Serving the helpless. . . an ordination sermon

Sermon preached at ordination of Mack Olson, St. John's Episcopal Church, Petaluma, Sept 10, 2011
It’s a paradox: The ordination of a deacon and our lesson (Luke 22:24-27) begins with a dispute among the disciples about which of them is the greatest. This isn’t just any dispute, this one takes place in the context of the last supper. Just as Jesus has offered them the bread and wine, as his body and blood, and just as he has told them one of them will betray him, they begin to argue about who’s the greatest.

We humans are indeed a piece of work. Our little egos have this longing for greatness, celebrity maybe—at least that’s how it is in our own culture—fame, being known, or at least being known for hanging out with the known. Positioning ourselves to be noticed by the stars. Jockeying for position. Wondering what others think of us. Scanning the crowd to see if we’re noticed; if we’re liked.

To add to the paradox: We are here to ordain a deacon, one who serves the poor, the weak, the sick and the lonely. One whose calling is to remind us, each of us, that in serving the helpless we are serving Christ. We come to this little ministry, the ministry of humility, of helplessness with all the pomp and circumstance we can muster! True to our heritage, we’re all decked out in our finery, Bishop with his mitre atop his head, staff in hand, beautiful music, colors flying, church polished. If you didn’t know better you might think we were here to crown a king.

I love this paradox. It exposes our undersides. In the church it is common knowledge that we are all called to be servants.  We pretty much all know this story: Jesus tells them/us that while others may lord it over folks, their/our calling is NOT. Their/our calling is to be the least, the youngest, the powerless, the servant. We know this. Don’t we? We dare not lose it in the midst of ceremony.

We already know, as the Bishop will shortly remind us “that in serving the helpless we will encounter Christ.” We will serve Jesus, the anointed one. He will meet us in his helplessness.

Think about it. How can this be? I mean really? When in your serving have you met Christ? Known the presence of God we could say, come up against the divine running rampant through life, met it/him/her face to face? In serving?

Serving is a complicated matter. If you’ve read the book The Help (by Kathryn Stockett) or seen the movie or followed the controversy around it, you’ve got some inkling of how complicated it is. There are power dynamics involved—some are surprising. A servant no matter how oppressed, how trapped, always seems to have some choice, some decisions to make about their serving, how it will be done. . . . And, I would be remiss if I failed to mention that the blessing of serving in church circles, at least until recent times, has been a blessing particularly conferred on women. Our “special blessing” you might say.  I digress.

What kind of a servant was Jesus? Think about him, his life, how did he serve? And, how have you served in your life? What kind of a servant are you? What are the qualities of the servant who serves God in their serving?

I can’t answer for you, only for me. But when I look back on my serving I can honestly say that I have often served with mixed motives and sometimes with what could only be described as ‘tude. Oh, yes. I have served simply because I was told to. I have served grudgingly, even resentfully. I have served manipulatively. I have served from a position of authority and power, distancing myself from the person served. I have served more than once half-heartedly. I have served in ways that served my own interests more than those of the person I was serving. I have served because it made me look good to serve. I have served because in doing so I could exert control over another. I have served to be rewarded. I have served to win love and acceptance. I have served seeking greatness.  I have.

Rarely have I met the Christ when I served in these ways. Rarely have I served the Christ in these ways.

I watched a woman serve others a few days ago. She did it in a way that made the presence of the divine almost palpable. I was volunteering at a day shelter program for homeless and at risk women and children in Santa Rosa, the Living Room. It was mid morning and the women had finished their breakfast and were sitting around the room talking. A woman came in, a professional looking kind of woman, and was introduced as a speaker to make a presentation about the services provided by a nearby Disability Center. The room grew quiet, but some of the women kept reading the paper, or a book—not very interested. The woman began a kind of normal talk about the services provided by the center for people with all kinds of disabilities, legal advice, help filling out forms, support groups, etc etc. Same old same old. I could see some eyes beginning to roll back in heads. One more agency promising not very much.

But then suddenly and quietly the woman began to talk about her own disability. Her need to stay on medication, the tricks she uses to deal with her mind’s obsessing in the night. She talked about the support group she runs and how it impacts people’s lives. Books and papers were forgotten, people started asking questions; there was life in the room. She was surrounded by women when she finished, and she stayed for a long time talking one on one with folks.

Her honesty and willingness to take a risk and share her own need and vulnerability, her own helplessness in a sense, created a spaciousness in the room that had not been there before. And in that space the divine was moving, there was deep listening, and sharing, and new life. She served from a place of humility. Not as a victim, not wallowing in her own pain; but in the truth of her own self. Very human, very weak you might say. But strong too. Knowing that she is the child of God is how I would put it. She served from that place of mutuality. A place of grace. She is a woman who knows in her body that God’s healing knows no boundaries. She didn’t even ponder how others would judge her. She simply spoke her truth and met others in their need.

Now I want to say something to you about this man Mack who the Bishop will ordain in a few moments—ordain to be a deacon. He is as most of you know a gay man. He has a partner, Jeremy. They are members of your community. So you could get all excited about this ordination as a big deal. The people of St John’s Petaluma who have been through so much, wandering in their own wilderness, returning finally to new life at their old home church, a building which is beautiful but which in the past heard its share of harsh judgment about gays. This people have raised up a man from among their own community to be ordained deacon and then priest—right here in this building. And he happens to be a gay man. God moves in mysterious ways you might be thinking. Or, why did you have to mention that? Or, alleluia! you could be thinking. Or, Oh my God, I didn’t know!

But here’s what I want to tell you. I want to remind you that Mack brings many gifts to this ministry. Gifts of faith, bridge-building, listening, teaching, leading, a gift of compassion. . . And, one of the gifts he brings is his experience of life in our culture and church as a gay man. One of the gifts he will always have for the ministry is his embodied experience of what it is to be helpless. To be helpless in front of the judgment of others, to be helpless in front of the rejection of others. He has known helplessness. He has known serving others to try and win their love and acceptance. He has known many of those other ways of serving too—the ones that lead nowhere. Mack has known what it is like to feel like he doesn’t fit in—that there is no spaciousness for him.

This is a gift. At least it is now.  Because now this man who will shortly stand before you and before the Bishop to be ordained deacon will do so in the truth of who he is and in the strength of who he is and in the knowledge that he, like each one of us, is a beloved child of God. God’s realm is one of spaciousness. Mack is ready to serve from that place, that truth. He will need your help to do that, just as you need his help and the help of others to do that. It isn’t easy.

Christ came in power, but also in helplessness. He gave himself over to life, to humans who did what they would do. He gave himself over to the limits and the grandeur of what it means to be human, to the heights and depths, and to the spaciousness that comes from helplessness—from choosing to be a servant. In doing so, he gave himself over to the God within. This is our calling.

Thank God we have deacons to remind us who we are and who we are called to be. All of us, lay people, deacons, priests and bishops are called to be servants—may we dare to do so in the truth of who we are: Open to our own helplessness and thus to the One who loves us, the One who comes to us, so often in those we serve. AMEN