Preached on September 18 in Bethlehem, PA at the ordinations of Bruce Gowe and Joseph (Jay) O'Rear to the transitional diaconate.
Good morning. First and foremost, I would like to begin by saying congratulations to Bruce and Jay as you are ordained to the diaconate. It is a joy to be able to witness this moment, and it is an honor to have been asked to reflect upon what this crossing of the threshold means.
Because it is a crossing of a threshold, at once the culmination of a long journey as well as the beginning of a new role and authority within the Church. This moment comes with a new title. Suddenly, you will no longer be Bruce and Jay, but the Reverend Bruce and the Reverend Jay. There are new clothes too. In today’s service, you will be vested as a deacon, but there’s also daily wear, with a white collar now setting you apart. Which begs the question: set apart for what?
In today’s reading from the Gospel of Luke, we hear Jesus’ disciples insisting that they have been set apart for greatness. Indeed, they are engaged in a fierce dispute with one another over which of them was the greatest. Luke doesn’t go into the specifics of what, exactly, the disciples had in mind, but elsewhere in Mark and Matthew, we hear disciples angling to be seated with power and authority at Jesus’ right and left hands when enters into his Kingdom (Mark 10:35-45; c.f. Matthew 20:21). I think, then, that it’s fair to say that the disciples had the world’s definition of greatness in mind: more power, more wealth, more authority. They were hoping to be seated as kings and to act as generous benefactors.
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Jesus, however, will have none of it. My favorite detail from the Marcan version of this story is that he quite literally sits down – and he sits the disciples down too-- to tell them just how wrong they are. Jesus says that while “kings lord it over them and those in authority are called benefactors”, they have been set apart for the exact opposite. For instead of seeking more power, more wealth, more authority, “the greatest must become like the youngest, and the leader like the one who serves.”
Jesus then points to the way that people customarily eat at tables. He asks, “And who is greater, the one who is at the table or the one who serves?” Everything about our world insists it is the person seated at the table, and most often at the head of the table, who is the greatest. But Jesus reminds us all that he is not at the head of the table, nor even seated at the table itself, but rather that he comes as the unnoticed table server. “I come among you as one who serves.”
You know, in New York City, where I live, the people who fill the water glasses and remove the plates at tables, are called “busboys” and are very often Latino, indigenous, undocumented, and occupy such a low rank on the restaurant hierarchy that diners regularly don’t even really see them. And yet, this is who Jesus sees himself in.
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One of the reasons the Gospels include this fairly embarrassing story about the disciples is because by the time that Luke’s Gospel was being written, Christian assemblies were already struggling with issues of power, wealth, and authority. In Paul’s letters, one sees fledgling efforts to court wealthy patrons and benefactors. In the letter of James, we hear warnings to those Christians who were caught treating the wealthy and the poor differently, giving the people who wore nice clothes and nice jewelry better seats and telling the poor to go be seated behind a pillar. In First Corinthians, Paul chastises the wealthy for how they have segregated themselves from the hungry at the Lord’s Supper. And so in each of these instances, one sees that there is a temptation, a longing, even among followers of Christ, for the world’s definition of greatness: that of more power, more wealth, more authority. Therefore Luke included this story as a reminder to a distracted Church that Jesus calls us to di-vest ourselves of the trappings of power, wealth, and authority. And to commit ourselves to lives of service.
This message is hard to hear and, frankly, even harder to live out. And, Bruce and Jay, as you take up the diaconal charge to remind the Church of what Jesus says about power, wealth, and authority, you’ll undoubtedly realize this won’t make you very popular. And to underscore this, I want to tell the story of a priest who was described by his biographer as a brilliant preacher and tactless pain in the neck. I happen to believe that this priest, John Chrysostom, lived out his priesthood with a diaconal bent, because he asked the tough, diaconal questions about what the Church was doing with its power, wealth, and authority.
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So picture it: Antioch in the fourth century. Antioch was a bustling port city in what is now Syria; a wealthy place and a Christian stronghold of the Roman empire. One of the crown jewels of this city was a church that was so beautiful, so richly endowed, that it was called the Golden House by some of its inhabitants, but simply The Great Church by most.
This church was destroyed centuries ago but there are many extant descriptions of the architectural beauty of the place. The Great Church was octagonal in shape and was topped with a golden dome. Its interior was like stepping into a jewel box: a place gleaming with marble, and inlaid gold, a sanctuary of rich hues, and of lamps with long silver chains. It was a stunning architectural display of a Church flush and glistening with newfound power, newfound wealth, and newfound authority in society. A Great Church, indeed.
And so it must have been a shock to hear the preaching of a new priest, the tactless pain-in-the-neck John Chrysostom. In his Homily 50 on the Gospel of Matthew, John asked the gathered assembly what I consider to be the tough, diaconal questions:
“What is the profit…” he asked, perhaps gesturing over to the altar table. “What is the profit of these golden cups, if we have neglected to serve even a cup of water to Christ who comes to us hungry and thirsty?”
“And what is the profit,” he asked, “of all this cloth bespangled with gold, while unto a naked Jesus we refuse to offer even a winter coat? What good comes of it?”
“And what is the profit / of lamps with long silver chains, if we have neglected to visit those bound in chains in prison?”
Invoking Matthew 25, John concluded “Let this then be your thought with regard to Christ also, when Jesus is going about a wanderer, and a stranger, and a refugee, needing a roof to cover Him; and you, neglecting to receive Him, instead deckest out a pavement, and walls, and capitals of columns, and hangest up silver chains by means of lamps, but to Jesus himself bound in chains in prison thou wilt not even look upon.”[1]
John, of course, knew what he was doing. He knew that the golden cups, the altar cloths, the vestments, and the lamps were all intended to lead us toward the worship of the Holy One Jesus. Yet he pushed and he asked the diaconal questions, and sought to reconnect the worship of God at the Great Church to acts of compassion and justice beyond the church’s doors. For John, he believed – he truly believed – that if we are to follow Christ, we also must follow Jesus in setting aside the world’s version of greatness, and divest ourselves of power, wealth, and authority. He believed the Church needed to focus on acts of compassion, service, and justice-building, and he insisted that a reverence for Christ’s body in the Eucharist also required a reverence for the Christ who comes to us in the bodies of “the least of these” -- hungry, the thirsty, the immigrant and refugee, the naked, and the imprisoned.
I want to say just one more thing about the sort of reception that this message received and receives. It will probably come as no surprise to hear that John was exiled for all of this. He pushed it all too far. His undoing came as Bishop of Constantinople when he sought to build a hospice for lepers and acquired a piece of land that abutted two wealthy Roman estates. It’s unclear what exactly happened next, but the Patriarch of Alexandria became involved, some imperial administration too, and soon John was exiled to Armenia at which point the construction on the hospice for lepers stopped. But John, being that pain in the neck, he kept writing. And so he was exiled even further, all the way to Pontus on the Eastern edge of the Black Sea, and he died along the way. Which makes him, I believe, anyway, one of earliest martyrs of the Church who dies at the intertwined hands of Church and Empire, because he questioned and challenged both institutions’ addictions to power, wealth, and authority.
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“Kings lord their power over others and benefactors their authority,” Jesus said to his disciples. Many people live their entire lives chasing after more power, more wealth, and more authority. Whole congregations, even entire denominations, can develop an obsequious relationship to the rich and powerful and beautiful people of this world. And in the process forget that Jesus comes among us as one who serves. Jesus doesn’t describe himself as being at the head of the table. Jesus doesn’t describe himself as being at the table at all. Jesus identifies himself with that barely noticeable person who comes in and out of the room filling water glasses, bringing in and taking away plates. “I come as one who serves.”
This role of deacon and server is so profoundly out of step with the way that most Christians and most people work, that it takes truly strange people, people like you Bruce and Jay, to remind the Church of its unique calling. Ask the diaconal questions. Be the tactless pain in the neck to your bishop, to empire, and to our distracted Church. Connect the tables – where we worship the Body of Christ to the tables where we meet Christ in the hungry, the thirsty, and the poor. Critique the hypocrisy of fussing over a single drop of consecrated wine falling to the carpet, whilst remaining silent about the bloodshed and violence outside our church’s red doors. Visit the prisons. Jay, I know you have a passion for that ministry. Please keep at it. And lastly, be encouraged. I truly believe that you were called from your mothers’ wombs for this important work of service, and I pray that God will be with you every day as you serve as a deacon of our beloved Church. Amen.
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[1] Homily 50, part 4. Homilies of S. John Chrysostom, Archbishop of Constantinople, on the Gospel of St. Matthew. Translated, with notes and indices., v.18. Published London: W. Smith,1885. Rights Public Domain in the United States, Google-digitized. Permanent URL https://hdl.handle.net/2027/mdp.39076002354541
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