Ordination to the Transitional Diaconate: What are we celebrating, exactly?

This week the Rector's Note has been turned over to Barb Ballenger, our Associate for Spiritual Formation and Care.

On June 8, Laura Palmer and I will be ordained to the transitional diaconate, a ministry that lies between our work as lay people and our future as Episcopal priests. For those in the priesthood process in the Episcopal Diocese of Pennsylvania, this ordination occurs about six months before priestly ordination.


Many have asked about the difference between a transitional deacon and a permanent deacon, such as the Rev. Carol Duncan. It’s a good question, and the answer reflects several hundred years of conflicted church practice.

In his article “Lifting up the Servants of God: The Deacon, Servant Ministry, and the Future of the Church”, Thomas Ferguson explains that the sacred order of deacons is the church’s oldest ordained ministry. Acts 6:3-4 recounts how the Apostles delegated the first deacons to oversee table fellowship in order to make sure Greek widows and orphans were treated justly in the early Christian community. That focus on service to the poor and assistance to the bishop marked the diaconate for about three hundred years.

With Christianity’s new-found legitimacy after the conversion of Constantine, the church took on the deeply hierarchical structures of Roman society. A series of sub-orders developed that Clerics-in-training passed through on their way to ordination, from doorkeeper to exorcist to lector to subdeacon. The diaconate, which was originally its own order with its own particular ministry, was folded into this succession. For several hundred years it lost its early singularity. Even so, there were important exceptions in monastic communities, Ferguson writes, noting that St. Francis of Assisi, was a deacon throughout his life as a friar.


In the 20th century, Christian churches recognized the need for ordained ministers that served vulnerable people, and the distinctive ministry of the diaconate as a holy order was reclaimed in the Lutheran, Catholic, and Anglican churches. The permanent diaconate was restored throughout the churches of the Anglican Communion in 1968.

Meanwhile, as the various suborders that made up the path to priestly ordination fell away over time, the transitional diaconate remained part of the path to priesthood. As a result, the church now ordains two kinds of deacons in the same ordination liturgy. It’s in that liturgy, specifically in the “examination”, that we can best discover what the deacon is ordained to do.

“My sister,” the bishop will say, “every Christian is called to follow Jesus Christ …. God now calls you to a special ministry of servanthood directly under your bishop. In the name of Jesus Christ, you are to serve all people, particularly the poor, the weak, the sick, and the lonely.”

Then the bishop will commend us to do the following:

• Study the Scriptures and model our lives upon them;
• make Christ known to the world, by word and example;
• bring the “needs, concerns, and hopes of the world” to the attention of the church;
• assist the bishop and the priest in public worship;
• and all other duties as assigned.

But most importantly, the bishop will say: “At all times, your life and teaching are to show Christ’s people that in serving the helpless they are serving Christ himself.”

For me, this last statement captures well how this period in which we practice diaconal ministry will shape the ministry of our priesthood. While priests and deacons practice their ministry “to represent Christ and the Church” in different ways, this fundamental call to serve the most vulnerable is an essential charism of ordination. We do not lay it down with priestly ordination, just as bishops do not lay down their priesthood when they are ordained.

At the same time, the ministerial roles among the three orders of deacon, priest, and bishop do differ significantly. Ferguson offers a helpful way to think about these orders of ministry by considering where they are located in the church. The bishop serves from the center of the local church, or diocese, leading this regional community in its practice of the faith as the people of God in worship and the Body of Christ in practice. The priest serves from the center of the parish faith community, leading it in living out its common identity as part of the wider people of God. The deacon serves from the edge of the community, leading the Body of Christ into its work in the world.

For the next six months or so we transitional deacons will be practicing leadership from the church’s edge, inviting its members to step intentionally into the world as representatives of Christ. It is a perspective that should ever orient us and ground us in the direction that Christ always walks in the world.

In Christ,
Barb Ballenger
Associate for Spiritual Formation and Care

Laura Palmer and Barb Ballenger will be ordained to the diaconate on Saturday, June 8, at 10:00 a.m. at the Philadelphia Episcopal Cathedral, 19 S. 38th Street, Philadelphia, PA 19104. The ordination is open to all. Complimentary parking is available at Laz Parking, 39th and Market Street, entrance on 39th Street. Click here for directions and public transit options.


For further reading:
“Lifting Up the Servants of God: The Deacon, Servant Ministry, and the Future of the Church” by Dr. Thomas Ferguson. Found on the website of the School for Deacons, an educational institution of the Diocese of California, sfd.org.

In The Book of Common Prayer see “The Ordination of a Deacon” (p. 537-547) and the catechism (p. 855-856) for our liturgy and teaching around the ministry of the deacon.

Get on the Bus!

For eight years we have worked on full, fair funding for the public schools of Pennsylvania. We won a big victory two years ago when we convinced Harrisburg to use the full, fair funding formula on all new money allocated for public schools in the Commonwealth. 6% of state funding is now distributed justly. Our next goal is 100%, a change that will bring $1,800 per student to Philadelphia public schools, not to mention Reading, Allentown, Harrisburg, etc. 

On June 12 a bus will depart from St. Martin’s to the State Capitol, full of citizens concerned about public school excellence. Our goal is that 25 members of St. Martin’s will be on the bus reflecting our deep, long-term commitment. Please talk to Deacon Carol Duncan or me for more information and sign up on POWER's website.

St. Martin’s has a lot at stake in this funding struggle. More families will stay in Philadelphia when their children hit school age when the schools reach their potential. More families who stay in Philadelphia will have more free time and resources for other things without the demands of the private schools. Our members will invest more in the neighborhood as property values increase in proportion to the desirability of our schools. 

The church is committed to this struggle not only because we believe in equity, equal opportunity, and the inherent dignity of every human being, but also because we have a real self-interested stake in the outcome. I hope you will join me and at least 24 other church members on the bus to Harrisburg. There, we will join thousands of other citizens exercising our duty and right to shape our Commonwealth into a just society. 

The Rev. Jarrett Kerbel

Rector

Church of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, Episcopal

POWER Spring 2014 Voter Engagement Results

Howard Bilofsky and David Mosenkis of Germantown Jewish Center have just published an article about POWER’s s voter education drive. I still struggle with the words of the article. When Howard explained it to me, I could get it from the graph. Here is the article followed by my interpretation of the graph.

Effectiveness of POWER’s Spring 2014 Voter Engagement Campaign

POWER targeted low income, infrequent voters in our Spring 2014 voter engagement campaign leading up to the May 2014 primary election.  Overall,  19% of registered voters in Philadelphia turned out to vote in that election.  But the population POWER targeted had a lower turnout rate of 10%.  This rate would have been even lower were it not for POWER’s outreach to that population.  Voters in the population that POWER volunteers touched (by talking to them in person and on the phone or leaving a message) had a turnout rate of 25%.  Voters who POWER touched and who committed to vote had a turnout rate of 38%.  So voters POWER reached were 2.5 times as likely to vote as the overall population, and voters who POWER garnered commitments from were nearly 4 times as likely to vote.

Voter Turnout for Low Income Infrequent Voters

Interpretation of the Graph

You see the dotted line down the middle. That represents the per cent of Philadelphia’s registered voters who turned out to vote in the May 2014 election, 19% (shamefully low, I think).

You see the little box on the top. That shows the rate at which infrequent voters turned out to vote. Only 9%. In other election cycles, 9% would be above average for infrequent voters. POWER raised the total rate.

You see the middle box. That shows the rate at which infrequent voters who had received a communication from POWER voted. Instead of 9%, 25% of infrequent voters who heard from POWER voted .

The bottom box shows the rate at which those who committed to vote in response to POWER voted. 38% of infrequent voters who told POWER that they would vote actually went to the polls and voted.

ASTONISHING! Now look at the numbers of infrequent voters who have committed to vote so far in our fall campaign. In just two sessions with 11 phoners, we have gotten 140 commitments. We had 177 actual conversations, so far. So 79% of the people we talk to commit to vote. We know from our May experience that if they commit, they are very likely to follow through.

We still have three Sundays (12:30 to 3:00 p.m.) and one Wednesday (Oct 22 4:00 to 6:00 p.m.) on which we can call. Jess Ballenger has become extremely competent in training and guiding us in the process. This work gives a sense of accomplishment and confidence that we are building a community of education voters. Please sign up here to come try it out. 

-The Rev. Carol Duncan

Celebrating Success, Deepening Faith

One phrase stood out for me at POWER’s celebration of the passage of Issue 1. Bishop Royster, reflecting on what we had accomplished, said “Every phone number dialed, every door knocked was a prayer for the well-being of the city.” That helped me make faith-sense of the work we have done. It felt like one wrong number after another, but it resulted in making a real change in the city.

Councilman Goode spoke at the celebration about the campaign as an expression of his faith life. His family had been sharecroppers, he told us, and since that beginning he has wanted to lift all people out of grinding poverty. In 2000, he was (and still is) the youngest council-at-large representative on city council. He has worked toward raising the minimum wage from his first months in office. The arrest of a cousin on a drug charge deepened his resolve to improve living conditions. He told us when police informed him in 2005 they were arresting his cousin, he shut himself away for two weeks until he had framed a resolution about raising the minimum wage for city workers. He returned to council and introduced the bill without consulting any other council members. When the resolution passed unanimously he interpreted it as a sign he was doing God’s will. He first aligned with Acorn to support the effort, but they fell away. He has not felt so sustained and strengthened until POWER backed his work. It has been a faith journey for him, he said, as though he were just realizing it.

POWER has become a significant part of my faith journey also. Discovering and building relationships with people from many denominations and faiths has deepened and inspired my experience of worship. I have learned to address God, at least in spoken prayer, as Holy One or Creator God. God is One and is known to all participants in POWER. Also POWER worship tends to be joyous and responsive more than formal and reserved. Plus it is strongly incarnational. We did an exercise to discover our own strength by being invited by Bishop Royster – who is a very substantial man – to join together to physically move him from his chosen position. It took probably 15 of us to move him, showing the difficulty but also the possibility to make change. Coming to know people across so many boundaries enriches my life and my faith. POWER’s mode of operation is to help all its participants strengthen their leadership abilities. POWER staff and colleagues support and encourage us to take the next step, dare the next challenge. We learn community organizing as relationship building. Jarrett points out that God, by God’s own triune nature, is relational. We are imitators of God in POWER, although I’ve never heard anyone express it that way.

I hope all who joined in the campaign to pass Issue 1 had something of this experience. The next step is to achieve a full, fair funding formula for all public schools in the state. We will be partnering with other organizations, researching what other states have done, learning about how schools function now and how they can improve. I invite anyone interested in children and education to join us after SUPPER at St. Martin's on June 25 to talk about your POWER experience in the Voter Engagement Project and to hear what is happening next.

- The Rev. Carol Duncan

Read about the May 20, 2014 Ballot Question #1

Learn more about POWER's Education Funding plan

Learning to Clap

Voices of POWER featured 10 choirs from POWER
congregations, ranging from gospel music to jazz to
recitation from the Quran.

I delight in church music! I am lifted up by singing the words, by hearing the choir and the organ playing. You may not notice – I rather hope you don’t – that my head is nodding to the beat of just about any hymn. If not my head, then my foot. Sometimes I try to stop because I’m worried it looks goofy to have my head nodding like a metronome. But it doesn’t work. Something inside me just responds that way to music. Often I think it’s a way of praying. Even when I am standing waiting in the gospel procession listening to you all sing my toes are keeping time inside my shoes. I can’t help it. It’s my spirit uplifted in praise.

So, here’s the thing. I can’t clap in time to gospel music. Maybe because I’m left-handed, but probably not. No, it’s probably because I never had the chance to learn this different kind of rhythm from most of the hymns I know. But I love gospel music. So here is a great thing that happened for me:

On January 26th, over 400 Philadelphians from diverse faiths and backgrounds attended POWER’s first annual musical fundraiser, Voices of POWER. The event celebrated POWER’s work thus far for its three campaigns: expanding living wages for workers, increasing equity in public school funding, and promoting more humane immigration policies.

I heard ten choirs pouring out their hearts for love of the Lord. The beat was irresistible. Everyone around me was clapping on the off beat. My hands wouldn’t do it. I could nod my head and sway my body to join the music, but not my hands. I felt stymied, short-circuited. I tried watching my neighbor very closely to clap when she did. But she was an inveterate praise singer. She leaped to her feet because she just could not sit still. I would have like to follow her, but I probably would have tripped over my feet. It was the kind of music that made one want to rise up.

So then I tried following the person sitting in front of me. That worked better. By about the fourth choir I was getting it at least half the time. I would go along, but then stumble and lose it. It’s like learning to ride a bicycle, a new kind of balance.

Then about the sixth number, I could sort of let go of copying. My hands were starting to know when to clap. On the seventh song I got it. I didn’t need to think about it or watch anyone else. It was thrilling to me. I slipped into being part of the whole. Something broke loose in me and I could swim in the music. It was a revelation of unity. I hope it really is like riding a bike, and I can keep this new kind of balance.

I urge everyone to come to next year’s Voices of POWER. It is a great experience.

Oh, and I also got one of the 30 awards they gave out. It was the “Show Me the Money Award” because I was the first to commit to a monthly contribution. POWER is doing great work. I hope many St. Martin’s parishioners will join me in supporting fair wages, good schools and welcoming immigrants.

- The Rev. Carol Dunan (far left in photo to the right)


CLICK HERE FOR MORE PHOTOS FROM THE CONCERT

A St. Nicholas Blessing

St. Nicholas Day is December 6th.

St. Nicholas is a resplendent visitor at St. Martin's. I am certain we have the best St. Nicholas in the diocese. His appearance reminded me of an Advent prayer by an author I really like – Edward Hays. I would like to share it with you. It is from his book, Prayers for the Domestic Church.

St. Nicholas Blessing Prayer

St. Nicholas, holy patron of children,

                  Bishop of the East,

                  we invite you to come among us

                  and to grant us your holy blessing.

Help us in this busy, busy season

                  not to miss the miracle of the coming of Emmanuel

                  in the days of preparation

                  as well as on the feast itself.

Help us not to be blind

                  to the gifts of getting ready.

Protect us from insincerity.

May every greeting we send

                  be signed with love, friendship and prayer.

May our greetings, so written,

                  be fun to open and treasures to keep.

Kind St. Nicholas,

                  protect us from shoppers fatigue.

Show us how to take delight in the marketplace,

                  now transformed in beauty, lights and music.

Save us all from anxiety over what to give

                  so that we may concentrate on how to give.

Stand by the stepladder

                  as we decorate our homes and trees and lives.

May our decorations not be mute

                  but rather singing symbols,

                  sacred signs of the evergreen coming of the Lord of Life.

Help us to remember that mistletoe, holly

                  and all other ornaments of the season,

On Sunday, December 8th St. Nicholas visited Church School. 

                  were sacred signs to ancient believers.

But, most of all, jolly saint of toys and sweets,

                  help us stay youthful, humorous, playful and dream-filled

                  as we prepare together for the coming of Christ

                  with Advent longing.

St. Nicholas, pray for us.

Amen

- The Rev. Carol Duncan

Catching Up with POWER

On October 9th, St. Martin's hosted three “house meetings” to explain the current priorities of POWER – Philadelphians Organized to Witness, Empower, and Rebuild. All POWER congregations are holding house meetings in October, most in members’ homes. We decided to make the gatherings easier by holding them after one of our wonderful SUPPERs.

We began by showing this video created by POWER to illustrate its analysis of the state of the city. That video can be seen on St. Martin’s website in case you missed it. However, the video throws out so many statistics in a rushed voice that it is hard to catch. Here is a recap.

A prevalent myth is that Philadelphia and PA are broke, forcing us to close schools and pay poverty wages. However, tax breaks for corporations operating in PA have more than tripled, from $850,000 in 2003 to $3,200,000,000 in 2013. In 2010, 73% of corporations paid no corporate income tax. A good example is Comcast. After spending $140,789 in lobbying efforts in Philadelphia, Comcast received $30,000,000 of property tax abatements over five years, in addition to $42,750,000 in state grants and assistance. In 2011, Comcast made $55,000,000,000 in profits.

At the Philadelphia Airport, where POWER concentrated its efforts all last year, US Airways paid $166,485 in lobbying efforts while its earnings jumped to $637 million in 2012. The CEO of US Airways received a 44 percent increase in compensation to $5.5 million last year. Meanwhile, more than 20% of US Airways staff at the airport reported going hungry within the last year. 75% had difficulty paying bills. 97% received no paid sick days. A significant number rely on food stamps.

The number of Philadelphians at or below the poverty line is 40%; a doubling in the last six years. Philadelphia has the highest level of severe poverty among the nation’s ten largest cities. Poverty-wage jobs often lack basic support structures like paid sick leave, time off, and health benefits. Among workers of color, the rate of poverty is twice as high. Even in the suburbs, poverty rates have grown by 40% in the last decade. For these reasons, creating jobs with a living wage is one of POWER’s two main concerns.

POWER's other main goal is improving public education. Lawmakers, lobbied by corporations, have consistently underfunded Pennsylvania’s schools. We are one of only three states that lack a fair funding formula. An article about this was written in The Atlantic, and can be read here or on St. Martin's Facebook page.  476 of 500 school districts in Pennsylvania were underfunded in 2006 even before Governor Corbett cut $1,000,000,000 from the education budget.  While education is reduced, the prison budget has doubled over the last decade. A good example is $400,000,000 for a new prison just outside the city.

Jim Wallace of Sojourners magazine asserts that public budgets are moral documents. We, the tax payers, are complicit in what these budgets say. The city owns the airport and all its public projects. The city allows subcontracted labor on city projects to be paid lower than the minimum wage without benefits.

POWER is working on a campaign to pass an initiative on the May ballot to correct this practice. POWER is also working to achieve a fair funding formula for our schools. Watch the video on the website. Help POWER accomplish its goals.

- The Rev. Carol Duncan