Press Releases21 May 09

Bishop Michael Jackson's Paper on Diaconal Ministry, Porvoo Conference

'Diaconal ministry: Liturgy and the liturgy after the liturgy.
The interrelatedness of the service of the poor and the service at the table.'

Paper given at The Porvoo Conference on Diaconal Ministry, April 27-30, 2009 OSLO

INTRODUCTION

Contemporary expressions of ministry within the church of God are not, nor can they ever be, an end in themselves. They are always oriented on the world, which is God’s primary earthly creation. The doctrinal definitions of the early church, through the period of what is referred to as the Arian Controversy, when the emphasis doctrinally was on the person of God the Son, and the subsequent semi-Arian Controversy, when the emphasis was on the person of God the Spirit, re-drew boundaries and overlaps in an authoritative way. The result was that – using the conventional, though not uncontroversial, designations within the Trinity – Son and Spirit ontologically are with Father as themselves being God. They are not created. This is where we stand theologically every time we say the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed of 381, whether we really think about it or not.
 
I say this in order to set in context my conviction that contemporary expressions of ministry are from God through the church to the world. In this way, the energy which they carry and which conventionally we call spiritual, but which I should prefer to call divine, when it is expressed in ordained ministry, reflects and refracts all three Persons of the Trinity. It also carries on and carries through missio dei, the sending of Son by Father, in missio ecclesiae as missio mundi. To my mind, this positioning is essential for any discussion of the relationship of diaconal ministry to any thing else in church or world.

A LITTLE HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

What is in many ways fascinating is the tenacity of diaconate in the churches which have come out of the ReformationS The New Testament and post-New Testament evidences are well known. The range of potential works envisaged for deacons in the Early Church period include: service of the poor and distribution of alms in conjunction with and as assistants to the bishop. By the time of the Letters of Ignatius, deacons appear ranked third in relation to bishops and presbyters. Herein, I suggest, lies the genesis of our problem! Regarding their roles in the liturgy inside the church, the following feature early: reading or chanting the Epistle and Gospel; receiving the offerings and inscribing the names of donors in the diptychs of those for whom special prayers are made; assisting the bishop in distributing the consecrated elements or distributing them themselves; directing the prayers of the laity during the service; giving the signal for catechumens to leave before the Eucharistic Prayer. It is in recognition of the long-accepted primary diaconal function of collecting and distributing alms that there is considerable position given to the archdeacon, the primary deacon of a particular place, who became the bishop’s principal administrative officer. In Calvin’s Institutes 4.3.9 there is mention of two classes of deacons, those who administer the alms and those who care for the poor and sick. This still holds officially in Presbyterianism and there is provision further for a Deacons’ Court which is responsible to the presbytery for the proper distribution of church goods. In Baptist and Congregational Churches, deacons assist the pastor and distribute the elements at Holy Communion.

One of the most interesting functions of deaconesses as such in the Early Church was to assist at the baptism of adult women when, for reasons of decency and modesty, such ceremonies could not readily be performed by (male) deacons. Appended to the Porvoo Common Statement is a description of the work of a deacon in the Lutheran tradition, with which again we are all familiar. See, for example, what Stephen Platten and John Halliburton helpfully have to say: ‘Unlike the traditional Anglican way, which has set the deacon alongside the priest in the liturgy and in the parish in preparation for ordination to the priesthood, the Nordic churches have preserved a strong tradition of a special ministry whose first task is to respond to social need but which is also closely associated with the parish, an association symbolized by the deacon’s taking part in the liturgy.’ I would add simply that this role is not uniformly understood in the same way in each Nordic Church but the point still holds.

THE ONE MINISTRY OF JESUS CHRIST – SOME IMPLICATIONS

As most people present will be aware, diaconal ministry in the Anglican tradition fits within a pattern of understanding ministry as being one, that is the one ministry of Jesus Christ, with three ordained expressions: deacon, priest or presbyter and bishop. In this regard, we run in parallel with another contemporary manifestation of the Western tradition, the Roman Catholic Church. The diaconate, regrettably, has become like a lone figure waiting for the last bus home. If you whittle everything away and think in a reductionist mode, the only thing which is absolutely distinctive for a deacon to ‘do,’ in the popular mind, is to marry in the absence of a priest. (In fact when I was a deacon, my incumbent who was a kind person organized a wedding to happen during his holidays so I could gain the experience of  preparing a couple for marriage and conducting the wedding legally.) If this sounds very stark, I say this because in extremis anyone may baptize in the name of the Trinity. In Britain and Ireland, social services have largely been taken over by local government. In Ireland the density of clerical abuse of minors along with the negative secularization of society has deepened hostility to ordained ministry per se. More generally and in popular parlance, the deacon is the official ecclesiastical starting point of what people generally call: the ministry and also the point below which the laity exercize what we call: a ministry. These spatial terms – above, below – are most problematic in that they create what today we call glass ceilings and glass floors. They are doubly frustrating because you can see what is going on somewhere else but, as nobody hears you or wants you to join them, you cannot actually do what they are doing. It is all the more problematic in that the ordained can continue to do what lay people do, but things cannot be done the other way round.

Increasingly, this causes untold confusion in terms of mutual accountability and responsibility in what is nonetheless agreed to be one ministry of Jesus Christ who, mercifully, can walk through glass floors and glass ceilings! The crisis has further been heightened by: (a) the pressure from parts of the Anglican Communion to authorize and implement lay presidency at the eucharist and, if I may go further and put it like this, to de-sacralize holy orders; (b) the development and enrichment in the Anglican Communion of Lay Readership, now one hundred years old, in itself a very good thing, but today existing alongside a diaconate which is thought of in a somewhat stagnant way as an apprenticeship to be gone through before you get to do ‘the real thing.’ (c) a widespread failure to differentiate between specific order of ministry and promotion within a career-choice; for Anglican clergy, particularly in small Provinces where competition, often unvoiced, is fierce and peer pressure (along with the more invisible but often even more competitive sibling pressure) intense, there are daily problems of the pressure-cooker variety. I have yet to see, in my own church, any plan of action to enable an ordained person to have a fulfilling and generous ministry of service and leadership, with diversity of task and location built into it, as something to be celebrated and owned publicly. We are still, in the worst-case scenario, left with a once-for-all vocation without a developmental structure. Further to confuse things, the archdeacon remains but does so as the most senior administrative priest or presbyter in the diocese. Even this powerful and once independent figure has been hoovered up into ‘the system.’

BACKGROUND

Pivotal in our understanding the evolving contemporary Anglican position on the diaconate and the relationship between the liturgy in church and the liturgy in the world particularly in service of the poor is the Church of England document: The Mission and Ministry of the Whole Church, Biblical, Theological and Contemporary Perspectives, GS Misc 854, 2007. This paper outlines in detail a number of developments which lead to a fresh exploration, and I hope a fresh expression, of diaconal ministry set in the context of the theology which I have sketched above, that of there being but one ministry. The first consideration is that diaconate has always been changing, right from patristic times, in order to be locally appropriate. In immediately post-New Testament times, the local eucharistic community is presupposed as ‘the thing,’ with bishop as leader of the community and a college of presbyters and deacons assisting in his tasks BUT with a special link between bishop and deacon, structurally and missionally. The geographical widening of episcopal areas shattered these profoundly local assumptions; and presbyters became leaders of the more strictly local eucharistic community; and deacons, as assistants to the bishop in a particular structural way, received responsibilities in the larger geographical area of episcope. Interestingly, therefore, at this stage deacons under authority have the same territory as do bishops and are unlike presbyters. During the Middle Ages, the pressure to serve the requirements of the church as an institution with voracious direct sacramental needs became dominant and presbyteral or priestly ministry served those needs.

The shift which had already taken place towards a parochial system, with a priest to all intents and purposes in charge and the emphasis within the church on celebration of the eucharist, confession and absolution, blessing of people and objects, forced the understanding of the priest as ‘the thing’ locally. The deacon could not, after all, hear confession and give absolution. In this way the priesthood became the ‘anchor’ ministry of the church. Even so, fluidity of movement was possible. Deacons could be nominated to bishoprics, receiving priestly ordination immediately prior to episcopal consecration. Real also was a broad range of authorized ministries, including those of bishop, priest, deacon, reader, exorcist, acolyte, parish clerk. The Reformation Movement brought, among other things, the thirst for a purer Christianity derivative of the New Testament and, to an extent, the Fathers of the Early Church. (The irony, of course, is that it is today’s self-styled Evangelical churches which claim to be the contemporary standard-bearers of a full-bodied Reformation Christianity within Anglicanism have a plethora of what they call: ministries. In my opinion these have become almost irretrievably mixed up with the Pauline catalogues of spiritual gifts in the New Testament and they are, generally, more locally than centrally owned and commissioned. This brings with it, ultimately, a problem about catholicity of ministry.)

Through the ideological process of Reformation, only bishop, priest or presbyter and deacon – with unresolved debate as to whether Thomas Cranmer envisaged a separate ordination to episcopate - remained; the rule of celibacy was abolished. Catholic continuity was retained in ‘the three orders of ministry.’ But along with this ‘soft doctrine’ of the Reformation, there is a ‘hard doctrine’ of the Reformation in which it was argued that bishops are not Scriptural. The episcopate was effectively abolished in England between 1646 but restored in 1660 because no agreed alternative to it emerged. The crisis has been intensified by the contemporary currency of the term: ‘Christian leader,’ a title and role granted more often as a result of local authorization than by official appointment. Apart from eucharistic celebration, baptism and marriage - so far - such a category of person, in a wide range of parishes, can and does fulfil with competence almost any other role. This too puts the squeeze on any distinctive diaconate as lay ministry flourishes and expands.

One more factor needs to be remembered. We speak of transitional diaconate. I should rather that we speak of progressive diaconate, as no ordained Anglican ever ceases to be a deacon. The diaconate in the Anglican tradition is now, without any real explanation, referred to as an apprenticeship. But, apprenticeship to what? It is by and large an apprenticeship to what we call: incumbency, having sole authority under the bishop in a parochial area, and by virtue of a licence from her or him. It is a residential apprenticeship and in many respects is little more than the legacy of a vigorous diocesan revival in early and mid-nineteenth century England and Ireland. In significant respects, this legacy is now crippling the development of ministry and church life. The nineteenth century idea created a rather romantic notion that the whole country is made up of a jigsaw of parishes, with consistent, comprehensive Christian care and worship provided through a resident priest. This person was supposed to be able to do everything and to know everything. Ironically such a model came to fruition as widespread illiteracy was dying out and, so, has been challenged from the start. I would not be the first or the last to say that this model is now largely unworkable, unnecessary and uneschatological.                       

WHAT MIGHT A DEACON BE AND DO?
           
One of the significant strengths of the Porvoo Agreement lies in its confident assertion in the Common Statement that the church is apostolic as a whole. Within such apostolicity, so defined, stand the apostolic ministry, succession in episcopal office and succession as sign of and towards the apostolicity which is bigger than it itself is. Paragraph 37 grounds all our thinking thus: ‘The church receives its mission and the power to fulfil this mission as a gift of the risen Christ. The church is thus apostolic as a whole.’ Paragraph 38 deepens this in a way which makes the connections with great clarity: ‘The whole church, and every member, participates in and contributes to the communication of the gospel, by their faithful expression and embodiment of the permanent characteristics of the church of the apostles in a given time and place.’ The Porvoo Common Statement is also clear about ordained ministry, as expressed in paragraph 41: ‘The setting aside of a person to a lifelong ordained office by prayer, invocation of the Holy Spirit and the laying on of hands reminds the church that it receives its mission from Christ himself and expresses the church’s firm intention to live in fidelity to and gratitude for that commission and gift. The different tasks of the one ministry find expression in its structuring.’

With such background, I am forced to ask the following question: Within such a dynamic agreed understanding of the nature of the church and of the role of the ordained ministry, is there nothing that can be done within the Anglican part of the Porvoo family to re-think even the diaconate we have in a way which is imaginative and addresses the question relating to liturgy and liturgy after the liturgy in the title allocated to me for this paper? As a subsection of that question I ask: With the expectation of Porvoo, and the Early Church to back it up, that episcopacy has a pivotal role in opening up new expressions of ministry within the apostolic church, is there not scope for more imaginative co-ordination of service and leadership in the diaconate when used in conjunction with the strong structural link which our traditions have between episcopacy and diaconate? The first thing I would have to say is that, historically or chronologically, it seems that the liturgy after the liturgy in fact probably preceded the liturgy as we now know it inside the churches. Hence the supervision of alms and service of the poor – along with the ambassadorial and plenipotentiary roles discerned by JN Collins within the New Testament material, if such an interpretation is indeed taken as authoritative - precedes the ‘liturgical domestication’ of the deacon within the worship in church. It is always a danger to see what is done in church as constituting all that the church has to be or do in order to be the church of God.

WHAT IS MEANT BY SERVICE?

In this regard, we need to look at the primary meaning of service. Much, in my opinion too much, of the practical ministry of service of the church concerns the maintenance of insiders. It is as if we have lost our confidence in an entitlement to be a pro-active part of a world which has done its best of recent times to make us seem foolish and ‘incredible’ in its own terms, but which is now itself crumbling as a construct of economics tout seul. The danger is that all of this could well push us as churches further inward. In fact, there are signs that this is how many churches are reacting in relation to supporting mission initiatives abroad in a deepening Credit Crunch. Furthermore, most clergy are not likely to be out of work, so our credibility as people under pressure in a Credit Crunch is diminished. The title of this paper firmly nails the dilemma in a hard question: Is the strictly-liturgical definition of a deacon in fact unconnected with life? Is there, therefore, an irresponsibility at the heart of not connecting worship with practice?

To my mind, part of the key is combining the broad reach of the Ordinals (Services of Ordination) with the insights of JN Collins’ study of diakonia in NT and Classical usage. I am impressed by the work of Collins particularly by the way in which it restores to the diaconate per se a genuine sense of authority by emphasizing the roles of ambassador and plenipotentiary to the word-group from which we derive our rather shrivelled understanding of diaconate in the Anglican tradition. I am less impressed by any sense that the idea of service is to be diminished in the understanding of diaconate. I say this for two reasons. The first is that Mark 10:45, the classic Biblical expression of service, when integrated with Philippians 2:5-11, is something which connects and combines the ordained with the lay in discipleship. The ordained are prone to forget that they remain disciples and ought to rejoice in that; the glass ceiling is rather attractive at times. The second is that ecclesiastical history is not without a good number of occasions on which deacons had to be reined in for overstepping their brief, as early as the Council of Nicaea, Canon 18. I disagree with the idea that to emphasize the aspect of service as a defining aspect of diaconate is of itself to make diaconate an abject ministry of the hard-done-by. To my surprize, I see this type of guilt-complex mentality creeping into a paper I read on the Swedish diaconate: ‘It seems reasonable to expect that this will be the focus of future debates, since exactly this concentration on the charitable task of the deacon has been shown not to be in accordance with the New Testament and the Early Church’ and the footnote, predictably, refers to the work of Collins. It is as if a whole tradition has been invalidated overnight by the insights of one scholar. (The quotation is from: The Ministry of the Deacon 1. Anglican-Lutheran Perspectives, page 137.) I agree totally, however, with the creative and constructive recognition of the authority of the diaconate as well as the capacity given to the bishop to wrest the deacon from the clutches of the presbyteral and parochializing system. The churches generally have capitulated to the idea that the parish is the only ecclesiastical show in town.

THE DEACON AND THE SECULAR

The deacon, furthermore, in a very real way, must not be frightened of the secular. The deacon can, and ought to, make the connections both ways between church and world and world and church. The deacon is not a custodian, as is the presbyter or priest, of holy things but their vehicle. The deacon is not burdened by the whole nexus of sin, confession and absolution in a structurally mechanical way but has, by authority of the church, the same missional territory as does a bishop but with different responsibilities. Within the ordained manifestation of ministry, the deacon can, therefore, be an authoritative, challenging link between church and world. The same essay on the diaconate in the Church of Sweden says something of vital importance as follows: ‘As is probably the case for all other traditions which have been dependent on nineteenth century German theology, the way forward for the diaconate in Sweden is a way towards a diaconate which is given its main task, building up and equipping the church, so that it can become what it is: the sacrament of Christ to the world.’ (ibid.)

Aside from my own wishing that the diaconate be re-envisaged, re-envisioned, re-configured today, such an aspiration seems to me to be authorized by the definition of church as apostolic and of ministry as apostolic within the overall definition of apostolicity as expressed in the Porvoo Common Statement. As well as recognizing as a fact of ecclesiastical life that the contributions of individual members of this church have integrity and worth, is it possible also to envision afresh the Anglican diaconate to orient it on the future needs of church life as they are emerging? Many now recoil at phrases such as: fresh expressions of (the) church and pioneer ministries. Like numerous good ideas, they are already beginning to suffer from living in that dreaded and dangerous no-man’s land between original conception and general authorization. They are also beginning to mean whatever individual people want them to mean and to bear insufficient relationship either to connections or to contexts. But it is essential to work through the problem, and not to recoil from the concepts and the urgent need to which they give voice of missional activity in a Northern Hemisphere world where the majority of people live in a post-ecclesiastically-conscious world and increasingly in an Inter Faith milieu. I say this particularly in light of the statement of the co-chairmen prefaced to the Porvoo Common Statement: ‘The time was ripe to move close together and to implement a practical agreement which would be relevant to laity and clergy alike in carrying out our common mission.’

The deacon stands in need of confession and absolution as does any Christian disciple. In the specific ministry of deacon, however, the person exercising that ministry need not become unduly and excessively embroiled in the moral side of ministry. Historically, the priest is equipped by the Holy Spirit of God in the church for such reconciling work, as also for deliverance ministry, for example. ‘Moral correctitude’ has moved high up the agenda of many Anglican clergy in the last decade in particular. It has become confused with Evangelical witness. Strictly speaking, the deacon is primarily Evangelical by virtue of being rooted in The Gospel and she/he can point the church, through her/his un-judgemental ministry of Christ-like love, into a fresh expression of the Evangelical in the contemporary world. The deacon can point the church towards taking good risks for God among neighbours whose need is of the unconditional love of God. Courageous diaconate can make life-giving changes rooted in creative episcopal permissioning.

THE PREFERENTIAL OPTION FOR THE POOR

The preferential option for the poor is part of the mainstream of the mission of the church. It has been well said that the notion of the visibility of the poor is something with which public liturgy needs to contend and engage publicly. Biblically, Isaiah chapter 61 is pivotal for St Luke’s articulation of the beginning and bedrock of the ministry of Jesus in Nazareth; as the one sent by the Father. To the incarnate Son, the poor are at the heart of his mission. As we are vividly reminded on Ash Wednesday by St Matthew chapter 6, alms, prayer and fasting are not, in any way, an invention of Christianity but link us firmly with Judaism for all time. Again, fair re-distribution according to need lies at the heart of the active outworking of preaching and baptism in Acts chapter 2. What is also clear and important is that the breaking of bread happened in the homes (verse 46) and was combined in some way with the sharing of meals. In this way community, eucharist and fellowship reflected the work of the Spirit in the transformation through mission. Acts chapter 6 speaks directly of the seven deacons being appointed to serve tables.

If we care to live ecumenically, we can see important threads coming through both from Pope Benedict xvi and from the Second Vatican Council. Pope Benedict picks up the clear picture of Jesus’ going and being sent and the public actions of service to the poor - all very apostolic - in his General Address of December 18th 2008. Among Vatican 2 documents, Ad gentes 18, in addressing of the need to restore the order of the diaconate, speaks as follows: ‘It is only right to strengthen them by the imposition of hands which has come down from the Apostles, and to bind them more closely to the altar, that they may carry out their ministry more effectively because of the sacramental grace of the diaconate.’ Personally, I have difficulty with the latter because this seems to be precisely what has already happened, with a resultant diminution of the scope of diaconate. Further, I am not convinced that it fits easily with the recognition which we have in the Anglican-Lutheran traditions, now voiced in Porvoo but not confined to Porvoo, that is: the recognition of the deep and wide richness of genuinely lay ministry in our understanding of the apostolicity of all ministry.

THE ORDINAL(S)

There is plenty of scope within an overview of both the Ordinal and the Service of Holy Communion in my own part of the Anglican tradition, that is the Church of Ireland, for implementing the new vision of Collins and others for a revivified diaconate. We have two Orders of Service for the Making or Ordination of Deacons and they have radically different emphases. Ordination Service Two is the norm in terms of usage but, doctrinally, Ordination Service One remains ‘live.’ Ordination Service One, affectionately though erroneously known as 1662, refers in the Collect to ‘thy servants now called to the like (like the first martyr St Stephen and others) office and administration …’ This is a phrase reiterated in the question which the bishop asks of the deacon immediately before ordination: ‘Do you think you are truly called to this Office and Ministration …?’ Appropriately, a two-part ministry is envisaged, that of assisting the priest in church and the following: ‘… it is his/her office, where provision is so made, to search for the sick, the poor, and impotent people of the parish, to intimate their estates, names, and places where they dwell, unto the curate, that by his/her exhortation they may be relieved by the alms of the parishioners, or others.’ Not only, therefore, is the office that of the deacon but the exhortation to the curate of the parish is also. This is a significance often glossed over - in fact, now completely archived - as this Service is so rarely used. The implication is that the deacon knows what he/she is talking about and it is for the curate, that is the priest of the parish, to listen and act in a way that hurts any parochial community – by making funds available to those who not necessarily ‘paying members.’

Residency itself, however humble, modest, squalid or luxurious, within the parochial boundaries is sufficient qualification to be a recipient of God’s grace through the church. This is a radical message and preference for the poor. Nor must we ever forget the sacramental power of preaching which is given to the deacon also ‘if he/she be admitted to it by the bishop.’ It must further be remembered that only after this, the most extensive of the questions, is the Gospel read, and by a deacon literally rising from a position of kneeling to articulate the Gospel coram populo. And the Gospel itself is worth hearing: St Luke 12:35-38. It has nothing of the plodding worthiness, the accumulation of ecclesiastical air-miles, which we have come to associate with ordained ministry. It tells the story of a master who returns from a jolly good wedding-party. He rejoices to find servants who are: awake, alert and true to what he has asked of them. In the spirit both of Maundy Thursday and the ancient Roman Saturnalia, he turns the tables; he girds his loins as he found his servants with loins girded; and with a tremendous breach of protocol dares to serve those who were ready to serve him in the second or the third watch of the night. This is not abject servile servanthood but transformative and, if I dare say it like this, a fresh expression of the master. Significantly in the same tradition of Ordinal, priesthood is not described as an administration or as a ministration. But, in relation to the rapport between master and faithful servants, roles are reversible. For these deacons in the Gospel as used in Ordination Service One at least what lies before them is a jolly good party! Joy and action characterize diaconate in a liturgy which many people now choose to see as no more than old-fashioned and incomprehensible.

Ordination Service Two has an entirely different feel. From the outset it is, to my mind, much more concerned to teach the ministry of the body, particularly as expounded in Romans 12 from which is derived the opening sentence Romans 12:5,6 and the Epistle Romans 12:1-12. The emphasis is on variety of gifts and ministries of God. The people gathered are told that they have come together ‘to admit to the order of deacons those whom we believe God has chosen for this particular ministry within the body …’ There remains, nonetheless, a twin emphasis on the office and work of the deacon. The Collect concerns not this office and work of the deacon but asks more comprehensively that God will hear our prayer for his faithful people ‘that in their vocation and ministry they may be instruments of your love’ and to ‘give to these your servants now to be ordained the needful gifts of grace …’ The introduction to the Declarations is in four parts: (1) that deacons remind the church that service in the name of Christ is at the heart of all ministry; (2) that deacons have a special responsibility for social services; (3) that deacons may do a range of things in church; (4) that deacons assist the bishop and priest under whom they serve.  Perhaps the Scriptural Readings reflect more the psychology of the age of liturgical revision which made its way like a Mexican Wave around the Anglican Communion some twenty or thirty years ago and it is as I described it above. To me it now seems tremendously limited in the broad scope of its imagination and I will explain why. There is nothing distinctive about the work of an ordained deacon but the Scriptural readings take the following progression: Isaiah 6 – with an emphasis on sending but also on: me; Romans 12 - the body; Mark 10 – servanthood.

I accept and obey the instruction that all Scripture is suitable for instruction and worth preaching about, but I see too little dynamism in this amalgam of Readings for a mission of ministry today. The Ordination Prayer is a conflation of Mark 10 and Philippians 2. Most alarming perhaps of all in our perspective, from this point on, the office and administration of social services disappears completely from the Ordination Service! The Preface in the Prayer of Thanksgiving again is derivative of Mark 10:45. All of this seems to me to be properly Christological, but more concerned to consolidate a cast of mind than it is imaginative or indeed eschatological for a person or a community. Questing and pioneering seem to have been archived as also, in a strange way, have joy and delight. They have been replaced by the worthy and the didactic. And yet, if I am honest, in the broad sweep of popular understanding in my own church, it is the service of ordination to the diaconate which people attend in big numbers. The ordination to the priesthood is largely un-understood because, by that stage and a year later, the apprentice is ready to give up the L plates and the clerical shirts have that thoroughly comfortable and worn look of having been through the washing machine many times!

THE SERVICE OF HOLY COMMUNION

If we look, however, to the Service of Holy Communion, there are many ways in which the ministry to the poor can be central to the church through the liturgical life of the deacon. (1) the Gospel is really the first point at which the deacon makes an impact on the liturgy – service of the poor is at the heart of Good News; (2) the intercessions powerfully bind world and church in a reciprocal responsibility – if lay people lead Intercessions, I suggest that they be guided and trained by a deacon; (3) the preparing of the table again connects the creation out there in the world with the new creation in here in the church as we prepare to call on God to give to the whole community new eschatolgical life through consecration of elements of earthly bread and wine; (4) the shared breaking of the bread by priest and deacon shows a solidarity in ministry, authority and service at the point when God risks joyfully fragmentation and distribution of himself among the people gathered; (5) the dismissal is the authoritative sending of God’s people to be God’s missional church in the world.

If we take a positive and creative view of what is meant by Anglican diaconate through the two Ordinals and the Service of Holy Communion, then I think there is profound potential for exciting, authoritative diaconal ministry. We need to stop defining deacons in terms of what they are not allowed to do. We need to maximize the connections – in a world where networking is so important – between church and world and the deacon is pivotal in this. As for teaching, I suggest that there are many routes and opportunities for teaching in and out of the pulpit - deacons could undertake the instruction of the people of a community in, for example, The Millennium Development Goals and could be innovative in equipping people to tithe their time in missional services to local communities where today there are more and more people starved of love and grace. In the present climate, deacons could engage in a hands-on way with those who are most affected by The Credit Crunch. Not only does this have significant repercussions for people as individuals and people as communities. It offers tremendous examples of authoritative leadership as service through deacons to churches and beyond. 

But were there to be no such headlines daily in our newspapers of recession and redundancies, there still is the need for a tremendously centripetal church to be much more centrifugal. We need to break out rather than collapse in on top of ourselves if we are properly to be apostolic. I still wonder, however, deep down if there is the heart to re-form the diaconate as a diaconate – either transitional, progressive or permanent – in the Anglican world. I say this with genuine sadness but I say it for a particular reason and it derives from this: (a) the power and strength of self-confident lay ministry is so substantial and (b) there have been, in effect, two permanent Orders of Ministry for so long and (c) despite the oxygenated idealism of Vatican ii, a third permanent Order has not really embedded itself in either Roman Catholicism or Anglicanism.

SACRAMENT OF CHRIST TO THE WORLD

I still cannot, however, shirk the imperative contained in the text on the Swedish diaconate which I quoted above: ‘a diaconate which is given its main task, building up and equipping the church, so that it can become what it is: the sacrament of Christ to the world.’ This takes me, perhaps strangely, to the bedrock of the Western theological tradition, to St Augustine’s City of God, and to chapter ten in particular. But the relationship between sacrament and sign for us today, as originally explored by Augustine, would have to be the subject of a different and an other paper.

The Rt Revd Dr Michael Jackson,
Bishop of Clogher, Ireland                                                                             April 29, 2009                                                                           

ENDS