To seek and serve Christ in all persons...and dogs. The Rev. Deacon Lawrence Elliott

Deacon Lawrence and Sophie

Deacons are called to have one foot in the church and one in the world; to be a pebble in the shoe of the Church. For us to interpret to the Church, we must be in the world to know its needs, concerns, and hopes. In our baptismal covenant, we agree that we can do these things “with God’s help.” Thus, all baptized Christians are called to “seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving your neighbor as yourself.”

The deacon, as an icon of servant ministry, “shows Christ’s people that in serving the helpless they are serving Christ himself.” (The Book of Common Prayer, p. 543) When the needs of the world are brought to the church, the deacon seeks to call others to their own servant ministry. If students at a local elementary school need help learning to read, the deacon seeks those who will thrive in this work. Deacons can work with the community and the church in a food pantry project. A deacon friend of mine learned of many Vietnamese students in northern Virginia who had little to eat and nowhere safe to go after school. She started a program that provides a safe place, a snack, homework help, and a backpack of food to take home. In each of these cases, the deacon could do all the work, but the greater gift is for all baptized people to be called to their own servant ministry.

How do you know you’ve found the place to which God is calling you? “The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.” (Frederick Buechner, Wishful Thinking: A Theological ABC)

Such a place exists for each of us. Perhaps places. The deacon as icon of servant ministry can remind us all of the needs of the world. Seeing the deacon serve in the Eucharist can remind us that we are called to service, that service is required. On Sunday morning I strive to greet and say farewell at the door to the church. This not only fulfills my call to have one foot in the church and one in the world, but perhaps reminds us all that moving from church to world is seamless. It’s not a here/there, us/them, situation but God’s seamless creation.