Many holy catholic and apostolic churches

I've sworn I wouldn't get involved in the sexuality wars, even tangentially. But here goes.

At the end of Being As Communion (St Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1985), John D. Zizioulas dwells briefly on the topic of "The Church in a Context of Division," beginning:

Our actual situation in the Church is more seriously complicated by the fact that the local Church has to be conceived in a context of confessional division. The concept of the Church as a confessional entity (Orthodox, Anglican, Lutheran etc.) is historically a late phenomenon and has come to complicate the ecclesiological situation to an alarming degree. [259]

Zizioulas then asks two questions:

1. Has a confessional body per se the right to be regarded as Church?
He doesn't believe so. "A Church must incarnate people, not ideas or beliefs. A confessional Church is the most disincarnate entity there is."

2. Can a local Church be regarded as truly local and truly Church if it is in a state of confessional division?
Zizioulas isn't sure of the answer to this question. He thinks the local church must first rid itself of confessionalism. His last words in the book: "Taking the reality of the local Church and its theology more seriously than we have done so far may prove to be of extreme importance to the ecumenical movement."

I submit that it is also of extreme importance to the Anglican churches at this time of disintegration. At the very least, we were less than church after the Great Schism of East and West, and even less after the splits of the Reformation, and we shall be all the less, to an extreme, after the pending break-up of the Anglican Communion. Surely there is heresy in splitting the one church into many.

[Note: John Zizioulas is the titular Orthodox metropolitan bishop of Pergamon and one of the world's leading theologians.]

Arialdus, deacon and martyr, 1066

27 June

Arialdus, also called Arialdo, deacon and martyr, persecuted and killed by allies of the archbishop of Milan, 1066.

A noble of the Alciati family, born in Cutiacum, Italy, Arialdus studied at Laon and Paris before becoming a canon. He was leader of the patari, a popular reform movement, whose members assembled in the Pataria or ragmen’s quarter of Milan (pates being a dialectal word for “rags”). He preached against the abuses of the clergy and was excommunicated by Archbishop Guido but reinstated by Pope Stephen IX. Arialdus procured the excommunication of Guido for simony and immorality, but Guido ignored the decree. Guido’s allies tortured and killed Arialdus and threw his body into Lake Maggiore. The body was recovered ten months later, uncorrupt and sweet smelling, and carried to the cathedral in Milan, where it remained on public display before being buried in the cathedral. In 1067 Pope Alexander II declared Arialdus a martyr.

[From my calendar of more than 200 deacon saints.]

COMMENT: Patron saint of undertakers?

NAAD conference in Seattle

Deacons told to explore new opportunities for ministry
Presiding Bishop offers keynote address at biennial conference of U.S. and Canadian deacons

By Kim Forman, June 26, 2007
[Episcopal News Service] Deacons are called to be the "nags of the church," Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori told the biennial Conference of the North American Association for the Diaconate (NAAD) on June 22 at their meeting in Seattle. Reflecting the Conference theme, "Being There, Mission for a New Millennium," she encouraged the assembled deacons to explore new opportunities for ministry.

Read it all here.

COMMENT: Nags as in horses? Or as in kick butt?

A timeless moment of engagement

Words strain,
Crack and sometimes break, under the burden,
Under the tension, slip, slide, perish,
Decay with imprecision, will not stay in place,
Will not stay still.

These lines come from T. S. Eliot’s “Burnt Norton,” the first poem of Four Quartets. I read them in the May issue of Worship, in Nathan Mitchell’s regular column, “The Amen Corner.”

Mitchell was writing about the language of liturgy. The bishops at Vatican II, following the tradition of the early church, wanted language, in documents as in liturgy, to “adhere to prevailing modes of expression.” Current bishops in Rome want the language of worship to adhere to “sacred style.” I sympathize with the earlier bishops. To mention just a couple of examples, I insist on using “cup” and “plate” for the dishes of the eucharist. These words reflect the prevailing language of English-speaking people in our culture. Sacred style calls for “chalice” and “paten,” the language of no people in no culture, except in church. Try ordering a chalice of coffee in a restaurant.

(Note: BCP uses “cup” in all eucharistic prayers and both "cup" and “chalice” in rubrics here and there. A different committee must have written the rubrics, forgetting their Anglican history. It’s significant that Cranmer did not title his work Book of Sacred Prayer.)

While there will always be debate about the proper use of language in worship, the principle remains: We worship best in words of our time and place. As people grounded in the reality of a dusty world with dusty roads, deacons understand the need for simplicity, for common speech and common presence. Mitchell’s article inspired me to read all of Four Quartets. “Burnt Norton” begins:

Time present and time past
Are both perhaps present in time future,
And time future contained in time past.

Eliot died in 1965, at the dawn of liturgical revision in western churches, and thus probably did not appreciate the ironic reflection of his poetry in our familiar eucharistic acclamation “Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again.” Time is the main theme of Four Quartets, the gathering of past, present, and future into one event, which makes it an intensely religious work. Is not the interpenetration of time at the heart of Hebrew and Christian belief and practice? The seven days of creation (eons or overlapping stages) stretch into an eternity of salvation. Jews remember what was as they wait for the Messiah, wait for Elijah to appear at the Passover seder. Christians remember what was as they wait for Christ to come again, wait for the kingdom, which already is, to appear in all its glory. Alpha is Omega, past, present, and future. Three are one, in time as in God.

In the last poem of the four, “Little Gidding,” Eliot comes finally to the home of Nicholas Ferrar, to “the intersection of the timeless moment.” It’s a place for pilgrims, not for tourists.

You are not here to verify,
Instruct yourself, or inform curiosity
Or carry report. You are here to kneel
Where prayer has been valid. And prayer is more
Than an order of words, the conscious occupation
Of the praying mind, or the sound of the voice praying.
And what the dead had no speech for, when living,
They can tell you, being dead: the communication
Of the dead is tongued with fire beyond the language of the living.

Living in New Orleans, a city still in ruins, I sometimes wonder whether we too are a place for pilgrims. Certainly those who come here to work in devastated houses, like the group of deacons who came in March, have an experience of prayer. They discover that in the people and the buildings, in the timeless moment of engagement, they encounter what is holy.

Do the tradition, be the church

The Orthodox Christian who writes JN1034 has provided guidelines for gay communicants who want to survive. He titles it "Do the Tradition, Be the Church." It begins:

The vast majority of the world is Orthodox-unaware and indifferent. And a greater proportion is anti-gay and misanthropic. As Orthodox Christians (who happen to be gay), we’ve one of two practical lifestyle options: Either maintain an active presence at church services (while staying below the social radar), or restrict-downgrade church attendance altogether (limiting association with the Sacraments to occasional participation, if at all). Unfortunately, most people like we, under duress, choose the latter option.

The seven guidelines, much abbreviated, are:

1. Pray a lot, especially the Jesus prayer.
2. Oil and water yourself, making the sign of the cross on your forehead.
3. Cry.
4. Be humble.
5. Eat God by receiving communion.
6. Do the Tradition. For an Orthodox this means such devotional acts as lighting a candle, burning incense, and kissing an icon. It also means doing unto others as you would have them do unto you.
7. Go beyond forgiveness, using patience and emptying ourselves of anger.

Read the details. The list can be adapted (although not by much) for Anglican practices. And I think these are good practices for all of us, not just those with a special need for survival.

Entries for the Book of Proverbs

Ubuntu ungamntu ngabanye abantu. (A person depends on other people to be a person.)--Xhosa proverb (Michael Battle, Reconciliation, p. 39)

Bouki fait gombo, Lapin mangé li. (Bouki makes gumbo, Lapin eats it.)--Louisiana Creole proverb about a stupid hyena and a smart rabbit

In New Orleans even the Jews are Catholic.--local Jewish saying

Okay, it's your turn.

Calendar of deacon saints

I have extensively revised the calendar of deacon saints, which can be found here. In addition, I am putting the entry of the day on my blog.

There are more than 200 saints on the calendar. The revision drops a few (for whom I can find no evidence, even legendary, that they were deacons) and adds a few, mainly from recent years. I have also added brief (sometimes lengthy) biographies.

Thank God for Google, Wikipedia, and the numerous religious and secular sites that have put biographies, other information, even entire books, on the Internet! And of course the original listing was the work of Sister Teresa of London.

To qualify for admission to the calendar, you must have died while in the order of deacons. I hold legend and historical fact as of equal value. Relics and miracles are helpful (even if they are currently out of favor). So is proclaiming the gospel and healing the sick. The weird get first place. But ultimately it's my call.

I have also taken the liberty, contra 1979 BCP, of placing deacon saints on their actual (or suspected) date of death, when known, and sometimes, as is the custom, on the date of transferral or burial of their bodies or relics. Thus, Ephrem ends up on June 9, Oakerhater on Aug. 31, and Nicholas Ferrar on Dec. 4 (that's his picture above), the actual days they died. Multiple saints on one day are acceptable--the more the merrier in the communion of saints. (The western and eastern churches often remember a saint on different days. I leave that confusion to the ecumenists to sort out.)

If you want to nominate a deacon saint or make a correction, let me know. It's a work in progress, at least until my own death.

Deacons as mission scouts

This comes from the blog That We All May Be One, by Bishop Christopher Epting, TEC's ecumenical officer:

Deacons, Mission, and New Church Starts

It’s a joy for me to be an observer at the annual conference of the North American Association for the Diaconate meeting at the beautiful Seattle University here in the Pacific Northwest. A couple of hundred participants were addressed this morning by Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori on the topic of mission.

Those who persist in believing that the Presiding Bishop (or the Episcopal Church) now defines the mission of the Church exclusively in terms of the Millennium Development Goals will be pleased to know that her framework for today’s presentation were the Five Marks of Mission defined by the Anglican Consultative Council. (Google “Five Marks of Mission” to see them listed).

I think I was most struck by the PB’s challenge to the deacons (and the Church) to be about the mission of this 3rd Millennium Church in new ways. For example, rather than deciding on “new church starts” by demographic analyses, income predictions, even ethnicity, how about having deacons (and others) tell us where the gospel most needs to be heard and establish new communities of faith there!

Young people, she correctly pointed out, are less concerned about a “spirituality of place” and more interested in a “spirituality of practice.” New church starts and indeed the Church of the future may be less concerned with buildings and more concerned with incarnating God’s mission.

I’ve been following the so-called “emergent church” movement lately and that certainly seems to be among the distinctive characteristics of these young people. In any case, as a longtime supporter of the diaconate, I was energized by the thought of these devoted deacons — who are in their ordination vows pledged to “interpret the needs of the world to the Church” — providing much-needed guidance to bishops and dioceses seriously interested in planting new churches which can actually be communities engaged in “restoring all people to unity with God and each other in Christ.

Transitional deacon

Ann Fontaine writes in her blog What the Tide Brings In about the transitional diaconate, including:

Today is the 12th anniversary of my ordination to the transitional diaconate. It is always an odd sort of date. I never felt called to be a Deacon so making the vows of a Deacon all the while knowing that in some part of me they were not true felt like a lie. It was not the first time in my life or the last for this dilemma. Alban was killed for putting on someone else's cloak and being mistaken for the other person. I wonder about that in the context of being ordained. He lied (by deed) to protect his mentor. The church and I lied because that is how it is done. Many of us have worked to get the liturgies for ordinations changed so Deacons have one ordination and Priests another. The General Convention of the Episcopal Church has not passed that yet - but we keep working.

Read it all here.

Torture and death

The following is from the Orthodox blog Glory to God for All Things (read it all here):

When St. Vladimir was received into the Orthodox faith (around 988 A.D.) along with many of his countrymen, among the incredible deeds of this sainted king were:

• the establishment of a tithe to the Church from the holdings of the Prince
• the abolition of capital punishment in the Russia lands
• the abolition of torture
• the establishment of public schools (in the 11th century!)
  

There were many other marvelous works which he set in motion. The ban on torture was counseled against (even by some of the Greek Bishops) for fear that he would not be able to rule effectively without it.

But St. Vladimir’s instincts were correct and founded upon the Gospel. The Church has always embraced the commandments of Christ, even if the state sometimes finds it necessary (in statecraft, not in the Kingdom of God) to do something other than the commandments of Christ.

It is a sin to kill and even treated as a sin if I inadvertently cause the death of another. Torture is certainly a disobedience to Christ’s commandments to love your neighbor and to love your enemies.

Nations and peoples today that use torture and capital punishment as a means of controlling unruly or dissident segments of the population should be called what they truly are--pre-Christian.

A litany of reconciliation

[To be sung by cantors, with the people responding.]

One God,
believe in us.
The Father, the Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all that is, seen and unseen,
believe in us.
One Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father,
believe in us.
God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God,
believe in us.
Begotten, not made, of one Being with the Father, through him all things were made,
believe in us.
For us and for our salvation he came down from heaven,
believe in us.
was incarnate of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary and became truly human.
believe in us.
For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate; he suffered death and was buried.
believe in us.
On the third day he rose again in accordance with the Scriptures,
believe in us.
He ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
believe in us.
He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and his kingdom will have no end.
believe in us.
Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life,
believe in us.
who proceeds from the Father,
believe in us.
who with the Father and the Son is worshiped and glorified,
believe in us.
who has spoken through the prophets,
believe in us.
We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church.
God, believe in us.
We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins.
God, believe in us.
We look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come. Amen.
God, believe in us.

Demetrian

20 June

Demetrian, deacon and martyr, with presbyter Aristocleus and reader Athanasius, killed at Cyprus, 306.

Aristocleus, a native of the Cypriot city of Tamasa, served in the cathedral church during the persecution under emperor Maximian Galerius (305-311). He became terrified of the tortures, left the city, and hid in a mountain cave. Once during prayer a light shone on him, and he heard a command from the Lord to return to the island of Cyprus and suffer for Christ. Aristocleus obediently set out to return, and on the way he visited the church of the apostle Barnabas, where he met Demetrian and Athanasius. He told them of his vision, and Demetrian and Athanasius decided to endure martyrdom with him. Arriving in the city of Salamis, all three began to preach to the people about Jesus Christ and denounced idol-worship. The pagans arrested them, and the governor, seeing that they were steadfast in their faith, gave orders to behead Aristocleus, and to burn Demetrian and Athanasius. Even in the fire, they remained unharmed, but they were beheaded by sword.

[From my calendar of more than 200 deacon saints. To qualify for admission, you must have died while in the order of deacons. Relics and miracles helpful.]

Culmatius

19 June

Culmatius, deacon and martyr, with his bishop Gaudentius, layman Andrew and his wife and children, and 53 companions, killed for their catholic faith by the Arians in Arezzo in Tuscany, during the reign of Valentinian I, 364.

[From my calendar of more than 200 deacon saints. To qualify for admission, you must have died while in the order of deacons. Relics and miracles helpful.]

Ferrutio and Colman McRoi

16 June

Ferrutio, deacon, with his brother the presbyter Ferreolus, natives of Asia Minor, sent by Irenaeus of Lyons (who had ordained them) to evangelize the country around Besançon in northeastern Gaul (present Franche-Comté), where they worked for 30 years and were tortured and beheaded during the persecution of Severus, c 212. According to Gregory of Tours in the 6th century, their relics cured Gregory's brother-in-law of distemper. The relics are still treasured in the cathedral of Besançon.

Colman McRoi, deacon, disciple of Columba, and founder and abbot of a Benedictine abbey at Reachrain, now Lambay Island, Dublin, 6th c.

[From my calendar of more than 200 deacon saints. To qualify for admission, you must have died while in the order of deacons. Relics helpful, miracles not necessary.]

Ubuntu and relationships

The Executive Council issued a statement yesterday on "The Episcopal Church's Commitment to Common Life in the Anglican Communion," which reads in part:

As important as we hold our polity, the questions before us now are fundamentally relational. Our salvation is not in law but in the grace of God in Jesus Christ our Savior; so too with our relationships as Anglicans. One part of this grace is that we, all of us, are bound together irrevocably into the body of Christ by the Holy Spirit through the waters of Baptism. We are, whether we wish it or not, God’s gift to each other. It is our bounden duty to respond to God's grace, a grace that we believe warrants gratitude and respect and that must be reflected in a deep and abiding honesty with one another in the context of living relationships.

It is remarkable how close these words are to what Desmond Tutu wrote in God Has a Dream (2004):

When we see others as the enemy, we risk becoming what we hate. When we oppress others, we end up oppressing ourselves. All of our humanity is dependant on recognizing the humanity in others. [49-50]

Recognizing the humanity in others is what South Africans call ubuntu, an anthropology of loving relationships, in which reality resides in community, as opposed the individualistic theology common in western culture, in which reality resides in each person. Our House of Bishops and Executive Council appear to have chosen the African way.

Anastasius

14 June

Anastasius, deacon of the church of Saint Acisclus in Córdoba, Spain, who became a Benedictine monk at the double monastery of Tábanos nearby, beheaded by order of the caliph with the monk Felix and the nun Digna, at Córdoba, 853. (There's probably an icon in Córdoba, maybe in a church, but I haven't been able to find it.)

[From my calendar of more than 200 deacon saints. To qualify for admission, you must have died while in the order of deacons. Miracles not necessary.]

Aspirant for bishop

As a fan of fictional African detective ladies and a drinker of Botswana red tea, I'm applying to the Archbishop of Botswana (if there is such a prelate) to ordain me a bishop in the Botswana Anglicans of North America League (BANAL). I've had lots of practice with mitres and croziers and thus qualify.

UPDATE: Grandmère Mimi has taken this topic to unheard of limits.

In search of memes

Only in the last day or so have I started reading about memes, most recently on MadPriest. But what are they? And how is the word pronounced--with long e or short e, one or two syllables? Fortunately, I was able to google (now there's a chic verb) and find an abundance of sites dealing with memes, starting with this Wikipedia definition, possibly written by a professor of philology:

"A meme (IPA: /miːm/) is a unit of cultural information that propagates from one mind to another as a theoretical unit of cultural evolution and diffusion, analogous to the way a gene propagates from one organism to another as a unit of genetic information and evolution."

Although I still don't know what the word means, I was able to figure out from IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) that it is pronounced, maybe, like "Meemuh" and has something to do with communication. Maybe a meme is a haiku. But wait! The Meme Central website defines meme (rhymes with "dream") as:

"Memes are the basic building blocks of our minds and culture, in the same way that genes are the basic building blocks of biological life."

So it's a little fellow.

Ephrem the Syrian

Icon of Ephrem the Syrian from Meryem Ana Kilesesi, Diyarbakır (in southeastern Turkey)

June 9 is the traditional feast day for Ephrem the Syrian (or Ephrem of Edessa), deacon, theologian, hymn-writer, and doctor of the church, because he probably died on that day in 373. To make room for Columba of Iona, the Episcopal calendar bumps Ephrem to June 10. (The Episcopal Church allows only one saint per day, unless they are linked, like Mary and Martha of Bethany. Other churches, especially the Orthodox, take a more sociable view of the communion of saints and allow two or more.)

It's normally the custom to celebrate a saint's day on the day of death, although sometimes it's the day of transferral of bones. Other deacons whom The Episcopal Church has moved to another day are:

David Pendleton Oakerhater, former Cheyenne warrior chief and missionary in Oklahoma, who died on August 31 in 1931 (in BCP bumped to Sept. 1 to make room for Aidan).

Nicholas Ferrar, founder and leader of a religious community at Little Gidding, Huntingdonshire, who died on Dec. 4 in 1637 (in BCP bumped to Dec. 1 to make room for John of Damascus).

An African Canticle

Another offering by the good bishop, Desmond Tutu, in his An African Prayer Book (1995). He attributes this to a "Traditional African" source:

An African Canticle

All you big things, bless the Lord.
Mount Kilimanjaro and Lake Victoria,
The Rift Valley and the Serengeti Plain,
Fat baobabs and shady mango trees,
All eucalyptus and tamarind trees,
Bless the Lord.
Praise and extol Him for ever and ever.

All you tiny things, bless the Lord.
Busy black ants and hopping fleas,
Wriggling tadpoles and mosquito larvae,
Flying locusts and water drops,
Pollen dust and tsetse flies,
Millet seeds and dried dagaa,
Bless the Lord.
Praise and extol Him for ever and ever.

Reconciliation

I am on a Desmond Tutu binge, reading anything by or about the great archbishop. The latest book I have read is his No Future Without Forgiveness (1999), which tells the story of his work as chairman of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa during 1995-1998. The democratic voting and election of Nelson Mandela as president in 1994 did not end the revolution against apartheid. Healing had to follow. But what about the future? Let me quote a paragraph near the end of the book:

If we are going to move on and build a new kind of world community there must be a way in which we can deal with a sordid past. The most effective way would be for the perpetrators or their descendants to acknowledge the awfulness of what happened and the descendants of the victims to respond by granting forgiveness, providing something can be done, even symbolically, to compensate for the anguish experienced, whose consequences are still being lived through today. It may be, for instance, that race relations in the United States will not improve significantly until Native Americans and African Americans get the opportunity to tell their stories and reveal the pain that sits in the pit of their stomachs as a baneful legacy of dispossession and slavery. We saw in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission how the act of telling one's story has a cathartic, healing effect. [278-279]

Telling one's story--both parties, in public. That's how healing begins. With confession and request for forgiveness, in public. Then forgiveness, in public. With tangible or symbolic compensation.

Isn't this the classic form of the sacrament of reconciliation? And indeed, before the Celtic innovation of private confession--one to one, in a box or private space--confession took exactly that form. As we imagine how reconciliation might work in America, we should look to the distant past for how it might work in the church, when sin has been public.

Augustine's Trinity and Love

Since a discussion on this topic has occupied the blog Stand Fast (see also Episcopal Café), I am reprinting below pertinent material from St. Augustine's de Trinitate (ca. 428), Book VIII, Chap. 10:

There are Three Things in Love, as It Were a Trace of the Trinity.

But what is love or charity, which divine Scripture so greatly praises and proclaims, except the love of good? But love is of some one that loves, and with love something is loved. Behold, then, there are three things: he that loves, and that which is loved, and love. What, then, is love, except a certain life which couples or seeks to couple together some two things, namely, him that loves, and that which is loved? And this is so even in outward and carnal loves. But that we may drink in something more pure and clear, let us tread down the flesh and ascend to the mind. What does the mind love in a friend except the mind? There, then, also are three things: he that loves, and that which is loved, and love. It remains to ascend also from hence, and to seek those things which are above, as far as is given to man. But here for a little while let our purpose rest, not that it may think itself to have found already what it seeks; but just as usually the place has first to be found where anything is to be sought, while the thing itself is not yet found, but we have only found already where to look for it; so let it suffice to have said thus much, that we may have, as it were, the hinge of some starting-point, whence to weave the rest of our discourse.

Postmodern Episcopalian

According to an Associated Press story (reported on Get Religion), of the 17 announced candidates for president in 2008 only one is an Episcopalian, Senator John McCain. He doesn't go to the Episcopal church, however, since his four youngest children are Baptist. When he's home he attends the North Phoenix Baptist Church.

There's a story there somewhere.

The Most Holy Trinity

Andrei Rublev's icon of the Old Testament Trinity (ca. 1410).

Bishops in the liturgy

Another book I've read recently is The Bishop Is Coming! A Practical Guide for Bishops and Congregations, by Paul V. Marshall (Church Publishing, 2007). The Bishop of Bethlehem (Pennsylvania) writes in a witty and entertaining style, and his little book helps us get inside the mind of the bishop as he or she connects with the local people of God.

As a former aide de camp for my bishop in liturgy, I was especially curious about his approach to deacons. Soon after his ordination Marshall made a key appointment: "Nothing I did liturgically in my early episcopate got more thanks from clergy and congregations than did assigning one of our deacons as my chaplain." This deacon, George Loeffler (to whom the book is dedicated), arrives an hour early for visitations, handles all liturgical questions and preparations, and functions in the role of chaplain, handling mitre, crozier, and books. If the parish doesn't already have a deacon, he also performs the normal role of deacon in the liturgy.

(In Bethlehem the archdeacon is a priest, and that person functions as an advance agent, arriving on site about two weeks ahead of time, meeting with clergy and parish leaders to find out how the congregation is doing with finances and mission.)

Some particulars:

• The entrance procession ends with deacon with gospel book, priests who will be at the altar, deacon chaplain, bishop, and perhaps two deacons. "Ideally the bishop would be preceded and followed by deacons, but in all but the largest liturgies this is impossible."
• "Deacons and liturgical assistants do not sit with the bishop as colleagues, but sit or stand nearby, ready to assist."
• The deacon asks for a blessing before the gospel procession. (Marshall has the deacon get the gospel book before the blessing, instead of after it, as is normal.)
• "After the [gospel] reading, the book is brought to the bishop, who may venerate it with a kiss."
• In preparing the table, the deacon places bread and cup side by side, with cup on right.
• The deacon censes the bishop and then "the other clergy and the people (in some places the thurifer does this)."
• During the eucharistic prayer, "The deacon stands a little behind the bishop, to the right."
• "The prayer book does not contemplate the insertion of a hymn between blessing and dismissal, but this does not seem to be a battle that can be won in all places. The dismissal should be said facing the people." (I interpret the last sentence to mean that in places with an intervening hymn the deacon either stays up front or returns there for the dismissal.)
• In ordinations (and other major celebrations), the two attending deacons "face the people from behind the bishop's shoulders." At the altar, two deacons are "behind each shoulder. The deacon on the left turns pages and the deacon on the right elevates the cup."
• In the ordination of deacons, "the music and other ceremonial should be of the same richness as ordinations to the presbyterate."

Marshall's concluding advice about the ordination of deacons:

Everything should be done in a way that underscores the integrity and dignity of the office of deacon. . . . Even though the churches of east and west are solidly wed to sequential ordination at least for the time being, and the majority of deacons will become priests, the diaconate ought not ever be spoken of as a stepping-stone to the presbyterate, just as it is impossible to imagine a sermon speaking of the presbyterate as a stepping-stone to the episcopate.

And for those who like eccentricity in dress, Marshall decrees (in a letter to postulants):

• ". . . you are not to wear a cross as part of your liturgical vesture."
• "Similarly, try not to wear rings other than rings given in troth [i.e., wedding rings] when serving at the liturgy."
• "Additionally, jewelry that can be seen from more than a few feet away should not be worn when ministering liturgically. This includes watches and anything that dangles from perforations in your flesh."
• ". . . there are never any situations in which it is proper to cross your legs while wearing vestments."

The preaching of Desmond Tutu

I have been reading The Rainbow People of God: The Making of a Peaceful Revolution, edited by John Allen (Doubleday, 1994). This is a collection of letters, speeches, and sermons by Desmond Tutu from 1976 to 1994, when South Africa held its first democratic elections and Nelson Mandela was inaugurated as president. They were years of intense struggle and violence, and Tutu often had to step forward in the role of moral and political leader.

I am impressed by the development of his speaking skills during these years. In the early years his speeches are logical and factual, European in style, but then, about the time he invents the phrase "rainbow people of God" as the living vision of a multiracial, multicultural Africa, an Africa whose people are beautiful in their many colors, the speeches begin to change. They flower. They become exciting and fun. They become, in short, African. How does he do this? He uses repetition to drive a point home and frequently urges the congregation or audience in participate actively by responding and shouting back. This is from a mass funeral in 1990:

Friends, you know when the new South Africa comes we are going to need doctors, nurses, teachers, engineers, pilots, we are going to need all these experts. We want our children and everybody to go to school, to be educated. And we will all be free, all of us, black and white, Zulu, Tswana, all of us will be free, together. Say, we will be free. ["We will be free."] All of us. ["All of us."] Black and white. ["Black and white."] We want peace! ["We want peace!"] We want harmony! ["We want harmony!"] We want love! ["We want love!"]

Tutu also gets the people to wave their arms and jump up and down. It is interesting that rhetorical devices of repetition and response are exactly what St. John Chrysostom uses in his famous Paschal homily:

Hell was in an uproar because it was done away.
In an uproar [In an uproar] for it is mocked.
In an uproar [In an uproar] for it is destroyed.
In an uproar [In an uproar] for it is annihilated.
In an uproar [In an uproar] for it is now made captive.
Hell took a body, and discovered God,
took earth, and encountered heaven,
took what it saw, and was overcome by what it did not see.
O death, where is your victory?
O death, where is your sting?

Christ is risen [Christ is risen] and you, O death, are annihilated!
Christ is risen [Christ is risen] and the evil ones are cast down!
Christ is risen [Christ is risen] and the angels rejoice!
Christ is risen [Christ is risen] and life is liberated!
Christ is risen [Christ is risen] and the tomb is emptied of its dead,
for Christ, having risen from the dead,
has become the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep.

In churches where I have seen that homily preached, the people stomped their feet during the responses. (A rubric urged the stomping. I don't think such gestures are natural among Anglicans, at least in the Global North.)

Another rhetorical device Tutu uses is the joke or comic story, always leading to a moral or theological point. In a sermon in 1987 he tells a funny story about the stock South African fool Van der Merwe (like Boudreaux in South Louisiana), who messes up three simple answers while applying for a job. The point, Tutu says, is that we must not be as stupid as Van der Merwe. This comment leads into a series of repetitions, and then Tutu asks, "Do we want to be free?" Apparently the people are about to shout in response when Tutu stops them and sets them up for his punch line:

Now wait, wait, wait. Just think about that answer. Do we want to be free? You must be careful what you say. There are only two answers--give only one of them. You either say, "No, we don't want to be free," or you say, "Yes, we want to be free!" ["Yebo, yebo" ("Yes, yes" in Zulu).]

Oh, I wish our sermons were as delightfully African as Desmond Tutu's, and not just in our African-American churches.