In this occasional blog series, I’m looking at how the image of the door in Scripture might be a helpful way to think of the deacon’s ministry. I’m also responding to the various challenges faced by distinctive deacons working in diverse liturgical traditions across the length and breadth of the Church of England.
St George’s Church, Singapore (pictured above), where I am serving as an honorary deacon, is a church without doors! The church is modelled on a Christian basilica (4th-5th century), whose form was similar to a Greek and Roman temple; it’s a rectangle with a pitched roof and columns all round it. Think of a long rectangular barn and you start to get the picture, though the building is not hermetically sealed. Thanks to this open style of architecture, unusually in Singapore, the church cannot benefit from air-conditioning. The point is that there are no doors to open and close as people come and go, as would normally be the case in a parish church, whereby providing an opportunity for meet and greet.
Before the recent conference for distinctive deacons [‘Praying with Hope on the Margins’], I asked Canon Rosalind Brown “why does the church need distinctive deacons today?” To which came the simple reply, “to keep the church doors open”. In her book Being a Deacon Today, Rosalind draws on the Rule of Benedict, a guide for monastic life from the 6th century still in use today. It contains much useful advice for all Christians and for communal life outside the monastery. This is what Benedict has to say about the doorkeeper (porter) in the monastery:
At the gate of the monastery let there be placed a wise old man, who knows how to receive and to give a message, and whose maturity will prevent him from straying about. This porter should have a room near the gate, so that those who come may always find someone at hand to attend to their business. And as soon as anyone knocks or a poor man hails him, let him answer “Thanks be to God” or “A blessing!” Then let him attend to them promptly, with all the meekness inspired by the fear of God and with the warmth of charity. Should the porter need help, let him have one of the younger brethren. (Rule of Benedict, Chapter 66)
The doorkeeper has to be available at all times for visitors to the monastery. He can’t just wander off! The doorkeeper’s qualifications include wisdom and maturity. In order to fulfil the round-the-clock demands of this post, he will need an appropriate sense of humility and charity; he must have the patience to cope with interruptions. Indeed, Benedict stipulates that all guests who arrive should be received as if they were Christ, for he will say, ‘I was a stranger and you took me in’ (Ch.53). As Rosalind Brown remarks, the way we answer doors is the way with deal with the world.
At the Feast of the Ascension, we heard the opening words of Psalm 24, a psalm interpreted in connection with Christ’s ascent into the gates of heaven:
Open up, ancient gates!
Open up, ancient doors,
and let the King of glory enter.
It is important that as deacons, we recognise that the door is not simply a point of entry or exit. As Pope Francis reminded us, “The Church is called to be the house of the Father, with doors always wide open. One concrete sign of such openness is that our church doors should always be open, so that if someone, moved by the Spirit, comes there looking for God, he or she will not find a closed door.” 1
For Christians, baptism is the gateway to life in the Spirit, flowing out into the life of the baptised. In John 10:9, Jesus says, “I am the door. Whoever enters by me will be saved, and will come in and go out and find pasture.” Coming in andgoing out through the door nourishes us for our ongoing journey. The image encompasses abundant life, for it is by returning to the source of life that we will be renewed day by day. Developing the image further, we have a picture of Jesus the Deacon standing at the door welcoming people, calling them and sending them out again into new pasture. For deacons, the church door is an ecclesial sign of our openness, as a “go-between”, or conduit, between church and world.
Ignatius of Antioch (2nd c.) writes that…everyone must show the deacons respect. They represent Jesus Christ, just as the bishop has the role of the Father, and the presbyters are like God’s council and an apostolic band. You cannot have a church without these. 2
From welcome to intercession
In the Benedictine tradition, the arrival of a stranger becomes an opportunity to welcome a guest“as Christ Himself”, to pronounce a thanksgiving to God or a blessing and to offer hospitality. As Brother Andrew-Thomas recently reminded us, Benedict understood that holiness begins not at the centre of the cloister but at its edges.3
If the role of the deacon as doorkeeper is to welcome people, especially the forgotten, as “Christ himself”, then it follows that they will enter into the presence of God. This diaconal ministry of presence is a gift which enables all the baptized to live out their calling. In Being a Deacon Today (Chapter 7), Rosalind Brown reminds us that a theology of being (“being before God with the people on your heart”) is reflected in the ministry of intercessory prayer. The Ordinal makes it clear that prayer is part of the vocation of the deacon:
‘They are to serve the community in which they are set, bringing to the Church the needs and hopes of all the people.’ – Ordination of Deacons
In his classic study of priesthood, Archbishop Michael Ramsey notes that the original meaning of the Greek word translated as intercession is not ‘to make petition’ or ‘to pray for’, but is a notion of presence. It means encountering someone on behalf of, or in relation to, others. 4This theology of being for others helps to guard against an overly functional understanding of ministry, which has focused too much on what a deacon does. And, of course, this ministry is not even about us!
In the heart of Romans 8, Paul places less of an emphasis on our agency than on the power of God’s spirit working in and through prayer:
But if we hope for what we don’t see, we wait for it eagerly – but also patiently. In the same way, too, the spirit comes alongside and helps us in our weakness. We don’t know what to pray for as we ought to; but that same spirit pleads on our behalf, with groanings too deep for words. And the Searcher of Hearts knows what the spirit is thinking, because the spirit pleads for God’s people according to God’s will. (Romans 8:25-27; Tom Wright, The New Testament for Everyone, revised edition, 2023)
As Tom Wright points out, this passage is about Christian vocation. ‘In the midst of a world in pain, God’s own spirit shares and bears that pain through God’s people sharing it themselves. 5The vocation of deacon as intercessor is to bring people, particular the forgotten, into the presence of God, where the Spirit can pray for them. Prayer has a trinitarian source in Father, Son & Holy Spirit. ‘The spirit intercedes according to the will of God’. (v.27) A few verses later, Paul writes that Christ ‘who is at the right hand of God, intercedes for us’ (entyngchanei, v.34).
But in the verse which starts ‘that same spirit pleads on our behalf’, Paul develops this thought further by coining a new verb hyperentynchanei: the one and only occurrence of the compound form of the verb tynchano. Paul implies that the Spirit is acting on behalf of the petitioner and this is reflected in translations. In this instance, the prefix hyper (a particular favourite of Paul’s in 2 Corinthians) intensifies the inexpressible, yet undeniably strong presence of the Spirit alongside us, praying ‘with groans that words cannot express’. This refers to Spirit’s own ‘language of prayer’, a ministry of intercession that takes place in our hearts (v.27) in a manner imperceptible to us.6
So the sense of the Spirit praying with and in the believer develops the earlier reference to the shared, supporting witness of the Holy Spirit (v.16). Romans 8 offers a cumulative vision of the empowering presence of the Spirit: drawing alongside us in shared witness, being present with us in our weakness as we struggle to put feelings into words, and finally making present the needs of the saints both near and far.
To conclude, the role of the Holy Spirit in intercession is a reminder of the vital importance of seeing the ministry of the deacon as Spirit-led. In this way, the deacon witnesses to the work of the triune God both through a ministry of welcome and in prayers of intercession…. which leads me to the deacon’s words at the dismissal, “go in peace to love and serve the Lord”. As we move from Pentecost to Trinity Sunday and the green season of Ordinary Time, perhaps we can hear Christ invitation to the deacon to keep our church doors open as we go forth into the world, leading others to witness the extraordinary power of the Holy Spirit?
Afterword: if you are interested in exploring what the Rule of Benedict has to say to the distinctive diaconate today, look out for Justin Pottinger’s book about the Rule of Benedict and Christian leadership (forthcoming). The thesis on which the book is based is in the Lambeth library: Details for: A theological reflection on episcopal ministry in the Church of England as expressed in Common Worship: Ordination Services and informed by a contemporary reading of the Rule of St Benedict / › Lambeth Palace Library catalogue
- “Evangelii Gaudium”: Apostolic Exhortation on the Proclamation of the Gospel in Today’s World (24 November 2013) ↩︎
- For the image of Christ as deacon, see Ignatius, Trall. 3.1 (https://www.ccel.org/ccel/richardson/fathers.vi.ii.iii.iii.html) and Mark 10.45. ↩︎
- Andrew-Thomas OSB ↩︎
- Michael Ramsey, The Christian Priest Today (SPCK, London, 1995), pp.13-14, discussing the use of the verb ἐντυγχάνω (entunchanō) ‘to call on’ in Hebrews 7:25; cf. Romans 8:27, 34, 11:2 (Elijah pleads the cause of God against Israel). ↩︎
- N.T. Wright Into the heart of Romans, SPCK 2023, p.136. ↩︎
- Richard N.Longenecker Epistle to the Romans, NIGCT (Eerdmans 2016), pp.451-2. ↩︎
CofE Network of Distinctive Deacons 