The Deacon’s View

            Some of the following questions may have occurred to you:  What difference will it make to have a deacon at St. Paul’s? (At this stage, only God knows.)  Will it mean a lot of changes?  (There will be some, but not a lot; after a month of having a deacon, it will probably seem like “We’ve always done it this way.”) Will it mean doing a lot more outreach?  (Not necessarily.  Outreach has more to do with your decisions than mine.  My job, from time to time, may involve exposing a need in the community or larger world that you might want to consider.)  Well, then, what does a deacon do?  (Good question.  The deacon’s job is to be fully engaged in both the church and the world. In this dual role, the deacon reveals and articulates the church to the world, and the world to the church.  The deacon speaks of issues and raises questions that keep the church from growing complacent and indifferent to the needs of the world around us, and at the same time articulates our faith to a world that has grown indifferent to its deep need of God.)  Now if all this sounds like what a lot of lay people are already doing, Bingo!—you’ve got it!  Deacons model for the church what the church is all about, or needs to be all about.  In fact, many of you do it better than I do.  But I’m the one who went to school again, and got ordained, so I get to wear the sash! 

            Seriously, there is something else that deacons add to a congregation: suddenly your priest is no longer up in front alone.  The deacon somehow breaks into the liturgical image, and visually the congregation becomes more aware of the interplay of the four orders of ordination:  lay people, bishops, priests and deacons.  When it is just a priest and lay people, it is easy to lose sight of how essential each role/order is; but with a deacon present, the parts assigned to the deacon in the BCP— parts that up until now the priest has taken on—are done by someone who is neither a priest nor a lay person.  Deacons, because they work in both the church and the world, always bid, or invite, the prayers for “the church and the world.”  Deacons receive the people’s gifts of food, bread, wine and money, and then prepare them to feed both the church and the world.  At the end of the service, it is the deacon who dismisses the congregation, sending them back into the world to live, love and serve as the people of God.

            Think of it this way:  we are all involved in a wonderful ecclesiastical dance that looks a lot (at least to me) like a square dance, except that hopefully our liturgy is less frantic and our music more conducive to reflection than to sweating.  As in square dancing, liturgy invites everyone to join in.  And the steps keep changing in both.  Just when you finally get the hang of “do-see-do,” the caller shouts, “Swing your partner and give her a little twirl,” and you suddenly discover you have at least two left feet.  Even in good liturgy, mistakes happen, but hopefully, as in dancing, we can see the humor and grace in it.  Come on everyone, let’s all dance! 

Gay Blundell