Sermon: "Homily at Deacons' Retreat"
The Right Reverend Charles G. vonRosenberg
Third Bishop of East Tennessee

The story of our Lord's Passion grips us both with its remarkable intensity and with the amazing variety of emotional response that it calls forth from us. We are not innocent bystanders in this story. Rather, we ourselves participate in it.

We watch as Jesus reaches Jerusalem, and we cheer his triumphal entry. Our excitement is quite real, for perhaps at last our following Jesus will be vindicated. Then, later, we wait as Jesus prays in Gethsemane … and, shamefully, we fall asleep with exhaustion. When Judas and the crowd arrive to arrest Jesus, we sense the need to defend him … but, instead, we run in fear. We want to support Jesus during his trial and during all the talk that surrounds that event - but we remain silent and, even, deny that we know him. We watch as Jesus is led to Golgatha, and we try to blend into the crowd, rather than stand apart in our support of the condemned man. We feel helpless and hopeless, ashamed and guilty, afraid and useless … even as Jesus dies on the cross.

Wasn't it only days ago that we felt so proud and so self-righteous? We were on top of the world. And now there seems no point to our existence … and, certainly, no future in it.

My friends, this story is not only of Jesus' Passion. It is our story as well. It includes our heritage … the ministry that we inherit. Our ministry is none other than that of Jesus - the ministry of service and of leadership. No matter what the cost, no matter how inadequate we are, the call to ministry remains the same - to serve and to lead.

"To serve and to lead - the Deacon's unique ministry" - that's been the theme of this weekend. Surely our ministry is unique … and just as surely, that ministry - our leadership - is grounded in service.

It is interesting to me that just last weekend I led the vestry workshop of St. Paul's, Chattanooga - and the propers I chose for the Eucharist on that occasion were associated with the theme, "For All Baptized Christians." You see, I wanted to speak to those leaders about the fact that true leadership derives from service … "to serve and to lead."

Further, a point I wanted to emphasize last week - and this week - is that our calls to leadership and to service are grounded in our baptismal promises … the Baptismal Covenant. While our particular ministry as deacons may indeed be unique, we share the Christian calling with all the baptized. Therefore, whether we find our calls to leadership and service as lay people, bishops, priests, or deacons, those calls - I am convinced - find their primary motivation in baptism.

Therefore, the greatest personal recognition that we have in this world is not the position we hold, or the money we make, or the house we live in, or the responsibilities we fulfill. Rather, our greatest personal recognition - our claim to fame - is our baptism. "We have been buried with Christ by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life." So writes St. Paul in his Letter to the Romans. That, then, is our one, authentic claim to fame - baptism.

Those for whom and by whom we have been entrusted our ordained positions of leadership in the Church - those, too, are baptized. We have no greater claim to fame than they do. And, therefore, as ordained leaders in the church, we are servants of the servants of God. We are numbered among those that God in Christ came to serve - and we dare not forget that association! Indeed, in the community of baptized people, we find our reason for serving and the proper perspective on our position of leadership. And, in the community of the baptized, we find something else, too - for Christ himself is there. Amen.

Copyright © 2002 The Episcopal Diocese of East Tennessee