The One Who Serves
The Rev. Canon Frank Logue preached this sermon at St. Matthew’s Episcopal Church in Savannah, Georgia, on January 13, 2018
The One Who Serves
An Ordination Sermon for Dewayne Cope, Arthur Jones, and Bunny Williams
Luke 22:24-27
Arthur, Bunny, and DeWayne, I owe it to the three of you to be clear at the outset: The church does not trust you to be priests. I don’t just mean St. Matthew’s Church or the congregation gathered this morning, the Diocese of Georgia or even the Episcopal Church. The Church with a capital C does not trust the three of you to be priests, at least, not yet.
Yes, you felt the Holy Spirit speaking to your hearts. Not only, did you feel called to the priesthood, but the Diocese of Georgia affirmed that call. We sent you off to get a seminary education and you have all done very well. But we don’t trust you to be priests. Not yet.
You are certainly three impressive individuals:
Dewayne, your home church here at St. Matthew’s has every right to be proud of you. They know your skill at preaching and your gifts for working with children and youth as do Episcopalians around this city from your work with the Savannah convocation youth group. Your experience working with the Teen-Age Parenthood Program and the Adult Education Program certainly help you bring important experience to this call.
Bunny, you too have a supportive church family at Good Shepherd, Augusta, who is pleased you have come to this day. They know you not just as fellow parishioner and friend, but as a leader through adult education and the parish life committee. Your work in nursing from the operating room to earning your doctorate and teaching a new generation of nurses provides a wealth of experience to draw from in ministry.
Arthur, you are an impressive man here with the support of both Christ the King Valdosta where you tested this possible call and Good Shepherd Thomasville where you strengthened that sense of call. And as someone ordained previously in the Baptist Church, the Pastor who knew you well at New Jerusalem Missionary Baptist Church supports your call to ministry as an Episcopal priest as do many others.
So it is not any particular concern about each of you, the Church just doesn’t trust anyone to be a priest who has not spent time living into serving others, particularly the poor, the weak, the sick, and the lonely. That is why centuries of practice among the many millions of Christians in not just our Anglican Communion, but also the Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Lutheran and other churches ordain a prospective priest as a deacon first.
We don’t intend this to diminish the Sacred Order of Deacons, but to show how vitally important servant ministry is to any Christian community. The Christian church found the need for the servant ministry of deacons very early. The Acts of the Apostles recounts the story of the first seven persons selected to serve as deacons. In time, the tradition developed to have those called to the priesthood to serve first as a deacon. This is now usually a time of six months to a year.
The work of real deacons is the work of a lifetime. You are, however, called to be what we sometimes refer to as “transitional deacons,” meaning that you will serve as a deacon during this time of further preparation for the priesthood.
This certainly is not just in line with church tradition, but also with the example of our Lord. Our Gospel reading for this day recounts a dispute arising among Jesus’ disciples as to which of them was to be regarded as the greatest. Jesus reminded them that they are not to look to the example of the world. He said, “Rather the greatest among you must become like the youngest, and the leader like one who serves.” Then he brought this home in saying, “I am among you as one who serves.”
Jesus turned the world upside with his ministry, showing how the least were the greatest and the last would be first. Jesus who valued the windows and orphans, the lost and the left out. Jesus touched untouchables, healed those not even welcome in the Temple courts because of their infirmity, and invited tax collectors and other notorious sinners to share a meal with him.
Jesus demonstrated powerfully that God does not look on outward appearance. Wealth and power account for nothing. God looks on the heart and will wash clean hearts that have become soiled by sin and shame.
This causes muscle relaxation in the viagra wholesale india penile region which mainly happens due to the strong functioning of the PDE5 enzymes. Kamagra tablets can benefit the male or viagra tablet in india the female or the couple who are in a relationship. So, now that you can buy viagra pill , you can really figure out the core reason why you are not familiar about them. So keeping the elbow bent for long periods or repeatedly bending the elbow can lead to painful symptoms, because female generic viagra this can irritate the nerve. 
Jesus came not to be served, but to serve. He taught us to love God and love our neighbors as ourselves and then lived it out with the boundless love he showed on the cross, offering forgiveness to those who were killing him. And so the church places service to others at the heart of who we are and how we are to live out our gratitude for what Jesus did for us. We know that we don’t earn our way to heaven with good works. Instead, salvation is a free gift. Serving others is just how we live into Christ’s example.
Because of the centrality of serving others, particularly the poor, the weak, the sick, and the lonely, the church ordains persons to the Sacred Order of Deacons who have not only the gifts to serve others, but the ability to be icons of this servant ministry. And we simply do not trust people to become a priest until they have spent time in this servant ministry.
Now certainly, each of you has shown great capacity to love others. You have each had your hearts broken by this world and so know that while there are all kinds of hurts, there is only one source of healing, and that is found in Jesus.
Arthur, in being betrayed painfully by a friend in high school, then dealing with divorce, you know the hurts we cause one another. Through your son AJ, you know the joy of being a parent along with its challenges. You stretched yourself further in your time at Sewanee and through your Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE), you worked out of St. Luke’s in Atlanta, an Episcopal church that specializes in serving those in need. You excelled at working with persons who are homeless, mentally ill, suffering from addictions and seeking to make a change. You returned to Thomasville this past summer to run Camp Hope, the summer program of Oak Street Episcopal Mission.
DeWayne, you have been blessed beyond all deserving by your wife, LaKeshia and the two of you have been blessed with your daughter Zariyah and your son, DJ. But you too have known great sorrow. I recall some years back when your best friend, Mike, died at far too young an age, it was a terrible blow. For nearly two decades, you depended on one another. His death tested you. You too pushed yourself in CPE working at the Hebrew Home. Your quick wit served you well as you learned the gift of really listening to others, being with them in their pain.
Bunny, when a degenerative neurological disease slowly robbed your husband Pat of his abilities reducing the father of your two sons to childlike dependency, you found the strength to carry on. Trying beyond words for you and your boys, Simon and Leverett, yet even as this tested your faith, you found God could take your anger and looking back you can find that the Holy Spirit never abandoned you. Beyond this, having experienced compassion, patience, tolerance, graciousness, love, and forgiveness from others during the years of this trial, you learned how you can offer the same to those in need.
That Christ-like love you each of experienced through other people when you have faced pain and loss is what we are asking you to give. As a deacon is to represent Christ and his Church, particularly as a servant of those in need.
While this period of serving as a deacon is only for a time, please know that the Church is not playing around in ordaining you as deacons. We expect you to find ways to live into this unique call. You will take on the roles of a deacon in the liturgy, proclaiming the Gospel, bidding the prayers of the people and the confession, as well as sending the congregation out to love and serve the Lord. These roles of the deacon within the liturgy are only intelligible as the signs they are meant to be if you are also serving those who would otherwise be lost and left out.
I faced this same challenge when I served as a transitional deacon while still in seminary and I found a way to work at Washington DC’s Central Union Mission with a new Alpha class they were starting. You will find your own way. But be sure to live into serving others, as we don’t trust you to become a priest until we have seen you living out Christ’s love in this way.
But for the rest of the congregation, you do know, of course, that we are not ordaining professional Christians who will serve so the rest of the Body of Christ doesn’t have to do so. Every baptized Christian has gifts for ministry and is to use those gifts, especially in being a real estate agent, an attorney, and salesperson, or a full-time parent to the Glory of God.
Bishops, priests, and deacons do have specific calls to which they are ordained. The Bishop has the ministry of oversight as apostle, chief priest, and pastor of a diocese, contributing to the health and well being of the Body of Christ and showing the way through her or his life and ministry. Priests then equip the people for ministry through administering the sacraments, blessing, declaring pardon in the name of God, and encouraging the congregation by word and deed. The deacons then function as icons of the servant ministry we all share as Christians.
The Good News is that this life of joyful service is not something for Arthur, Bunny, and DeWayne alone. The challenge and joy of seeing the face of Christ in the face of everyone you meet is for us all.
Truth be told, we don’t just withhold trusting these three ordinands to become priest until they have served as deacons. Most people don’t trust anyone who says they are a Christian any more than anyone else until they see the person actually living out their faith.
After all, lots of us say we love Jesus. The people who know us just don’t trust the faith we proclaim matters unless they see us at least trying to live it out, especially in being with those in need. The best news of all is that this is not something you do, but something Christ does through you. It’s not about earning or deserving anything, but discovering more about the love of God as we pass it on to those who need it. Far from a gift we give to someone else, a life of service is of greatest benefit to the giver. And Arthur, Bunny, and DeWayne, if you will live into this time of serving others as a deacon, within the year, we will ordained you to the priesthood. Trust me.
Amen.
