Regional Synod of Canada - Reformed Church in America

Pioneer Christian Monthly

Date - Nov/87

Contributor - Daniel Meeter

Title - What is a Deacon? Part I of 2

Topic - Deacons

Adapted from sermons preached at the Maranatha Reformed Church of Wainfleet, Ontario.

Text: Acts 6:1 - 7

What is a deacon? A deacon is Jesus Christ. There is only one deacon, and that deacon is Jesus Christ. In read Acts we read of seven deacons but these seven were just an extension of the one. In fact, that's what the early church was, the early church of Acts. It was an extension of the person of Jesus Christ.

Jesus had ascended personally on high, but at Pentecost he came back in a new form. The Spirit of Christ returned to fill a new body, the body of the church. The church was an expansion and extension of the person of Jesus Christ. The Word that the Apostles preached was the expanded word of Jesus Christ. The hearings that they performed were done in the name of Christ, as if the hand of Peter were just a glove that had Jesus' hand inside it. The church is Jesus Christ himself in a new form, you could almost say that the church and Jesus himself are the same.

And so it was with these deacons. These deacons were chosen, to so much to be officers of the church as to be clearly extensions of Jesus Christ. And when they waited on the tables of the widows it was Jesus himself who did the waiting, as the first deacon of the church.

What is a deacon? There is only one deacon, and that deacon is Jesus Christ. A deacon is a waiter, a servant. Deacon is a Greek word for "servant", and Jesus Christ is the great servant. Jesus Christ was the exalted one who came down low in the form of a servant. Jesus belonged in the heights but descended to the depth to serve his people. Like a doctor with the sick, like a mother with her children, like a teacher with her pupils, Jesus served his people.

You remember from the Gospels. Here comes a mother whose daughter is dying, Jesus loves her and serves her. Here stands a father whose son is beset by demons. Jesus loves the father and the son and Jesus heals him. Jesus looks out over the hillsides, he looks over a crowd of five thousand people, like sheep without a shepherd, and he had compassion on them, and so he fed them, he fed them because he loved them. Jesus is God, and God is love, and love is what a 1 deacon serves, like a waiter serves you dinner and a butler serves tea, so a deacon serves the love of God, the love of God expressed in Jesus Christ who is the one great deacon.

And if Jesus Christ is the one great deacon, then every Christian is a deacon. There is one great deacon and there are about a billion little deacons. Every one of us is a little deacon, and our baptism is an ordination into the general diaconate for we who have been baptized into Christ must put on Christ, and Christ is a deacon. We have been anointed with the Holy Spirit of Christ, the Holy Spirit of Love, like sweet bath oil that we pour upon our skin, so have we been anointed with the oil of love and ordained as little deacons, every baptized one of us.

Whoever is baptized is anointed to express the love of Christ in all the world. I must express the love of Christ in healing the sick, I must express the love of Christ in feeding his hungry sheep, I must express the love of Christ in teaching his little children, I must express the love of Christ in comforting those who mourn. When I see the sorrows, the bruises and the wounds of the children of this world I must weep and cry, and the tears of sadness that slide down my face are the tears of Jesus Christ, for he had compassion on them, and Jesus wept. The love of Christ is what I give to the world, this is the servanthood of every Christian. To serve the world with God's love.

Not my own love. That runs out. God knows there's so much that I myself do not love, God knows there's so many people I do not love, it is the love of Jesus Christ that I must learn to serve to the world.

If every Christian is a deacon, then every Christian is a waiter. As a waiter you serve tables, and seated at your tables are the customers you serve, your regular customers, which is the church, and your special customers, the whole world. Now once you seat them, what is it that you set before them? It is the love of Jesus Christ that you set before them. A plate of healing. A dish of mercy. A cup of comfort. A bowl of compassion. A great big platter of charity. And for dessert you serve them the fruit of the Spirit, joy and peace. Such is the service that belongs to everyone of you.

There is one deacon, Jesus Christ, and there are a billion deacons, every baptized Christian. And in between are the Deacons of the church. In between are the deacons of the church, the seven Deacons of Acts and the six Deacons of this Reformed Church. The Deacons of the church, chosen by the congregation and ordained by the apostles, you stand in between Jesus and the people. You are the head-waiters. If every Christian is a waiter than you are the head-waiters. If every Christian is a servant, than you are the butlers, whom we have called to lead us in all in our common service.

So Deacons, what is your job description? It is this, to lead the congregation in serving the world with the love of Jesus Christ. And like any good leader you must always look both ways. Your job is to keep one eye on the great Deacon and the other eye on all the little deacons. You stand in between them, and you must always ask yourself, "How can I help all these little deacons be more like the great Deacon?"

Look around you at all the many little deacons that belong to this congregation. Now what can you do to help all these little deacons all work together to mimic the one great Deacon? How can 170 equal One? How can I get one great restaurant out of a staff of 170? You've got to look both ways. You look back at Christ to see what he did: whom did he feed? how did he heal? whom did he comfort? And then you've got also to look to your fellow believers: what can they do? what needs to be done? how can we do it?

The fact that you are one of the fellow believers makes you all the better for the job. The fact that you are weak makes you a better leader of the weak. The fact that you have your own worries, the fact that you have only so much time and only so much energy makes you a good and sympathetic leader. The fact that you confess that, by nature, you yourself are not very charitable, can make you a good person to lead other such uncharitable people to the only fountain of true charity, who is Jesus Christ.

These are the qualifications for the diaconate. First you need eyes, eyes of faith and eyes of love. Eyes of faith to recognize the Lord, and then eyes of love to see the world around you. Do you see people limping, people stumbling, do you see people lost and wandering? Second you need ears, ears of faith and ears of love. Ears of faith to hear the preaching of the Word. But also ears of love to hear the prayers of the people. Ears of love to listen to the murmur of those who mourn. The moaning of the sick, the muttering of the depressed, the mumbling of the oppressed, and the cr ,ying of little children.

But most of all you need a heart. You need a broken heart and broken bones. If you break a bone and then it heals, still forever after it feels the change in the weather, your broken bones tn always feel the dampness and the pressure of the air. Well, your own life has been broken by troubles and failures. You have your sins and your shortcomings. Your heart has been broken but then mended by the Lord. And ever after you can feel the weather of other souls within your heart, you can feel the dampness of their tears and the pressure of their misery. You know what it's like to be hungry and thirsty, and that makes you a good servant, broken bones of faith in Christ and a broken heart of love.

All the qualifications you need are open eyes and open ears and a broken heart. Your qualifications are within you. But the resources that you need you do not have. Your proper resources are nothing of your own, not your own personality, not your own love, not your own kindness and mercy, not your own charity, and certainly not your own money.

The resources that you need to do you job among us are the personality of Jesus Christ, the love of Jesus Christ, the kindness and mercy, the charity and the money that belongs to Jesus Christ. Where will you find these? Not up in heaven, but spread out in the congregation. The Holy Spirit has poured them down from Jesus and spread them through the congregation. The power and the personality of Jesus Christ is spread out through this congregation like dandelions in your lawn. And so that is what you must gather from the congregation and help us exercise, the Holy Spirit that is among us by our baptism.

Yes, Deacons, you must lead us to grow up into the full measure of the stature of Christ, you must help us let the Holy Spirit to comfort this congregation into the image of its Head. You must help this congregation to begin to blossom and- bear its fruit, the fruit of the spirit, and to sprout new leaves, the leaves of a tree for the healing of the nations.

And therefore to let you do this work among us we will put you on the Consistory. Notice the order of things. You're not a Deacon because you're on Consistory, you're on Consistory because you're a Deacon. Sometimes we give the impression that the word "deacon" is the title that we gave to junior members of the Board of Trustees. But it shouldn't be. Your do not serve on the Consistory as some elected representative. You do not represent anybody on the Consistory, except Jesus Christ, the great deacon. When you vote in the Consistory, you must not be asking, "What do the people want?" You must be asking, ,What would the Great Deacon want?"

You may have become a Deacon because we need new people on Consistory, and that's the way the earthly church has to stumble about its heavenly business. But once you're on Consistory you serve for the sake of the great Deacon, not the congregation that elected you. You go on Consistory because we need the voice of Deacons in the decisions of the church, we need someone to speak the word of the Great Deacon among us.

For example, our congregation spends money. Deacons must have a say in how we spend it. Here's an envelope with a dollar in it. Shall we pay the Pastor or help a widow? Shall we paint the sanctuary or feed the hungry? How much money do we need to support ourselves in order that ourselves can do our work for others in the name of Jesus Christ? That's why it's good that Deacons are traditionally the Finance Committee, because every penny of the congregation must be spent in the spirit of servanthood.

But not only with financial decisions on Consistory do we need your Deacon's voice, we need it with every decision. Ever decision, every program, we depend on you to look at these matters from the point of view of charity, always asking, "Will this help or ffinder our congregation to dish out the love of Jesus Christ?"

Once your term of Consistory is over, you still remain a Deacon. At feast in the Reformed Church you're supposed to remain a Deacon for life, as a member of the Great Consistory. You are no longer a layperson. You become an ordained minister, an ordained minister just as much as your Pastor is. In fact, the word "minister" is just the Latin equivalent of the Greek word "Deacon". Both "minister" and "deacon" mean servant. You become a minister as much as any full-time pastor.

All three offices of the church are ministries, the Minister of the Word and Sacraments, the Elder, and the Deacon. All three represent the work of Jesus Christ. The work of Jesus Christ is too great for one kind of Minister, the personality of Jesus Christ is too rich for one kind of person, and the service of Jesus Christ is too rich for one kind of servant. So all three ministries join together in expressing and extending Jesus Christ among us.

My job is to dish-out on the table the Word of Christ and the sacraments, to emphasize the preaching and the prayers. If I am a servant of the Word of God than you Deacons are the servants of the Love of God, and just as I am ordained for life-time ministry so are you. You will get the hang of your ministry by service on Consistory, but after you leave Consistory you still owe something to God and you can exercise your diaconate in many other ways.

You'll be getting ordained, but you won't get a salary and you won't get a parsonage. The Deacon who is the Minister of Love must be in the thick of the world, working in the world, rubbing shoulders with the world, the loving hands of Jesus Christ reaching fa@outside the walls of this church. The deacon represents the compassionate personality of Jesus Christ, who loved the world. You are Jesus Christ in the form of a servant.

I have called you Deacons the leading servants, the head-waiters. But it's not that easy. You are also the dishwashers and floor scrubbers. You also get the dirty work. After the dinner is over, you are the last servants to go to bed. Not only will you have to begin the work and lead the work, you will also have to finish it and mop it up, because the congregation will fail you, and leave so much left undone, and you will have to make up for it. You will end up on your knees as Jesus did, the chief servant who was also the humble servant who was on his knees with a bucket and rag, cleaning the feet of his disciples. So it falls to you, Just as it fell to Christ.

Who can do this job? No one can, no one is really up to it. Don't be discouraged if you don't feel up to it, if it sounds too much for you. It is too much for you, it's an ideal. And only Jesus Christ has ever been that ideal servant. But don't be afraid, you can be a real Deacon without being an ideal one. Simply do your work confessing that Jesus Christ is always you ideal, and also confessing that you're not the Deacon you want to be. Your goal is not that people should find you a good deacon, but that people should believe in Jesus as their Great Deacon.

This is the prayer of a real Deacon: "Dear God, I want to be a good Deacon. But I've got to work full-time. I've got a family. I'm tired again, and I'm sick of meetings every night. I need some time for myself and my spouse. I was supposed to have my committee work done for Consistory, and I didn't get it done again. I'm supposed to love my neighhour, and right now I'm too busy even to love my kids. 0 Lord, how am I supposed to set an example to the rest of the congregation?

"So, help me God. Keep before me the image of your son Jesus Christ who is the only one great Deacon, and give me a double portion of his Spirit. When I run out of charity and love, then use me at least to let others know that God is love, and love me too, O Lord. May people look not to my poor love but your love. Not I but Christ. As a Deacon, not I but Christ. Amen."

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