Ordaining To Deaconat

Bristol

8 April 1990

In the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.

I will first say a few words to the newly ordained Tony and David, and then, in the Russian language a few words also to those Slavs for whom English is the language of the mind, but is perhaps not as completely the language of the heart.

For number of years Tony has been the reader and the choirmaster of this church. And today, the Church has recognised his service, not as a reward, but including him more deeply into the mystery of the Church's life and existence. Because apart from reading the words of the Old Testament, singing the services of the Church he has now a function which he will not actually fulfil habitually but which is essential to his calling. At the Great Entrance, as well as at the Small Entrance with the Gospel, the reader receives the Holy Things carrying a taper; and in so doing he represents Saint John the Baptist proclaiming to us that God’s own light has come into the world, and that even if the world does not recognise it, it cannot put it out.

But it is not only in the symbol of the candle that the reader is an image of the Forerunner; you remember, in the beginning of the Gospel of Saint Mark how we are told that John the Baptist was the voice of God shouting in the wilderness: the Voice. And this is what the Reader is: a voice that proclaims God's truth, proclaims the wonders of God performed in the course of thousands of years for the salvation of the world. So, whether he carries the candle, whether he proclaims the word, he is the Forerunner; because what he reads is meant to make the way of the Lord straight, the path(s) that were rough – smooth for God to come freely into the mind, the heart, and the life of those who will listen with openness and devotion.

We have also ordained today David to the deaconate; there is a passage in Saint Paul in which the Apostle says to the Christians: Make haste to do good, because time is traitorous (?); make haste to do good... But what is the good that we must make haste to perform? We have it clearly in a small, in a short sentence of Christ: that we are commanded above all, and in that the whole Gospel hangs, to love God with all our heart, all our mind, all our self, and our neighbour as ourselves.

To love ourselves does not mean to be selfish, it does not mean to want to possess what others could possess if we did not s n a t c h it out of their grasp; to love oneself means to look d e e p l y into one's own soul and to see in it the image of the Lord God, to see ourselves as God has dreamt and willed us, and to revere this image, to love this image to the point of giving away e v e r y t h i n g which is contrary to this image, everything which disfigures and desacrates it: this is the love of self.

And this is the love also which we must turn to our neighbour: look at every one and see in him not the appearances of frailty, imperfection, sin or even evil, but deeper than all this, hidden by the darkness that catches the eyes – the beauty of the image of God s t i l l imprinted in a human soul. And if we love ourselves truly and courageously, with determination, in a stern manner fight for God’s image to shine in us, so should we turn to our neighbour; but not with sterness – with determination, indeed! – but compassion(ate), and love, and care.

The Apostles chose seven men to be deacons, to be servants in the Church – not in a humiliating manner, but to serve as Christ had come to be a Servant of salvation. They chose them because they trusted that they could, they had it in themselves to renounce themselves in order to love their neighbour as God loves each of us, to love their neighbour with all their strength, and all their understanding and all the compassion and mercy alive in their heart. They said to them that they put them in charge of the ministry of compassion and of love; that theirs was the function of being those through whom the love of God in the concretest sense of food, of clothing, of warmth, of visitation could reach the Christians who needed it.

And in that, they repeated as it were, in action what Christ had told us in the Parable of the Last Judgement when He said that the Judgement will be not on our convictions, not on our theological views, but only on our h u m a n i t y! Have you been truly human? Have you given food to the hungry? Have you clothed those who were without clothes? Have you given a roof to those who were homeless? Have you visited the sick, even if you were afraid of sickness? Have you overcome your shame of being acquainted to a criminal in prison to visit him? – that was the ministry of love, of compassion which Christ took as a measure of true humanity, and which the Apostles appointed to the deacons.

And therefore, your Deacon will continue to be your Churchwarden, because it is one of his functions to be the minister of the Church's charity, compassion, love.

But the Apostles also had said that they needs deacons in order to be free to pray without hindrance, and to preach the word of God; and this is another function that is that of the deacon: to be the protector, the sustainer of the priest’s prayer; in the Sanctuary he will stand by the priest, and make it possible for him to pray without distraction, to pray without any concern of things material, to stand before God bringing forth the prayers of the Church. As a deacon David will bring forth to God the prayers of the Saints, calling all of you, the community gathered here, to identify with these prayers, to lift your heart, to follow the (lofty) movement of the prayers of the Saints Godwards. And in that time, the priest will stand in the sanctuary praying for the grace of God to descend upon the Holy Gifts and the people assembled, together fulfilling a mystery in which the total Church is active, but which is represented by the action of the Deacon whom you send to the Sanctuary to represent you: a layman in the Realm of God, and the priest...

We must pray, and we shall, that the grace of God should remain upon Tony, upon David, making them grow ever more, renounce themselves ever more perfectly, become more and more transparent to the grace of God, more and more supple in His hands, to be God’s word, God's action, God’s presence and God’s charity in your midst. Support them with all your care, all your attention, and so, carrying one another’s burdens, you w i l l fulfil together the law of Christ.