Theological Reflection: Response
Norma Cook Everist, DOTAC
Response given to keynote address at Global Diakonia, Durham, England, Summer 2005. Three responses were given from the three regions of Global Diakonia. Norma Cook Everist represented Diakonia of the Americas and the Caribbean.
I am a member of the Lutheran Deaconess Conference in the United States; I serve as Professor of Church and Ministry at Wartburg Theological Seminary in Dubuque, Iowa. I will respond to Bishop Stephen’s paper with seven points, with brief references also to “Diakonia’s Diaconal Theology” which I commend to your reading.
ONE: Bishop Stephen began by situating us in a place. And here we are in this beautiful ancient city, Durham. Diaconal ministers serve in real places, all over the place. How privileged we are to listen at this world assembly, particular in our Small Groups, to descriptions of one another’s places of service.
We are also so very aware of those who could not come to this place: two from Rwanda and seven from the Philippines because governments, not just the U.K., but governments like my own, the U.S.A., perpetuate fear which in turn becomes oppressive. In “Diakonia’s Diaconal Theology” we say, “[DIAKONIA] will join its voice in the struggle against economic domination and the power of bureaucracy. It will use power to empower others.” (p. 4)
Christ is in the place of those who are excluded, estranged, exiled. How can we be afraid of the Christ in the other’s place? Christ is always on the other side of any barriers we erect.
TWO: The speaker told of Aiden, messenger, go-between, and spoke of ministry on the margins, the theme of this assembly. Yes, we as diaconal ministers are deeply rooted, placed, engaged in incarnational ministry. And, at the same time we are poised to serve as bridges between church and world, places of suffering and places of power, between and among communities, churches, nations. We need to be deeply grounded–on solid ground–in order to build bridges of servanthood.
In my own Lutheran Deaconess Community are over 400 women. Some years ago our church body, the Lutheran Church Missiori Synod went through schism. Our community refused to be divided. Today about half of our women serve in the LCMS and half in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA). We are about the only bridge remaining between those two church bodies.
THREE: Bishop Stephen quoted Cuthbert to be on guard again devilish distractions. What personal, ecclesial, diaconal community things are tempting you to distraction? We serve on the margins of the churches and yet God would put servant ministry kerplunk, right back in the middle so that the devil cannot distract us away from the servant Christ. “Diakonia’s Diaconal Theology” begins speaking about the nature of diaconal ministry with the quote from Luke 22: 27, “I am in the midst of you as one who serves.”
Our speaker said, “Diakonia is not an ‘add-on’ fact of the Christian life….diakonia is the very foundation of Christian life and ministry and, being on the margins, is part of the description of all discipleship…We cannot but be on the margins.” (p. 4) I am reminded of Acts chapters 3 and 4, where Peter and John, in the name of Christ, heal a man who could not walk and they preach the Gospel. The religious leaders are “annoyed.” Peter and John are arrested and warned no longer to preach and teach. They respond, “We cannot but speak of what we have seen and heard.” We cannot but be on the margins in healing ministries and we cannot but speak of what we have seen and heard.”
With what resistance and with what devilish distractions must you contend? In the midst of your day? Your work? Your church? Your life? Christ is the center (Bonhoeffer) so that we can be on the margins.
FOUR: Diakonia is indeed not an add-on. It is the core of the faith, crucial (cross) to the Church. Service is offered not just so that people will then be ready to hear the Gospel. Servant ministry is Gospel—Good News. Nor is the Church merely the carrier of the Gospel. The Church—the Body of Christ—is Gospel. Theologian Hans Kung wrote that the Church is not so much to be admired or criticized as to be believed. Sometimes that is the most difficult of all: to believe this problematic, contentious, distractable institution is the church. So, too, Diakonia is not so much to be admired, criticized—or dismissed—as to be believed. We do not believe in the Church, nor in diakonia, But we do believe that Christ is alive where the people of God serve in his name. In this service is the Christ, the “real presence” of Christ.
FIVE: Bishop Stephen lamented that ministries in Guildford, Norwich and communities brokering for peace on the edge of the church are “not authentically supported.” Or, I might add, “supported as authentic.” Wherever I have gone around the world, talking with diaconal communities of many different forms, I have heard this similar lament that they are not supported as authentic. Likewise, as Bishop Stephen said, they are often seen as a threat to the clergy role. To think that servanthood ministries are a threat is simply foolish. Among diaconal ministry students whom I am privileged to teach at seminary, there is often the comment, “People tell me, ‘You are such a good student, you should become a pastor.’ But I do not want to become a pastor; I want to become a diaconal minister!” And I support them in their callings.
Often religious leaders—some bishops—are slow learners when it comes to diaconal ministry. Why is that so? Servant ministry is not hard to understand; there is simply resistance to learning. Likewise wherever I go when talking to deaconesses, deacons and diaconal ministers I hear, “Our church does not support us” or, “Our church no longer supports this ministry.” How sad! Not only for us, but for the entire church!
But I also feel hope. At this very assembly we have welcomed four new communities as members: the Diakonia (ecumenical) of New Zealand, and deaconesses and diaconal ministers of the Evangelical Lutheran Churches of Kenya, Canada and the United States. Diakonia is a movement which is unstoppable. And diaconal ministry, in whatever church body or nation is all connected. We need one another to help make visible servant ministry. In the name of Christ we need to authentically support and support as authentic one another’s ministries.
And each ministry setting is authentic and very real. Just as the lists of ministries (Romans 12, 1 Cor. 12 and Eph. 4) are not ranked and are open, so, too our ministries are not ranked in importance. In my own history, whether cleaning alley ways and planting Marigolds in Detroit inner city, or, now, lecturing and writing books, or holding a trembling hand of someone who needs support, all is the same: servant ministry. All ministry, and all of us, are connected in the body of Christ.
In the Body of Christ are many members. We might say that ministry on the margins (our theme) is “ministry at the extremities.” The hand and feet are “extremities” of the body. The paper (p. 10) quoted Phil. 2, the “Mind of Christ” passage. Christ is the mind, the head, the heart of the body. And Christ is in all the body’s members. Consider 1 Corinthians 12, “For the body does not consist of one member but of many. If the foot should say ‘Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body, that would not make it any less a part of the body. And if the ear should say, ‘Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,’ that would not make it any less a part of the body.” (v. 14-16a) We sometimes are distracted into thinking those things about ourselves.
Even more important for us to remember are the verses which follow (vs. 19-20): (Note that in the earlier set the “extremities” of hand and foot are compared, as are two parts on the head, ear and eye, but in this set, a member on the head, the eye and the head itself are dismissing the “extremities” of hand and feet.) Once again Paul begins, “As it is, there are many parts but one body,” and then goes on to say what is so often true, how we dismiss some ministries, some people, some members of the body: “The eye cannot say to the hand, ‘I have no need of you,’ nor again the head to the feet, ‘I have no need of you.” The words are that strong: we cannot say to one another that “we have no need of you,” for it simply is not true!
So what ministries at the extremities are you engaged in? Go ahead, risk doing extreme ministries! It is authentic. And together we need to support these ministries and together, for one another, we need to speak up and see that such “extreme” ministries at the margins are supported by the churches. The churches need to be there, where Christ’s hands and feet already are walking and working.
SIX: Our speaker quoted 2 Cor. 5:16-19: Therefore if anyone is in Christ, that person is a new creation. God through Christ reconciled us to God and gave us the ministry of reconciliation. God is in Christ reconciling the world. And from “Diakonia’s Diaconal Theology”: “The focus of diakonia is the world as the object of God’s activity and love.” (p. 4)
We are called to participate in God’s creating living communities. From “Diaknoia’s Diaconal Theology”: “Community is both a way of life and a place to be.” (p. 2) Communities of reconciliation may look different, depending upon the need. Theologian Letty Russell wrote that Jesus did not say to the person who could not walk, “You can see,” nor to the person who was blind, “You can walk.” Jesus asked of people, “What do you want me to do for you?” What are the particular needs for Jesus’ reconciling, healing, life-giving ministry in the places where you serve?
If the human problem is death, the good news is life,
If it is bondage (any kind of bondage), the good news is freedom, liberation,
If it is guilt, the good news is forgiveness,
If it is despondency, the good news is hope,
If it is fatigue, the good news is rest for the soul…and the body,
If it is a troubled heart, the good news is comfort,
If it is alienation, the good news is community and reconciliation.
SEVEN: We have been freed from subservience for servanthood. “ Diakonia’s Diaconal Theology” says that community makes a corporate witness more powerful than voices of individuals. And “Diaconal ministry is both prophetic and a witness to God’s love.” (p. 1) Bishop Stephen reminded us that the deacon is to be a spokesperson and an ambassador. He also mentioned the man who celebrated not being a presbyter but his 50 years of becoming a deacon. I have been a deaconess for 45 years. I have also been a Lutheran ordained pastor for 28 and a professor for 26, but it is my consecration as a deaconess that I celebrate, for the words I preach and teach need to come from a diaconal heart.
We have been freed from subservience for powerful servanthood. If we have voices to speak—and we all do—whether in places dismissed by the world, or in places of power, let us speak! We need to be advocates for each other. We need to be spokespersons for justice and global peace. Diaconal ministry does not need to be invisible (subservient). We need to tell stories of Christ at work at the margins. Even more, we need to encourage, give voice to, people in these places to tell their own stories. And we need to do theology—the Church’s theology—in those places, at the margins.
We need to help create reconciled, hospitable, trustworthy places for us to be different together, We can—all of us—be teaching theologians, communities where we teach and learn from one another, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit we may all be empowered for powerful servanthood.