The American Reporter

BALTIMORE -- This week I watched five persons gladly and willingly agree to become servants.

One of them told me the experience was "the best feeling ever."

The five were told they are part of an ancient counter culture whose members must become as the youngest among them (there are children among them), and that their leaders must become servants. That's the only way they will be paid.

The speaker was well aware that in telling the charges that they must become servants he was pronouncing an almost impossible task for them. He admitted that as a middle-class American he was slightly embarrassed to have anyone in a position of servitude toward him.

He noted that being a servant runs counter to everything that defines a productive American. And he noted that there are among us some who have a pathological need to be doormats, but that is not the calling of a true servant.

Nevertheless, he charged the five with becoming servants, telling them to "serve all people, particularly the poor, the weak, the sick, and the lonely."

Servanthood does not fit in a society that runs on competition in the marketplace, assertiveness in the workplace, and achievement in the halls of learning.

Someone has to set the tables, do the dishes, repair the houses, haul away the trash, tend to the garden, and educate the children, but in modern American society we pay for these services.

Someone has to care for the unwanted aging, the men and women in prisons, the sick and dying, the mentally impaired, the homeless, the fatherless, the poor, the lonely. Again, our democracy asks us to pay for these social services, and we hire people to do these tasks.

In fact, among the five persons I saw committing themselves to be servants are one or two whose vocations place them in these American social agencies.

But American democracy serves the body and perhaps the mind. Our tendency is to "place" people and let the "agency" care for them. This is good, but incomplete.

The five who became servants in Baltimore this week are servants of the heart and soul.

The five were ordained to become deacons in the Episcopal Church. Specifically, they will be servants in the Diocese of Maryland, but they will be servants to all.

Most who become priests in the Episcopal Church serve briefly as deacons before being ordained to the priesthood. These five have chosen what is called the "permanent Diaconate"; that is, they are not now planning to become priests. They will retain their vocations. Being a deacon, in a sense, is for them an avocation.

But that is misleading because they have truly committed themselves to being servants -- and servanthood is not an avocation. Vocation and avocation come from the lexicon of the pocketbook; deacon comes from the lexicon of the heart.

Furthermore, there is a tendency to think of deacons as "subordinate" priests, but that is an erroneous attribution. These are gladly and willingly becoming servants to all. To a certain degree, priests generally are responsible for a geographic area known as a parish; deacons -- ready to go anywhere at anytime -- serve all humankind.

The term deacon is derived from the Greek word, diakonos, which means, not surprisingly, servant.

To be sure, it is not everyone who can face modern culture and society and determine to be a servant in its midst. Deacons are not asked to go out and "kick some butt."

Several months ago, in chatting with one of the five who this week became a deacon, I was told, "I expect that when the moment comes and I kneel before the bishop and he places his hands on my head to pronounce me a deacon, I'm going to be saying to myself, 'What the hell am I doing here?'"

After this week's ceremony of ordination, I reminded that one of the words spoken earlier and asked if indeed the expression "What the hell am I doing here?" came to mind.

"I said that earlier, not today. Today, it was the best feeling ever."

These deacons preach the gospel of love and peace and justice to all, not alone with their doing, but with their being -- with their servanthood. It is appropriate that the five adopted as one of their bywords the admonition of St. Francis of Assissi, who said: "Preach the Gospel at all times. If necessary, use words."

Allan R. Andrews is an editor in Washington, D.C., and a freelance writer. He can be contacted at arandrews@toadmail.com

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