it is to live it out. Those who are struggling with addiction know all too well that people can be judgmental and can be hurtful in their speech and actions. Similarly, those of us who care for the afflicted and addicted can sometimes be treated with indifference and ingratitude by those whom we are trying to help. Whatever our experience, Jesus was unequivocally clear – we are called to love the other, however difficult that is, however idealistic that sounds. To do so, though, we need an understanding, firstly, of what Christian love demands of us, and, secondly, of what a spirituality of imperfection should entail.

—————

• Radical Compassion

The Reformation was a watershed moment in Western history which reformed a faith that was in need of spiritual revival. But it also planted seeds that resulted in the triumph of individualism. In terms of our faith, this led to a championing of individual and personal salvation over-and-above the communal, along with all-too-often harsh judgementalism of words and actions. In the secular sphere, there is also a direct link between individualism and the rampant commodification, consumerism and materialism that besets modern society.

An individual relationship with the divine is integral to faith, but that relationship will become stagnant if it doesn’t inspire us to reach out to others. We are called to love God and love neighbour. The challenge is to step beyond our own individual egos to recognise our commonality. Most Christians pray “our father” each week, yet our theological emphasis has traditionally been on the “father”, rather than on the little word “our”. If God is “our” father, that means, whether we like it or not, all of us are God’s children and are brothers and sisters to one another. This is at the foundation of radical compassion.

The phrase ‘brothers and sisters’ is, in fact, used very often in scripture. Also, the New Testament frequently uses the Greek word ‘brothers’ (adelphoi) to refer to men and women, to brothers and sisters (e.g. in Acts 1:15). In later translations, this is often translated “believers” or “disciples” for inclusivity. But this misses something important about the original word and reflects a general move away from the use of “brothers” and “sisters” in Christian circles. Other groups, whether other faiths (such as Islam) or ethnic and racial groups, still regularly use ‘brother’ and ‘sister’ when addressing each other. My dad, an ordained minister in the Anglican Church in Wales, continues to use these terms when meeting strangers. It is such a rare thing to hear, though, that, on saying ‘Thank you, brother’ to one shopkeeper, he was surprised to be asked to which masonic lodge he belonged! Something of the familial side of the human journey is being lost for Christians by the waning of this biblical tradition. To view others as brothers and sisters leads to a recognition of both our intimacy with, and our duty to, each other.

Love of God and love of our neighbour, then, are not separate dimensions of our spiritual lives: they are, in fact, two sides of the same coin. ‘We cannot love God unless we love each other, and to love we must know each other’, wrote social activist Dorothy Day who stood alongside the addicted on the streets of New York and elsewhere. Interestingly, the word for ‘compassion’ in the Old Testament is related to the Hebrew term for womb, rechem. In other words, our treatment of each other should reflect the love of family. We should treat others as if they had shared the same womb as we did, as if they were our own flesh and blood.

Despite its Western roots in the Reformation, though, this is certainly not a modern, western issue. Tribes and peoples across the world have, in the past and present, divided themselves from others, seeing the world through the lens of ‘us’ and ‘them’. The word dinka for the Dinka people of Sudan means ‘people’, thereby suggesting that other tribes are not people, but are subhuman. Their bitter enemies, the Nuer people, have the same attitude, with the word nuer meaning ‘original people’. Similarly, many thousands of miles away, the word yupik for the Alaskan Yupik tribe means ‘real people’.

As Christians, our call is to go beyond such divisions and discords – to recognise our common unity, to see others as family and to move away from a tribal, insular, inward-looking attitude that values only ‘people like us’. By doing so, we can be inspired to create loving, compassionate communities. If God is father of all, then we must treat everyone as if they were in the same family as us – those with whom we don’t get along, those with whom we don’t agree, those who are ill or injured, immigrants, the poor, the hungry, the addicted, those of different nationalities and races, those in our prisons, those of different faiths, the unemployed, the homeless, the helpless, the hopeless, the hated. As Desmond Tutu puts it: ‘In God’s family, there are no outsiders. All are insiders. Black and white, rich and poor, gay and straight, Jew and Arab, Palestinian and Israeli, Roman Catholic and Protestant, Serb and Albanian, Hutu and Tutsi, Muslim and Christian, Buddhist and Hindu, Pakistani and Indian – all belong… We are members of one family. We belong… God says, ‘All, all are my children’. It is shocking. It is radical’.

• A Spirituality of Imperfection

Allied to this emphasis on radical compassion, in which we view each other, as best we can, as family, is demanded of us a further attitudal shift. This shift demands a recognition of both the imperfection and the beauty in each of us. The doctrine of original sin asserts that the primordial sin of Adam and Eve tainted all subsequent generations. This belief is often derided or dismissed by the secular world. While its language and imagery may seem archaic and alien to modern sensibilities, few doctrines have more contemporary relevance. For us to affirm a radical compassion, we need a recognition that all of us, whoever we are, however settled our own lives seem at present, have a bias or tendency towards self-centredness and selfishness that leads to downfall.

Taken in isolation, however, the doctrine of original sin leads to an incomplete and blinkered spirituality. It needs to be regarded alongside a further Christian doctrine. In the first chapters of Genesis, God creates humanity in his own image, and, on looking back at his handiwork, we are told that he “saw that it was very good”. In other words, yes we hold a doctrine of original sin, but we also hold a doctrine of original righteousness. This crucial doctrine must never be ignored or relegated in importance – it affirms that we are all, each and everyone of us, valuable, unique, irreplaceable, and infinitely loved.

In the context of alcohol dependence and substance misuse, as in any other context, we must affirm the spirituality of original sin and original righteousness. For those of us involved in pastoral care, the doctrine of original sin  is essential as a reminder of our own fallibility and of the fine line between respectability and ruin. Russell Brand, in a recent interview, put it this way: “I relinquish the idea that I’m not homeless, in the gutter, smacked up, off my nut, because I’m somehow superior; [rather, I’m not those things] because of a random set of coordinates and events that have deposited me in a comfortable life”. That fact in itself, the realisation that nature and nurture are at the root of the hand that we are dealt, helps us withstand a punitive and condescending attitude towards those with addictions.

If, as Christians, we are courageous enough to face the reality that if we had another’s genes and a similar upbringing, there is a good chance that we would be acting in the same way, then it becomes almost impossible to ignore the cries of the hurt, the addicted, the suffering, the lonely, the anxious, the homeless, the disenfranchised. As the sixteenth-century English reformer John Bradford is purported to have exclaimed when he saw a group of prisoners being led to their execution: “There but for the grace of God, goes John Bradford”.

While the doctrine of original sin reminds us of our own fallibility, the doctrine of original righteousness reminds us of the divine spark in the other, however far down the tunnel of darkness they have fallen. After all, New Testament incarnationalism leads us to recognise that in responding to the needs of those in the throws of dependency, addiction, or recovery, we are responding to Christ’s own needs. ‘Truly I tell you,’ asserts Matthew 25:40, ‘whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’

The life of the Christian must be a process of recognizing Christ in the other, and especially the other who is enduring suffering or difficulty. Charles de Foucauld, the Cistercian priest of the early twentieth century, lived amongst people of a different religion, tradition, and race, but insisted that every person was to him, quite literally, “the greatest treasure of all, Jesus himself”. His house in Algeria became a place where the locals knew that they were welcome at any time, however poor they were, however sick they were. “We are all children of God;” he wrote in his journal, “we must therefore see the beloved children of God in all people, and not just in the good, not just in the Christians, not just in the Saints, but in all the people”.

A spirituality which recognises the Christ in others helps us to offer the hope of new beginnings and transformation. After all, while original sin reminds us that nature and nurture have a huge hold on our lives, original righteousness reminds us that we are not wholly in bondage to those factors. Determinism is not a philosophy that sits well with the Christian concept of Metanoia (“repentance”). We are not simply complex robots shackled by our backgrounds and our genes. In recognising the unique worth of each and every person, despite their broken and fallible natures, we affirm that none of us are fixed and finished creatures. The resurrection affirms that God’s possibilities are limitless and all have potential for development, growth, and new life. “Behold I make all things new”, asserts the book of Revelation (21:5).

—————

The spirituality of the compassionate father of the prodigal son is at the heart of the call to be Christian. We often relate to the errant son in that parable, and we sometimes fear that we might be the jealous older brother. But God is calling us to join him as the running father, who loves and welcomes even his most rebellious, abandoned or lost children. As physician Paul Tournier wrote, considering a friend who was going through a divorce: “The circumstances of our lives are different, but the reality of our hearts is the same. If I were in his place, would I act any differently from him? I have no idea. At least I know that I should need friends who loved me unreservedly just as I am, with all my weaknesses, and who would trust me without judging me.”

Sadly, it is often the case that neither our churches nor our lives exhibit such a grace-full and compassionate spirituality. Most of us can find a reason, biblical or otherwise, why a certain person or particular group of people can be viewed as unwelcome or undesirable. Yet the challenge of radical compassion and the challenge of a spirituality of imperfection should be our modelling of a kingdom where no prodigal son is unwelcome and where there are no undesirables. Jesus did not turn his back on anybody; he welcomed them with open arms in the shape of a cross.

What is the theology of safeguarding? Building welcoming communities of love and grace (Ministry Blog Series – 4)

In a change from my normal blog posts, I have been sharing a number of theological papers on ministry that I have written down the years, including for the Doctrinal Commission of the Church in Wales . This post was written as a blog post for the Diocese of Llandaff in the Church in Wales.

Safeguarding. It’s a word that, to some people, brings to mind another seminar we are made to attend and just another box to tick. When it comes down to it, we sometimes feel we have better things to do than sit through another safeguarding course or read yet another email or article on the subject.

The reality is, though, that safeguarding is absolutely integral to our faith. It’s part of our calling and should be central to our discipleship, ministry, and mission. As Christians, each of us has an important role to play in promoting welfare of children and vulnerable adults. Paying attention to interpersonal boundaries and power imbalances is far from being an inconvenience, but is intrinsic to a life-giving, compassion-filled faith.

Perhaps understanding the theological and biblical roots of safeguarding can inspire and challenge us to a fresh vision of the importance of fostering a culture of safety in our churches. After all, as theologian Krish Kandiah puts it, in the Bible there is “a clear mandate, motivation and mission to ensure that those who are or may be vulnerable are heard, defended, and treated appropriately, effectively, fairly and compassionately”.

The theological foundation for safeguarding stems from our creation in the image of God. Who we know God is, and how we know he acts, sets the precedent to how we should relate to each other. Jewish theologian Martin Buber wrote: “in the beginning was relationship”. In other words, God is relationship and the concept of the loving Trinity, God as ‘three in one’, brings that home to us. So, our call as Christians is to reflect the relationship that God is – loving, affirming, welcoming, caring, and protecting.

After all, in Psalm 121, God himself is described as our “keeper” and the Hebrew word used there (somereka) can be translated as “safeguard”. In fact, even the theological concept of “salvation” relates to this, as the root of the word “salvation” in Greek (soteria) implies safekeeping. So, care and compassion are at the core of God’s very being. As a result, we ourselves are challenged to live out God’s radical care and love, ensuring we advocate for the lowly, the lost, and the least in our communities. As the book of Proverbs puts it (31:8): we “speak up for people who cannot speak for themselves and protect the rights of all who are helpless and defenceless”.

And, of course, this relates to the cross, which stands at the very centre of our faith. By acknowledging the horror and pain of the cross and God’s presence in Jesus’s cries of agony, we are compelled to challenge all forms of manipulation, violence, and suffering. The cross is, as theologian Elaine Brown Crawford puts it, “an eternal statement that humans should not be abused”.

The agony of the cross then leads to the resurrection, which further affirms our commitment to fostering safety for those who are under threat, ushering in transformation, new life, and hope for individuals and communities. And, just as the resurrected Jesus had scars on his body, so we also stand alongside those who bear their own hidden scars, not least those who have been ignored and failed by the Church in the past.

So, churches are mandated to become places that embody a kingdom where the dignity and ultimate worth of all is championed. While the structures and processes of safeguarding may seem inconvenient on occasion, they are an essential part of this mandate. They can become instruments of God’s kingdom, whereupon children and vulnerable people can be helped to flourish and can be provided with the safe places they desire and deserve. As such, safeguarding is not only at the heart of God’s being and will, but is at the heart of our own identity as Christians, underpinning everything we do, everything we stand for, and everything we are. It is through championing the absolute centrality of care and safety in our churches that we can truly build welcoming, hopeful, compassionate communities of love and grace.

Thought for the Day: The Beatles, the Beatitudes, and the God of the Unexpected

In the style of my Lent Book Opening our Lives and Advent Book Real God in the Real World, I will be sharing occasional “thoughts for the day” on various subjects on this blog. Hope you enjoy.

Recently, Peter Jackson, most famous as director of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, edited footage of the three weeks in 1969 when the Beatles recorded their final album. It’s a marathon of a documentary, almost 9 hours long, but it’s also fascinating. It reveals how the creativity of the Beatles was fuelled by marmalade on toast and it shows how, in their final months as a band, the sometimes-fractious relationships between the Fab Four inspired them to compose some of their most timeless tunes, including “Let it Be” and “Get Back”. Their plan was to end the three weeks by performing in an ancient auditorium in Tripoli. Eventually, though, they simply decide to climb up to the rooftop of their studio in London and play a concert to the astounded people walking past.

As the police desperately try to gain access to the rooftop to put a stop to the concert, the filmmakers interview people on the streets below. Some are unhappy at the music blasting out, while others are excited by the final time the Beatles would ever perform in public. The interviewers then come to an ageing vicar. We might expect him to side with the greying businessmen condemning the loud music. Refreshingly, though, he doesn’t play into the stereotype of the grumpy Christian bemoaning noisy youths. Instead, he looks up to the roof, smiles warmly, and says that rarely do people get anything for free and how wonderful it was that the young people were enjoying it so much!

As I watched that joyful, unpredictable vicar, I was reminded somewhat of the God that he was following. The Bible reveals to us that our God is the God of the unexpected. Jesus’s teaching reveals a God who topples our predictions and confounds our expectations. In particular, he doesn’t side with the people who we think might deserve it. Instead, he embraces the people that our society believes should be side-lined or ignored. This God of ours brings the people on the edges of life to the centre stage – all the lonely people, as the Beatles put it, but also the poor, the hungry, the homeless, the grieving, the depressed, the anxious, the struggling, the lowly, the gentle, the marginalised, the powerless, the hated, the outsider, and the unwanted.

In the Beatitudes, Jesus astonishingly refers to these people as “blessed” (Luke 6:20-26) – or even “happy” as the Greek word used (makarios) can be translated. In God’s eyes, it is the struggling people on the edges of our society who are blessed and happy. This sharply contradicts how our world seems to work – where the rich, the capable, the successful, the powerful, and the famous are glorified, while others are viewed as expendable consumers, to sell things to or to be discarded as unprofitable or useless.

The Beatles famously sang that “all you need is love”. Whatever they meant by that, our faith reminds us that Christian love is something radically different from saccharin-sweet Valentine’s Day love. God’s love destroys the dominant worldview and ushers in a strange kingdom that has dramatic implications on our lives. It demands that we ask ourselves some searching questions. Who do we glorify in our world? Who do we demonise? How do we view certain people and groups? Are we truly living out our upside-down, downside-up, topsy-turvy, flipped-around faith? Or are we simply standing around, like the predictable people in the Beatles documentary, complaining about the noise and looking down with disdain on those who are not like us? And are we too quickly slipping into our comfort zones and descending into the stereotype of how we think a “normal” Christian should behave and react?

One thing is clear – there’s nothing normal about our faith, and neither is there anything comfortable, snug, or predictable. Instead, Jesus introduces us to the God of the unexpected and, by doing so, he rips up and tears apart all the world teaches about human nature. In our faith is a radical, revolutionary call to sacrifice, love, and compassion. Through our faith, and with our help, God can and will transform our broken world.

What is Mission? Being Sent on a Mission from God (Ministry Blog Series – 3)

In a change from my normal blog posts, I have been sharing a number of papers on ministry that I have written down the years for the Doctrinal Commission of the Church in Wales. This post was rather written as a blog post last year for the Diocese of Llandaff in the Church in Wales. It fits neatly in the series, though, so I hope you enjoy.

When I was director of vocations for the Diocese of Llandaff in the Church in Wales, I used to sit on a comfy seat in my living room chatting over coffee with candidates who felt God was calling them to ministry. There are far worse ways to spend an afternoon! I would chat about their spiritual life and they would tell me about their church worship and private prayer. And I’d then ask whether they had been involved in outreach and mission? At that point there was often a long silence. I can only imagine they were desperately struggling to think of a time they struck up a conversation with a stranger about the life-transforming power of Jesus.

When many of us hear the words “mission” and “evangelism”, we naturally think of people persuading others the truths of their belief. When I think of “mission” I remember the over-enthusiastic UBM people on Llandudno Beach who used to mesmerise us children with puppets and a song about Jesus wanting us to be sunbeams. And I think of the Salvation Army group in my favourite musical Guys and Dolls, persuading gangsters to repent and welcome God into their lives. And I think of Speaker’s Corner in Hyde Park, where my friends and I would visit to debate our faith with ardent atheists. And I think of films like The Mission and Scorsese’s Silence, about priests baptising new Christians in far away, exotic lands.

But, let me take you back to my living room with my vocations candidates. Sitting there, still struggling to think of examples of when they brought somebody to faith, I would then read to them the Anglican five marks of mission, which were identified with personal evangelism at the Anglican Consultative Council in 1984 and which summarise what “mission” entails. And, yes, the list does include (1) preaching the good news and (2) baptising new believers. But the list doesn’t stop there – it also reminds us that mission involves (3) responding to human need through love, (4) transforming unjust structures in society, challenging violence, and pursuing peace, and (5) caring for God’s creation. On hearing this list, my candidates would suddenly start to detail examples of when they had been working in food banks, or volunteering with the Samaritans, or protesting against climate change or war, or campaigning against inequality, or teaching in schools, or collecting for charities, or visiting the sick or elderly. It was so inspirational to hear that they had been doing mission, in all sorts of wonderful ways!

The Oxford Dictionary defines mission as “an important assignment given to a person or group of people”. By factoring in the origin of the word “mission”, which comes from the Latin missio, meaning ‘to send’, we start to discover Christian outreach is really about. In the gospels, Jesus sends out his disciples two by two (Luke 10-1-9). This was a “mission” – an important assignment given to this band of followers. And Jesus is giving that same mission to us today! But he’s not sending us out to do any old work.

Theologians talk about us being sent to carry out Missio Dei – God’s mission. Jurgen Moltmann writes that “it is not the church that has a mission of salvation to fulfill in the world; it is the mission of the Son and the Spirit through the Father that includes the church”. In other words, each time we are doing God’s work, we are doing mission. When we look at what’s lacking in society and we do something about it, we are doing mission. When we look where our world is crying out for peace, compassion and hope and we do something about it, we are doing mission. When we work towards the Kingdom of God, as Jesus commanded his disciples as he sent them out, we are doing mission! As theologian David Bosch puts it: “To participate in mission is to participate in the movement of God’s love toward people, since God is a fountain of sending love”.

When the New Testament refers to God’s mission (whether in the Magnificat (Luke 1:46-55) or in Jesus’s first sermon in a synagogue (Luke 4:16–21)), it often does so by looking back at the wonderful vision of the liberation of God’s people in the Old Testament. Isaiah, for example, gives a picture of hope to the Israelites who are suffering far from home on the banks of the Tigris and Euphrates in Babylon. They are feeling lost, abandoned, and hopeless, much like so many people feel today in our world. And Isaiah says to them: despite all you are going through, despite the pain and sadness and frustration you feel, remember that there is still great hope for the future – fresh springs of living water will flow where there was once arid desert, those who are oppressed and marginalised will be raised up and liberated, those who are sick or disabled will be revived and made whole, those who are fearful or frustrated will be lifted up in joy, those who are hungry will be satisfied and made full, and creation that is groaning through misuse and greed will be made new and fresh!

This is a picture of what God wants us to bring to this world. We are being sent, each and every one of us. We are being sent to bring God’s light and life to our friends and neighbours. We are being sent to bring reconciliation and healing to our struggling communities. We are being sent to be beacons of hope and joy to our broken world.

What is a Deacon? A Missional Ministry of Love (Ministry Blog Series – 2)

In a change from my normal blog posts, I am sharing a number of papers I wrote for the Doctrinal Commission of the Church in Wales. Having been a member since it was reestablished around 2007, I became the longest serving member by the late 2010s. Over the years I contributed numerous papers on various theological topics, most of which remain unpublished. This ‘Ministry Blog Series’ allows you to read at least some of those papers.

1. A Fresh Understanding

In 1974, the Church in Wales doctrinal commission published a report on the diaconate.[i] Whilst its conclusions were affirming and positive, its language reflected long-held attitudes to the ministry of the deacon. At the outset the report highlighted that the diaconate had long been a “subordinate” ministry and it rooted the functions of the deacon in the liturgy and menial tasks of service. As was the custom at the time, the report also employed the phrase “permanent diaconate” to refer to those deacons who will not transition to priestly ordination. Both the terms “transitional diaconate” and “permanent diaconate” are, of course, misnomers, as all clergy are permanent deacons in some way, and none are transitional (a priest remains a deacon and a bishop remains a deacon and priest). The term ‘transitional diaconate’ continues to be used today, due to the lack of a better phrase. The term ‘distinctive diaconate’, though, has largely replaced that of ‘permanent diaconate’. It is, however, recent developments in Greek New Testament theology, illuminating, as they do, certain pertinent issues that were not at the fore when the 1974 report was published, that have allowed a fresh understanding on the ministry of the diaconate.

2. The meaning of Diakonos

The diaconate, like all Christian ministry (lay or ordained), is founded on Jesus’s ministry. Deacons articulate a service entrusted to us by Jesus and, by adoption and grace, represent the servant king to those to whom they minister. In this sense, the diaconate is an autonomous ministry that is firmly rooted in the gospel portrayal of the servant Messiah – “the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve” (Mark 10:45). In the diaconate, though, there is also a reminder of the incarnational paradox that we become the servant Christ to those whom we recognise as Christ – “whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me” (Matthew 25:40).

The word used to describe the servanthood of Christ in the writings of the New Testament is diakonos. While the word doulos, which can be translated as “slave”, is also used for Christ’s servanthood (cf Phil 2:7), this is far less frequent. As a result, it was the word diakonos that came to be used in the early church to refer to Christians carrying out compassionate and sacrificial acts of service. In this way, we can still talk about the diaconate of the whole church. Quite early in ecclesial history, though, distinctions within ministry were established and diakonos came to refer to a specific minister carrying out a clearly defined function – exercising a role within the liturgy of worship, caring for church property, and being responsible for social service amongst early communities. In the first centuries, the diaconate was certainly no stepping stone to the presbyterate. 

Traditionally, diakonos has been translated ‘service’, and has come to denote very humble and unassuming work. Recently, however, it has been posited that the traditional translation of diakonos as ‘service’ has led to a distorted emphasis of diaconate as subservient. It is claimed that the word ‘ministry’, rather than ‘service’, is closer to the correct translation. While not the first to question the former consensus, the Australian scholar John N. Collins was certainly the scholar who brought this new perspective into the mainstream.[ii]

While, then, the word diakonos can be translated either as ‘ministry’ or ‘service’, the different overtones of both these words in modern English makes it necessary to clarify where the emphasis lies. Compare, for example, the posts of a ‘civil servant’ and a ‘government minister’. Collins’ work, which has been generally affirmed amongst his fellow New Testament scholars and further popularised through its development in the work of Paula Gooder[iii], reminds us that, in the Greek world, diakonos merely meant carrying out a task on behalf of someone in authority. Sometimes this would have been menial tasks. The “seven” in Acts 6 were chosen to undertake the simple task of caring for those in need. The Apostles seemingly considered it of such import that they appointed specific people, but there was no personal glory inherent in this, the first ministry that the deacon came to undertake. At other times, though, the duties of the deacon would have been a task of considerable responsibility, a high-level ambassadorial role for the faith. What unites all the tasks undertaken by the early deacons is that they were mandated by a person in authority. So, diaconal duties were, and continue to be, carried out on behalf of the bishop, and, as Ignatius of Antioch reminded the early church communities, are ultimately carried out on behalf of Christ – “‘let all men respect the deacons as Jesus Christ”.[iv] After all, as we are reminded in Philippians 2, Christ is himself a God who came in “the form of a servant”.

3. Historical change in attitudes to the diaconate

The English word ‘servant’, then, is a limited translation of diakonos. The role of deacon certainly developed to include more basic duties of humble service, such as special compassionate care for sick, lonely, and oppressed. But deacons, like priests & bishops, also receive a full ministry, relating to word, sacraments, and pastoral care. As 1 Timothy 3:8-10 implies, with its clear implications that not just anyone should be ordained to the diaconate, the order very quickly began to acquire high regard. They held a place of trust and honour amongst the early Christians. Deacons had an assisting role, rather than a presiding role, but this should not diminish the fact that there was no hierarchy of value, as all ministries were regarded are equal in eyes of God. As such, the role of deacons was so important in the early church that they were often directly consecrated as bishops.

During the Middle Ages, however, the diaconate had moved from being a role which was hugely valued in importance with primary allegiance to the episcopate to being “a purely probationary ministry, a mere shade of the diaconate of the patristic age”[v]. This was due to the Church’s increasing emphasis on priestly duties – the celebration of the Mass, giving absolution, and the blessing of people and objects. Still, there were some prominent exceptions to the rule, such as St Francis of Assisi, along with others who remained deacons due to specialised functions, such as ecclesiastical lawyers and royal servants. After the Reformation, the tradition of distinctive deacons all but died out, again with some notable exceptions such as Nicholas Ferrar in the community of Little Gidding. After 1662, when the practice of deacons being appointed incumbents of parishes was outlawed, most deacons were ordained within weeks of ordination, or even on the same day.

In the nineteenth century, the curacy developed to consist of a number of years of continued training within parishes, as it does now. Thus, the diaconate year became regarded primarily as probationary ministry. Ironically, with this move the significance of the diaconate was both heightened, as it came to play a clear role in the professional development of clergy, and weakened, as the concept of the diaconate as a temporary, transitional ministry was reinforced.

4. Restoration of the distinctive diaconate in the Church of England

The beginning of the sea-change in attitudes towards the diaconate in the Church of England came in 1968, as the Lambeth Conference recommended the restoration of a distinctive diaconate. Six years later in 1974, however, the Advisory Committee for the Church’s Ministry recommended abolishing the diaconate completely. In a 1977 debate, the General Synod declined to follow this advice, and, in 1980, the Ordinal in the Alternative Service Book gave greater emphasis on deacon’s role. Soon, in 1987, women were admitted to the diaconate, although, of course, the order of deaconesses had been in existence in the Church of England since 1861, originally formed as part of Church’s response to poor health and social conditions. By 1988, the report ‘Deacons and the Church’ further supported the development of a distinctive diaconate for both men and women, while the Windsor statement of 1997, resulting from the ecumenical Windsor Consultations, affirmed the diaconate as a growing movement internationally.

By the end of twentieth century, there were around 75 distinctive deacons in Church of England. These were a combination of, firstly, those who believed a distinctive diaconal ministry was well-suited to establishing links between the Church and the wider world and, secondly, women who were called to ordained ministry, but on theological grounds did not feel called to be priests. The Diaconal Association of the Church of England called the rediscovery of the distinctive diaconate in the second half of the twentieth century a “revolution”.[vi]

The rediscovery has continued in the twenty-first century, having been aided by two official documents. In 2001 came the report For Such a Time As This from a General Synod Working Party[vii], while six years later the Faith and Order Advisory Group of Church of England produced Mission and Ministry of the Whole Church[viii]. Both documents put the diaconate in the context of mission, maintaining that deacons could, and should, play an important role in reaching out in witness and service to the world. John N. Collins’ work had reminded us that when St Paul speaks of the diakonia, he does so in the context of mission. In both these documents, deacons were, then, regarded as bridging the gap between the Church and the needs of people who are not regular churchgoers. In other words, a deacon is, as For Such a Time as This puts it, a “go-between” person, whose role is pastoral, liturgical, and catechetical[ix]. This is especially important in light of the profound changes that have taken place in British society in the past century. New approaches to mission have been necessary, and the diaconate fits well with present cultural and sociological needs. Fresh expressions initiatives, for example, raise possibilities that deacons could be employed as ordained pioneer ministers.

However, the documents also suggested that clarity is necessary as to how the diaconate relates both to the lay ministries and to the priesthood. Mission and Ministry of the Whole Church, for example, contrasts ordained and non-ordained ministry through a threefold characterisation of ordained ministry: firstly, it is lifelong; secondly, it is recognised nationally & belongs to the universal Church; and, thirdly, it is a comprehensive ministry embracing pastoral care and ministries of word and sacrament.[x] While a commissioned or licensed lay ministry may meet one or even two of these criteria, the report suggested that an ordained ministry must meet all of them.

These two reports conclude that the Church must take the diaconate much more seriously. Deacons, it is noted, are generally a little impatient to be ordained priests, and so it is suggested that clergy could spend longer than a year as deacon to experience and live out what it means to be a deacon. Furthermore, it is suggested that a distinctive diaconate needs to be actively encouraged.

Such moves as these would clearly need a significant transformation in attitudes within the Church in Wales. This would have to begin through further theological appraisal, vocational discernment, and practical engagement and exploration with both transitional and distinctive deacons. Several moves to ordain a distinctive diaconate within Church in Wales dioceses over the past half century have, after all, stalled and many, if not most, of those who were ordained deacon eventually transitioned to the priesthood. However, there are recent signs in Wales that there may be a desire for a reaffirmation and revival of a distinctive diaconate, with the ordination of several distinctive deacons in dioceses in the past few years holding much pastoral, missional, and theological significance.

5. Ecumenical considerations

As the needs of the Church today differ hugely from earlier ages, we should avoid any re-creation of the primitive pattern of the diaconate for nostalgic or antiquarian reasons. Furthermore, any move towards reaffirming a distinctive diaconate must not be to compensate for any perceived weak priesthood or as an answer to a shortage of priests. “Deacons are not substitutes to be brought in where priests are lacking”, writes Walter Kasper.[xi] Still, the elevation of the diaconate, with its emphasis on the importance of service and sacrifice which the World Council of Churches summarised as “a ministry of love within the community”[xii], has the potential to speak powerfully to individuals and communities which are crying out for care and compassion.

Within the Roman Catholic tradition, although the Second Vatican Council affirmed a renewal of the diaconate as a “ministry vitally necessary to the life of the church”[xiii], even half a century later the ministry remains somewhat unclear and continues to be a matter of theological dispute[xiv]. The response of the Church in Wales doctrinal commission to the 1987 report Ministry in a Uniting Church shows a similar state of affairs within the Welsh Church, noting a “considerable confusion in the Church in Wales” with regards the diaconate[xv]. The Church’s Board of Mission in that same year affirmed this, concluding that the contemporary Anglican understanding of the diaconate is “particularly unsatisfactory”[xvi]. The latter suggested the Church in Wales could learn much from the Protestant tradition.

Whilst Protestant denominations vary considerably in the functions of their deacons, both the Wesleyan Methodist and Lutheran traditions have strong theologies of the diaconate. The 2017 joint Methodist and Church of England report Mission and Ministry in Covenant invited the two churches to consider implementing the recommendation that they should “work towards a common understanding of diaconal ministry that will in due course enable the interchangeability of deacons”.[xvii] Historically, both in Britain and abroad, mission and outreach was central to the Wesleyan Deaconess Order,[xviii] which was established in 1890 to meet the physical, social, and spiritual needs of those living in both burgeoning industrial areas and disadvantaged rural communities. A 1986 report of the Methodist Conference, The Ministry of the People of God,[xix] reaffirmed the role of the diaconate. As a result, two years later, the Methodist Diaconal Order, a distinctive diaconate with a clear Rule of Life, was established. Unlike the lay diaconate in the Reformed or Baptist traditions, it is an ordained order, with deacons having a ministerial status equal to presbyters. The primary purpose of the order is to assist lay people to develop their gifts and, thus, to encourage and enable them to live out ministries of servanthood. Sue Jackson uses the image of a midwife to describe the Methodist diaconate – in trust and mutual respect, and in partnership with lay people themselves, deacons help birth new vocations of service and ministry. “As a result,” she concludes, “precious things are brought to birth in the midwife as well as mother”.[xx] The emphasis on the deacon as midwife further affirms that the role of the deacon is not to undertake the tough work of love-in-action on behalf of the Body of Christ, but rather to encourage, inspire, and work alongside the wider Church.

The Lutheran diaconate is, likewise, firmly rooted in missional and social outreach.[xxi] In Sweden, for example, deacons are ordained and salaried, offering a compassionate and practical outreach to those in need and bringing bodily and spiritual comfort to those regarded as weakest in society. In the 1990s, the Church of Sweden had rejected the concept of deacons as, what was called, “half-priests” and affirmed the diaconate as having “a clear caritative identity”[xxii]. In the Church of Denmark, on the other hand, the role of the deacon is not limited by the notion of serving in the world, but instead has a strong eschatological emphasis – the aim of the diaconate is, therefore, to advance the coming of God’s kingdom.[xxiii] Any serious consideration of the distinctive diaconate within the Church in Wales, then, would need to assess the strengths and weaknesses of the diaconate in the Roman Catholic[xxiv], Wesleyan Methodist, and Lutheran Churches, but also in other denominations, both in Wales and worldwide.[xxv]

6. A vocation to loving service

While the language of the 1974 report of the Church in Wales doctrinal commission may have reflected long-held attitudes to the diaconate, its conclusion was far more ground-breaking and radical. It gave a vision of a Church in Wales that truly recognised the spiritual and missional value of its loyal and hard-working members in their wide variety of secular occupations. It could be posited, then, that the ministry of the deacon might indeed start with those who are already in roles that could be regarded as “diaconal” – teachers, doctors, nurses, welfare workers, politicians, vets, environmental workers, and so on. As such, any future consideration of a distinctive diaconate in the Church in Wales could be challenged to consider how such a move would relate to the Anglican five marks of mission. By doing so, it would need to look beyond the local church community to the “secular” work of congregation members and those ministering to specific groups of people who are often at “the margins of God’s territory”[xxvi] – in hospitals, care homes, industries, prisons, refugee hostels, and so on.

Not that the diaconate should ever be regarded as a form of the lay apostolate. Instead, it has the potential to be a special articulation of sacramental ordained ministry. If a distinctive diaconate could be forged and developed in this way, through consideration of members who, in the secular world, carry out loving service for Christ’s sake, then this would broaden our concept of ordained ministry and, in the words of the 1974 report, “act as an example, an inspiration, a catalyst, and initiative, to all; so that all would recognise, and fulfil more adequately, their vocation to service” [xxvii].

In considering the more recent theological work popularised by John N. Collins, though, any further consideration of the ministry of the deacon needs to go beyond mere social or charitable endeavour. “Deacons are not ordained social workers!“ as Walter Kasper puts it[xxviii]. By firmly rooting the call of the deacon in the sacramental act of baptising others, Richard Hainsworth avoids this charge.[xxix] Furthermore, by rooting the episcopal call in the enabling of ordained/licensed ministry (and priests in their eucharistic presidency), Hainsworth puts himself alongside both scripture[xxx] and the patristic tradition[xxxi] in reminding us that the diaconate shares directly in episcopal ministry, collaborating closely with priests only as fellow servants of the bishops[xxxii]. Distinctive deacons, then, have the potential to enkindle and motivate communities through the authority invested in them through the episcopacy and through their incarnational call. This is balm for our broken communities, but also equally healing and inspiring for the Church itself. As Rosalind Brown puts it: “it is the church, as much as the world, that needs a deacon on the threshold to make that margin transgressable”.[xxxiii] If the Church in Wales were to consider further the diaconate, such an episcopally-charged ministry devoted to practical service might forge a distinct and significant missional ministry within the local church, in the secular workplace, and in wider society. This ministry would certainly not remove the wider Church’s caritative responsibilities. Rather, it would function to encourage, motivate, and inspire both lay and ordained to live out their own daily servant ministries.

7. Conclusion

In light of scripture, theology, and praxis, a diaconate is far more than a mere social welfare arm of the Church. Instead, to become a deacon is to engage in a deep relationship with the both the Missio Dei and the servant mysteries and ministry of Christ. The deacon lives out the eucharistic call to “go in peace to love and serve the Lord”. As such, the diaconate cannot be relegated to being a ministry of functionality, viewing it in terms of what it achieves. Rather, deacons can serve to remind the Church of our general call to live out the servanthood of Christ incarnationally, sharing with him in his cross and crown and living as, in Walter Kasper’s words, “pioneers of a new ‘civilisation of love’”[xxxiv]. The diaconate, therefore, holds a special place within the ministry of the baptised, a place that may have diminished over time (in the West, at least[xxxv]) but a place that, if the Church in Wales deemed it worth further exploration, discernment, and investment, still has the potential to hold considerable pastoral, social, liturgical, evangelistic, and catechetical value.

Bibliography

Ronnie Aitchison, The Ministry of a Deacon (Epworth, Peterborough 2003)

Paul Avis, A Ministry Shaped by Mission (T&T Clark, London 2005)

Baptism, Eucharist, and Ministry: Faith and Order Paper 111 (WCC, Geneva 1982)

Rosalind Brown, Being a Deacon Today: Exploring a Distinctive Ministry in the Church and in the World (Canterbury Press, Norwich 2005)

Margaret Elizabeth Carrington, A Survey of Good Practice in Diaconal Formation in Ecumenical Perspective (MA dissertation, University of Sheffield 2014)

David Clark, Breaking the Mould of Christendom: Kingdom Community, Diaconal Church, and the Liberation of the Laity (Epworth, Peterborough 2005)

David Clark (ed.), The Diaconal Church: Beyond the Mould of Christendom (Epworth, Peterborough 2008)

John N. Collins, Diakonia: Re-Interpreting the Ancient Sources (OUP, New York 2009)

John N. Collins, Are all Christians Ministers? (Liturgical Press, Collegeville 1992)

John N. Collins, Deacons and the Church: Making Connections Between Old and New (Gracewing, Leominster 2002)

For Such a Time as This: A Renewed Diaconate in the Church of England (Church House Publishing, London 2001)

Foundations for the Renewal of the Permanent Diaconate (United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, Washington DC 1993)

Nicholas Gill, The role of the diaconate in the Western Church: an Anglican perspective (MTh dissertation, Cardiff University, 2017)

Paula Gooder, ‘Diakonia in the New Testament: A Dialogue with John N. Collins’, in Ecclesiology 3.1 (2006), 33–56

Richard Hainsworth, ‘Towards a Relational Theology of Ordained Ministry for the Church in Wales Post-2020’ (unpublished paper for the Doctrinal Commission 2019)

Christine Hall (ed.), The Deacon’s Ministry (Gracewing, Leominster 1992)

Walter Kasper, Leadership in the Church: How Traditional Roles can Serve the Christian Community Today (Herder & Herder, New York 2003)

James Keating, The Deacon Reader (Gracewing, Leominster 2006)

James Keating, The Heart of the Diaconate: Communion with the Servant Mysteries of Christ (Paulist Press, New York 2015)

Reports from the Standing Doctrinal Commission of the Church in Wales, the Ecumenical Affairs Sector of the Board of Mission, and a Working Group of the Provincial Legal Offices on ‘Ministry in a Uniting Church’ (Church in Wales Publications, 1987)

Kenan B. Osborne, The Permanent Diaconate: Its History and Place in the Sacrament of Orders (Paulist Press, New York 2007)

The Ministry of the People of God: A Report Presented to the 1986 Methodist Conference (Methodist Publishing House, 1986)

Mission and Ministry of the Whole Church: Biblical, theological and contemporary perspectives (The Faith and Order Advisory Group of the Church of England, 2007)

The Diaconate: A Report of the Doctrinal Commission of the Church in Wales (Church in Wales Publications 1974)

Towards Closer Unity: Communion of the Porvoo Churches 20 Years (2016)

Vatican Council II, Lumen Gentium: Dogmatic Constitution on the Church (1964)

Francis Young, Inferior Office? A History of Deacons in the Church of England (James Clarke, Cambridge 2015)

---

[i] Cf. The Diaconate: A Report of the Doctrinal Commission of the Church in Wales (Church in Wales Publications 1974).

[ii] Cf. John N. Collins, Diakonia: Re-Interpreting the Ancient Sources (OUP, New York 2009); originally published in 1990.

[iii] Gooder builds upon some of the practical implications of Collins’s work and widens his conclusions to bring in the diaconal, loving service to which all God’s people are called; cf. Paula Gooder, ‘Diakonia in the New Testament: A Dialogue with John N. Collins’, in Ecclesiology 3.1 (2006), 33–56; Paula Gooder, ‘Towards a Diaconal Church: Some Reflections on New Testament Material’, in David Clark (ed.), The Diaconal Church: Beyond the Mould of Christendom (Epworth, Werrington 2008).

[iv] ‘The Epistle of Ignatius to the Trallians’, in J. B. Lightfoot (ed), The Epistles of St. Ignatius (SCM Press, London 1953).

[v] The Diaconate: A Report of the Doctrinal Commission of the Church in Wales (Church in Wales Publications 1974), p. 9.

[vi] http://www.dace.org; website now discontinued after The Diaconal Association of the Church of England was dissolved in 2017.

[vii] For Such a Time as This: A Renewed Diaconate in the Church of England (Church House Publishing, London 2001).

[viii] Mission and Ministry of the Whole Church: Biblical, theological and contemporary perspectives (The Faith and Order Advisory Group  of the Church of England, 2007).

[ix] For Such a Time as This, pp. 51-57.

[x] Mission and Ministry of the Whole Church, p. 148.

[xi] Walter Kasper, Leadership in the Church: How Traditional Roles Can Serve the Christian Community Today (Herder & Herder, New York 2003), p. 14.

[xii] Baptism, Eucharist, and Ministry: Faith and Order Paper 111 (WCC, Geneva 1982), p. 24.

[xiii] Cf. Vatican Council II, Lumen Gentium: Dogmatic Constitution on the Church (1964), p. 29.

[xiv] Cf. Kasper, Leadership in the Church, p. 13.

[xv] Reports from the Standing Doctrinal Commission of the Church in Wales, the Ecumenical Affairs Sector of the Board of Mission, and a Working Group of the Provincial Legal Offices on ‘Ministry in a Uniting Church’ (Church in Wales Publications, 1987), p. 19.

[xvi] Ibid. p. 8.

[xvii] Mission and Ministry in Covenant: Report from The Faith and Order bodies of the Church of England and the Methodist Church (2017); cf. https://www.churchofengland.org/sites/default/files/2017-10/mission-and-ministry-in-covenant.pdf, p. 30.

[xviii] Cf. Ronnie Aitchison, The Ministry of a Deacon (Epworth, Peterborough 2003), pp. 55, 111-113.

[xix] The Ministry of the People of God: A Report Presented to the 1986 Methodist Conference (Methodist Publishing House, 1986); cf. https://www.methodist.org.uk/media/2062/fo-statement-the-ministry-of-the-people-of-god-1986.pdf

[xx] Sue Jackson, ‘The Methodist Diaconal Order: A Sign of the Diaconal Church’, in Clark, The Diaconal Church, p. 161.

[xxi] Cf. Towards Closer Unity: Communion of the Porvoo Churches 20 Years (2016).

[xxii] Ragnar Persenius, ‘Towards a Common Understanding of the Diaconal Ministry’, in Towards Closer Unity, p. 130.

[xxiii] Cf. Tiit Padam, ‘Towards a Common Understanding of the Diaconal Ministry? Recent Developments in the Diaconate among the Porvoo Churches’, in Towards Closer Unity, p. 162.

[xxiv] For more on Roman Catholic perspectives on the diaconate, see Foundations for the Renewal of the Permanent Diaconate (United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, Washington DC 1993) and James Keating, The Deacon Reader (Gracewing, Leominster 2006).

[xxv] For more on ecumenical perspectives on the diaconate, see Margaret Elizabeth Carrington, A Survey of Good Practice in Diaconal Formation in Ecumenical Perspective (MA dissertation, University of Sheffield 2014).

[xxvi] Rosalind Brown, Being a Deacon Today: Exploring a Distinctive Ministry in the Church and in the World (Canterbury Press, Norwich 2005), p. 31.

[xxvii] The Diaconate, p. 10.

[xxviii] Kasper, Leadership in the Church, p. 21.

[xxix] Richard Hainsworth, ‘Towards a Relational Theology of Ordained Ministry for the Church in Wales Post-2020’ (unpublished paper for the Doctrinal Commission 2019)

[xxx] Phil 1:1.

[xxxi] For example, in the works of Ignatius of Antioch, Jerome, and Hippolytus.

[xxxii] Lumen Gentium, pp. 21, 28, and 29.

[xxxiii] Brown, Being a Deacon Today, p. 31.

[xxxiv] Kasper, Leadership in the Church, p. 44.

[xxxv] For a succinct appraisal of the diaconate in the East, see Kyriaki Kaidoyanes Fitzgerald, ‘A Commentary on the Diaconate in the Contemporary Orthodox Church’ in Christine Hall (ed.), The Deacon’s Ministry (Gracewing, Leominster 1992).

What is a Priest? The Priest as a Bearer of Mystery (Ministry Blog Series – 1)

In a change from my normal blog posts, I will be sharing a number of papers I wrote for the Doctrinal Commission of the Church in Wales. Having been a member since it was reestablished around 2007, I became the longest serving member by the late 2010s. Over the years I contributed numerous papers on various theological topics, most of which remain unpublished. This ‘Ministry Blog Series’ allows you to read at least some of those papers.

a) Facing the challenge

In recent years, the identity and distinctiveness of priesthood has increasingly been questioned. In functional terms, it has long been recognised that priests require certain gifts and talents to minister effectively. Vocations advisors and directors of ordinands will suggest texts to candidates that list these functions. Such lists can seem daunting to those exploring a call to ordination. In John Pritchard’s The Life and Work of a Priest, one of the principal texts I used to give to my own candidates when I was a diocesan director of ordinands, sixteen distinct functional roles are presented, including “creative leader”, “faith coach”, “wounded companion”, and “spiritual explorer”. Traditionally, theological models of priesthood have grown out of a consideration of such functions. By doing so, such models often forged an ontology of priesthood.

During the twentieth century, the model growing in prominence was the priest as, primarily, a pastoral care giver. In some ecclesial and theological circles, though, there was a sense of uncertainty about this model, with the question posed how much its functional roles actually differ from counseling and social work. By the time I went through the discernment process in the late 1990s, the Church had moved to regarding the principal role of a priest as an empowerer – a nurturer of the gifts of others. Before my own selection board, one priest even gave me the advice “as long as you slip in the word ‘enabler’ at least six times, you’ll sail through”! The concept of enabler certainly fits neatly into the Church in Wales’s 2020 Vision emphasis on collaboration and the flourishing of lay ministries in Ministry Areas. However, questions should still be asked about the primacy of this model. It is, after all, weak in terms of its sacramental rooting and it could lead to priests becoming glorified creative administrators or, worse still, simply talent-spotters. As such, it is difficult to forge an ontology of priesthood from this model alone.

b) Towards a new model

With such uncertainties in theological and ecclesial circles surrounding models of priesthood, it is little wonder that so many candidates struggle to articulate why they feel called to ordained ministry, despite the fact that most of them have read the classic texts of discernment and vocation. The purpose and nature of priesthood certainly needs more thought and clarity. In an issue of The Furrow in 1995, the Roman Catholic Auxiliary Bishop of Los Angeles, Robert Barron suggests a way of viewing priesthood that has certainly assisted in my own discernment of candidates for ordination over the past few years. This model is culturally relevant and spiritually uplifting, as well as firmly rooted in tradition and scripture. It is also a model that could appeal to the plethora of churchpersonships and traditions that make up the Anglican Church in Wales. It can be summed up as the priest as “a bearer of mystery”.

Barron begins his exploration of this model by describing the fundamental loss of confidence within the priesthood in recent years. This he attributes to an underdeveloped and negative theology of ministry. As a result, priests have lost confidence in themselves and their identity. This can lead to a lack focus and orientation, with many questioning what is at the heart of their ministry. While he is writing from his own particular denominational and geographic context, the loss of joy and hope, along with the increase of pessimism and cynicism, is reflective of some areas of our own Church. Rooted in that same loss of priestly identity is the superior, and sometimes arrogant, attitude that is found in other areas of our Church, which looks down condescendingly on what is perceived as the lack of zeal and spiritual fervor of other clergy.

To counter the loss of priestly confidence and identity, Barron therefore presents an image that he believes captures the unique and indispensable quality of a priest. The term “mystagogue” was used in the early church with relation to bringing catechumens into the faith. Barron chooses this word to flesh out the priest’s role in bringing the mystery of God’s being to people’s troubled lives. In other words, the priest’s role is to notice, to announce, or to bring God’s love, hope, peace, and compassion to individuals and communities. He roots this in Thomas Aquinas’s analogia entis, whereby we come to know and experience God through his creation – we experience the otherly other Being through the very tangible being of this world.

In this model, the overriding call of priesthood is to explore and grasp the mystery and then initiate others into it – opening eyes to God’s presence, ears to God’s call, hearts to God’s love, and ways to God’s will. It is in this context that Theilard De Chardin described the priest as a “border walker”, bringing those on earth closer to the kingdom. They stand at the boundaries between the commonplace and the sacred, thus offering the possibility of relationship with the divine. Priests are, therefore, interpreters of Manley-Hopkins’s “grandeur of God”, Von Balthasar’s “patterns of grace”, and Philip Yancey’s “rumours of another world”. They hold, to use William Blake’s phrase, “infinity in the palm of their hand and eternity in an hour” and offer this to those to whom they are ministering.

c) The incarnation and mystery

This model is profoundly incarnational in its scope. Paul Tillich describes preaching as “holding up a picture of Christ”. The mystagogue’s task is related to this image – it is the art of bringing Jesus down to earth by displaying of the wonder, inspiration, and complexity of his icon. We do this through our words, but also through our lives. Meister Eckhart pointed out that the incarnation is worthless and pointless if the Word is not also born in Christians. By stating that “the Word was made flesh” (John 1.14), the Gospel writer uses the inceptive aorist Greek tense which implies an action that has started in the past but is continuing into the present. The phrase might rather be translated as ‘the Word started to become flesh’. Thus, the Word continues to become flesh, even today, as Christians acknowledge that “I no longer live, but Christ lives in me” (Galatians 2:20). The priestly calling is rooted in this and, in this sense at least, all church traditions will be able to affirm the priest as “in persona Christi”. The model of the bearer of mystery therefore allows us model ourselves on the Jesus of the gospels, bringing to our congregations as many questions as we provide answers, telling as many stories as we affirm facts, and challenging as much as we give comfort.

Yet, more than this, this ministry is a paradoxical process of being Christ to people we already regard as Christ. Cistercian Charles de Foucault regarded the recognition that all people are “the greatest treasure of all, Jesus himself” as integral to the priesthood. Likewise, in light of the radical incarnational call of Matthew 25, Alan Ecclestone went as far as to challenge his fellow priests to consider where they bow at the end of each service. They should, he suggested, be bowing where they truly believe Christ is. Rather than bowing to the altar or the host, he urged them to consider bowing to their congregations, where the real body of Christ resides and where the physical real presence is found. With the model of the priest as a bearer of mystery, then, we are compelled to see Christ in both ourselves and others, whoever they may be and however different they are to us.

d) Sacraments and mystery

This model of priesthood is also sacramental to the core. On one hand, priests become witnesses to the wonder of the traditional sacraments, leading others beyond physical matter to spiritual beauty and benefit – to see beyond bread and wine to Christ’s body and blood, beyond the font to the transformational water of life, beyond the temporary joy of a wedding day to a spiritual covenant, and so on. On the other hand, priests become living sacraments themselves. They do this by, firstly, demonstrating, through words and deeds, God’s excessive and unreasonable love and compassion. To use Philip Yancey’s words, priests need to show people what’s so amazing about grace.

Secondly, though, priests become living sacraments by bringing others into engagement with the beauty and wonder of the whole gamut of human experience – theology, literature, film, music, nature, laughter, ecology, spirituality, art, architecture, poetry, and so on. G.K. Chesterton wrote that to see the world properly one must stand on one’s head. The priest’s role is to stand on her or his head, beckoning others to do the same and so to share this distinct, awe-inspiring, and life-giving vision of the world around. It is helping others to recognise the pearl of great price in their seemingly ordinary everyday routines. Karl Rahner, himself often referred to as a ‘mystic of everyday life’, pointed out the importance of leading Christians to God’s active grace in creation, his self-communication in the midst of our everyday lives. This is, to use the words of R.S. Thomas, “the turning aside like Moses to the miracle of the lit bush, to a brightness that seemed as transitory as your youth once, but is the eternity that awaits you”. Furthermore, there is also a healing aspect to this call to, in the words of Alan Billings, “make God possible”. After all, love, compassion, wisdom, and beauty are not only mystery bearing, but also profoundly healing. Barron employs the ancient term doctor animarum (doctor of the soul) in relation to this aspect of priesthood and relates it directly to the priest’s pastoral calling.

To truly live out this model, though, priests themselves need time and space to connect with God and to engage with, and theologically reflect on, wider culture. The pace of modern ordained ministry, much of which is either non-stipendiary or encompasses the demands of diocesan or provincial roles alongside parish work, rarely allows enough time for study, contemplation, and prayer, thus making St Paul’s command to pray continually (1 Thessalonians 5:16) seem a mere aspiration to most clergy.

e) Laity and mystery

With the Church in Wales embracing the healthy process of commissioning and licensing lay people for various roles, it is imperative that we ensure that the priestly role is not devalued. Embracing the model of the bearer of mystery may help give further life and purpose to priestly ministry, as well as to our ordinands and ordination candidates. Priests should certainly never be placed on a spiritual pedestal or elevated over and above the laity. No parts of the body should be elevated above the body itself (1 Corinthians 12). However, there has to be something unique and distinctive about priestly ministry. The concept of priesthood of all believers (1 Peter 2:5) reflects that all Christians share something of the role of Mystagogue, but to the priest this is more than a role or function. Through ordination, it becomes a way of being.

In a further article, in Seminary Journal, Barron tries also to forge a distinctive role for the laity, based upon Papal Encyclicals Lumen Gentium and Apostolicam Actuositatem. Lay people are regarded as subversive world-transfigurers. While the priest explores and proclaims the mysterious communion of Trinitarian love, the layperson brings the power of that communion to bear on their families, their social lives, and their workplaces. While there is much to commend in this image, Barron’s theology of lay ministry continues to be rather hierarchical and one-dimensional. Alongside a priesthood that is lived out in numerous ways, we must affirm countless different lay ministries, all of which are distinctive and important. This allows an organic complementarity between laity and priesthood, where no church ministry is elevated, but each and every call is recognized as unique and distinctive.

f) Bearer of mystery

In reality, there is no ideal model for which we can forge an ontology of priesthood. However, Barron’s model of the priest as bearer of mystery does provide us with a model that is both relevant to our times and rooted in the past. It also has the potential to inspire those who may feel the oars of priesthood have been lost on the shores of our rapidly changing culture. Furthermore, while Alan Billings notes that models of priesthood down the years have very much been defined and embraced by distinct church traditions, this model has the benefit of being accessible to all backgrounds and traditions.

Indeed, John Wesley once described himself as a preacher who set himself on fire and allowed people to watch him burn. This is at the root of this model of priesthood. The primary function of the priest, writes Barron, is not to preach, minister, or counsel. In fact, no function can define or confine priesthood. Rather, a priest is someone who is set on fire to the depths of their being by the mystery of God and then beckons others to draw near and be warmed or set alight by the flame.

Bibliography

Robert E. Barron, “The Priest as Bearer of the Mystery”, in The Furrow Vol. 46, No. 4 (April 1995), pp. 203-209

Robert E. Barron, “Mystagogues, World-Transformers, and Interpreters of Tongues: A Reflection on Collaborative Ministry in the Church”, in Seminary Journal (Summer 1994), pp. 10-13

Robert E. Barron, Bridging the Great Divide: Musings of a Post-Liberal, Post-Conservative Evangelical Catholic (Sheed and Ward,  London 2004)

Robert E. Barron, To Light a Fire on the Earth: Proclaiming the Gospel in a Secular Age (Image, New York 2017)

Alan Billings, Making God Possible – The Task of Ordained Ministry Present and Future (SPCK, London 2010)

Charles de Foucauld, Charles de Foucauld: Modern Spiritual Masters (ed. Robert Ellsberg; Orbis, Maryknoll 1999)

Michael Mayne, The Enduring Melody (DLT, London 2006)

John Pritchard, The Life and Work of a Priest (SPCK, London 2007)

R.S. Thomas, Collected Poems: 1945-1990 (Phoenix, London 2004)

Philip Yancey, What’s so Amazing about Grace (Zondervan, Grand Rapids 2002)

Philip Yancey, Rumours of Another World: What on Earth are We Missing? (Zondervan, Grand Rapids 2003)

“A Satsuma is not a Failed Orange”: Listening to God’s call

I live two varied and interesting lives. Don’t worry, this isn’t a confession of a secret life that I live. Rather, I’m referring to the fact that I have two ministries. On the one hand, I am blessed to be vicar of a wonderful church in a picturesque part of Cardiff (Roath Park), and, on the other hand, I have a role for the diocese of Llandaff – the diocesan director of ordinands. When I summarise that part of my job to those who aren’t Christian, I tell them that, in a nutshell, I help people work out whether God is calling them to be a vicar or whether God is calling them to something else, which will be different, but equally as important. Today is, therefore, an important day for me, as it is Vocation Sunday in our diocese – the day that we think about what being “called” actually means.

When I was a child, I loved the Old Testament story of little Samuel being called by God in the temple at night. In fact, I loved it so much that Little Trys used to lie awake at night, straining to hear his name being called out. Is God calling me, I would ask myself… and I would listen so very carefully. But every night I was disappointed – silence! Then, and this is completely true, one night I finally heard my name – ‘Trystan…’ I thought ‘surely not’. But then I heard it again ‘Trystan…’ I was scared about talking directly to God, but I was also excited, because I knew the answer to this – I’d heard the story of Samuel in Sunday School, so I said confidently the words he had been told to say when he heard God calling him: ‘speak, Lord, your servant is listening’. And, sure enough, the voice replied ‘good, Trystan, because I have such an important task for you… tomorrow you must go out and buy your wonderful older brother the most expensive birthday present you can find him!’ At that point I noticed the shadow of my brother outside my door. I was distraught! I was actually so disappointed that, at that point, I came to the conclusion that God would never call someone like me. He only calls ‘special’ people, I thought – great prophets, very holy people, good people, worthy people.

But, the reality is, of course, that, if we look in the Bible, God calls all sorts of people to do his work, from all sorts of backgrounds. So, being “called” is not about being ‘good’, ‘worthy’, or ‘holy’. God actually calls all of us, whoever we are and whatever we’ve done. After all, each and every one of us is a mixture of good and bad. I am the second of five children – my mum and dad kept trying until they got one they liked… (joke, mum!) When I was a child, my older brother was a good rugby player and a talented musician. I rather saw myself as the black sheep of my family, then my younger brother grew up and he was even more of a rebel than I was – and so, in my mind, he took over that mantle as the ‘black sheep’ and I was relegated to the ‘grey sheep’ of the family!

The reality is, though, that all of us are grey sheep. As the theologian Hans Kung put it, ‘a few of us are white sheep, a few of us are black sheep, but, let’s face it, most of us are zebras’. So, each of us also have a rebellious side, which can be selfish and self-centred, but each of us also have various God-given talents and gifts and He can use each of us for his purpose.  ‘Oh here in dust and dirt, O here; The lilies of his love appear’, wrote the seventeenth-century Welsh poet Henry Vaughan.

Despite our weaknesses, then, God calls each and every one of us. So, the question is not ‘is God calling you to do something?’ No, the question is ‘what is God calling you to do?’ So, on this Vocation Sunday, can I suggest that you think about two things:

Firstly, why not take time to think how you are being called to use your gifts and talents for God’s glory? Some of our talents are obvious to all (some of us are talented singers, skillful musicians, wonderful actors, or great cake-bakers), but, alongside from our obvious talents, we must also all search for, and work on, our less recognizable gifts (like the gift of being able to talk to people, the gift of smiling at people, the gift of being patient with people who you find to be particularly annoying, or the gift of just being aware when someone needs help or needs a kind word or two). None of these talents are any less important than the others. Someone once said to me that a ‘Satsuma is not a failed orange’! All talents are important and valuable and useful to God and He’s calling you to use your talents. So ask yourself this week – how are you being called to use your gifts and talents to bring light into people’s lives? ‘Oh here in dust and dirt, O here; The lilies of his love appear’.

But, secondly, can I urge you to consider, and pray for, those who are feeling called to ordained ministry. You yourself may be feeling called to offer yourself to explore being a priest, a pastor, a vicar. If so, pray about it and talk about it with someone who knows you well and to your parish priest. But, even if you don’t feel such a call, ask yourself one question: do you know anyone who you think would make a great vicar? If so, can I urge you to have a quiet word with him or her and to suggest to them that they might consider exploring such a ministry. What’s the worst that can happen? Yes, they could burst out laughing and say: “you must be joking!” But, on the other hand, your word to them might just be the one thing that makes them start exploring a ministry that is so varied, so wonderful, and so rewarding. ‘Oh here in dust and dirt, O here; The lilies of his love appear’.

And so I finish with the prayer that I put together for the diocese of Llandaff for this Vocation Sunday:

Loving God,

thank you for calling us at baptism to be your people

and for inviting each of us to serve you through the gift of our lives.

In response to your call we again say, “Yes.”

Keep us faithful to your mission and our vocation.

And, gracious Lord, we ask that you inspire more women and men

of faith and compassion to ministry, service, and leadership.

Fill them with your Spirit of wisdom and grace

to proclaim the Good News,

to bring peace and hope into their situations,

and to witness your presence among us.

May those who are already opening themselves to your call

be encouraged and strengthened

to take your love into our communities with joyful and hopeful hearts.

Through Jesus Christ, our Lord,

Amen.

(Parts of this blog post are taken from my book Real God in the Real World: Advent and Christmas Reflections on the Coming of Christ)

Women Bishops – This is Wales, calling the Church of England

To have contributed one vote towards yesterday’s historic “yes” vote for women bishops in the Church in Wales feels special. I was there five years ago when the Church in Wales rejected women bishops, and I saw the pain that so many were feeling at that time – many tears of sorrow and incredulity were cried. Yesterday, though, it was tears of joy that were flowing at the Church in Wales’s Governing Body. For someone like me, it was a happy and jubilant day, which had affirmed an important biblical principle – “there is neither Jew nor Gentile, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28). For many of my colleagues, though, it was the pinnacle of many tireless decades of praying and campaigning.

The debate yesterday was remarkably gracious – with both sides contributing with warmth and humility. Anglicanism, after all, has always been a broad Church, and we already have many different and contrasting voices within our theological and liturgical spectrum. Yesterday’s debate showed that we were no different to any other family – a motley crew of diverse folk held together, most of the time at least, by love and respect.

My own brief contribution to the debate seems a distant memory by now. However, a number of friends and colleagues have asked that I reproduce the words that I spoke from the podium. Below are therefore those words, reprinted in the knowledge that my friends and colleagues in the Church of England might be inspired by the fact that, at the moment that I spoke them, I truly believed that the Governing Body was going to vote “no” and that I was to return back home disheartened again. As it happened, the Bill went through effortlessly, with members of all shades of theology (evangelical, Catholic, traditionalist, liberal, charismatic) voting conclusively for women bishops:

“Yesterday, we heard about the rise in the number of children attending our churches. But once they hit their teens, it’s then they really start questioning. I coordinate a group called The Journey in the diocese of Llandaff, for 16 to 24-year-olds. A few months ago, we held an event called Grill-a-Bishop, and Bishop David Wilbourne came to be grilled by a group of over 30 young people. The question of women bishops was the very first issue they wanted to discuss. These young people came from different churches from across the diocese and hailed from a range of theological backgrounds, but all of them seemed to be of the same opinion – that NOW is the time for women bishops.”

“Listening to the discussions of these young people, it was clear that, yes, this is to do with theology, but it is also to do with the health of the Church, it is to do with affirming the ministry of all God’s people, and, with the nations cameras looking on, it is to do with the Church’s credibility in our society. I have no doubt whatsoever that voting against this Bill for women bishops will be extremely damaging to how the vast majority of young people view the Church in Wales – those young people who come to our churches, but also to those on the periphery and to those who do not attend.”

“As an outgoing chaplain at a large University and as coordinator of The Journey, I felt I had to try to say something about a group who aren’t represented here today. To the majority of teenagers and young people, continuing to say “no” to women bishops, especially as we already ordain women priests, is seen as nonsensical and backward. It is something an increasingly unbelieving age-group finds unbelievable.”

“And I personally find it unbelievable that I could be going back for this year’s Freshers Week at the University, for my last few weeks as chaplain there, to tell the students that we didn’t pass this Bill. It is certainly true that women bishops are not the answer to our problems as a Church, BUT it is also true that our problems will get a whole lot worse if we keep saying “no” to women bishops.”

Related articles

• Church in Wales votes to ordain women as bishops (walesonline.co.uk)
• Church in Wales votes to ordain women as bishops (christiantoday.com)
• Female bishops voted in by Church in Wales (theguardian.com)
• CofE left isolated as Wales votes to ordain women bishops (thetimes.co.uk)

“Get ready, I’m going to serve”: What has tennis got to do with ministry?

Last night I preached at the 40th anniversary of the ordination to priesthood of Canon John Rowlands, Rector of Whitchurch (Cardiff), Canon Chancellor to Llandaff Cathedral, and former Principal of St Michael’s Theological College, Llandaff. On his request, I have edited the sermon and include it here:

Four years ago I was appointed as chaplain of Cardiff University. As I was curate of John’s parish at the time, he called me to his office to congratulate me. He was especially excited about having a big leaving party and service for me here at St Mary’s, Whitchurch, and he suggested I should make it on a Sunday afternoon. He left it for me to arrange the rest. I decided on a date, sent out all the invitations, and then met him again to organise further details. When I told him the day it was to take place on, he opened his diary, flicked through the pages to July, and, to my surprise, the blood drained from his face. Now, I knew something was seriously wrong, because, due to John’s famous love of the sun, it is quite difficult for his face to turn white! When he could finally speak, he stammered: “but it’s the Wimbledon final!” Well, those of us who know John well will know he is a huge tennis fan, but when the colour finally came back to his cheeks, he very kindly said: “for you, Trystan, for my first time in decades, I will give up watching the Wimbledon final”. I felt truly affirmed and loved… and then he added “unless, of course, Andy Murray gets to the final, and then you’re by yourself!”

For the first time in my life, I ended up praying for the two weeks of Wimbledon that a British player would not get to the final. God kindly answered my prayer and Andy Murray was knocked out in the semis! As I was thinking about today’s gospel reading (Matthew 20:20-28), though, John’s love of tennis came to mind. The term “tennis” actually comes from the French word tenez (“hold on”), so it refers to the command “Hold on, I’m going to serve” or “Get ready, I’m going to serve”. The game actually has its roots in ancient Greece, but was then developed in medieval France, which explains much of the French terminology. Believe it or not, modern tennis was invented by a Welshman – Walter Wingfield, born in Ruabon, North Wales in the early nineteenth century – and the first ever proper game of tennis was played at a garden party in Nantclwyd Hall, Denbighshire. Interestingly, Wingfield and his friends used their servants to deliver the first ball of every point. So that’s how the tennis terms “serve” and “service” began to be used – because of the role of real servants.

Now, when I read about that, and reflected on John’s love of tennis, it got me thinking about today’s celebrations. “Get ready, I’m going to serve”. Forty years ago, John dedicated his life to Christ in a specific way when he was ordained to the priesthood. One year earlier, he had been ordained as a deacon. The word deacon, of course, is from the Greek word diakonos, meaning “servant”. In St David’s Cathedral that day, he therefore vowed to live a life of service – service to Christ and service to all of us. In other words, he was proclaiming to the world: “Get ready, I’m going to serve!”

When you are ordained priest, of course, you continue to be a deacon, so you continue to serve the people around you. You are not their boss or their better, but their servant. This is very different from the attitude of the rest of society, which sees promotion to leadership as something which slowly relieves you of menial tasks. I hate to admit that I avidly watch the TV show “The Apprentice” – my excuse is that it gives me material for sermons like this! In “The Apprentice”, almost all the contestants seem to have egos the size of small planets and Alan Sugar seems to be impressed if kindness, compassion, and selfless service are placed to one side in the pursuit of money, authority, and power.

From our reading today (Matthew 20:20-28), it’s clear that Jesus taught a very different, counter-cultural view of the world. He overturned the value structures of our world. James and John were arguing about esteem and honour – they wanted to sit next to Jesus, in positions of privilege and power. The other disciples probably wanted such honour and prestige themselves, which is why they were so angry at the request. Jesus answered that those who follow the Servant must become servants themselves.

Those of us who are ordained will sometimes fall into the trap of thinking that the most important thing is that we look talented and worthwhile to the outside world… that we are a good preacher, or we have had a good career, or appear on TV or radio often. But, in reality, congregations care about something far simpler… the foundations. Has my priest got a servant heart? My vicar was there for me when my loved one died, or my vicar good at affirming and encouraging me, or my vicar made me a cup of tea and gave me some time when I felt sad or lonely…

Servanthood is what ministry is all about – approaching everything and everyone with a servant heart, however big or however small the task. But, of course, ministry is not only about being ordained. Each and every one of us is called to ministry, and part of the servant role of a good priest is to recognise the skills and talents of others, and to nurture and encourage others to live lives of servanthood. How many of us down the years have been approached by our vicar or rector and encouraged to help in all sorts of ways? Jesus’ first action when he returned from the wilderness was to gather together an unlikely team. Likewise, down the years, as chaplain, principal, and rector, John has affirmed and encouraged so many of us here in our own ministries – whether we are priests, deacons, church wardens, PCC members, lay ministry members, cleaners, choir members, junior church leaders, servers, readers, flower arrangers, or musicians.

And I know for the fact that he appreciates what is brought to the church by each one of us. When I was curate here in the benefice, I got tired of hearing from John how brilliant his former curate Ben Andrews was. Then I left here and chatted to the present curate Pete Mortimer, and Pete let slip that he was tired of hearing how brilliant Trystan Owain Hughes was. And it was great to be able to reassure Pete that his successor, when that happens, will get tired of people telling him how brilliant Pete Mortimer was! And that goes the same for every other person who is involved in this benefice, lay or ordained, past or present.

This affirmation, this building up of individuals and encouraging them in their own lives, is what servant priesthood is all about and it should be an inspiration and encouragement to us all, whether we are priests or not. After all, we’re all called to servanthood. We don’t need to be great intellectuals, we don’t need to be eloquent speakers, we don’t need to be wealthy, we don’t need to be highly gifted or talented. All of us, whatever our backgrounds, have something to contribute to God’s Kingdom on earth. All of us are called to tennis – to “get ready, and go out and serve”.

So I’ll finish with some words from Martin Luther King, delivered in a sermon only two months before his death: ‘Everybody can be great, because everybody can serve. You don’t have to have a college degree to serve. You don’t have to make your subject and your verb agree to serve. You don’t have to know about Plato and Aristotle to serve. You don’t have to know Einstein’s theory of relativity to serve. You don’t have to know the second theory of thermodynamics in physics to serve. All you need is a heart full of grace and a soul generated by love’.

WebRep

currentVote

noRating

noWeight