This year "summer" took place on Sunday, June 17th - St. Botolph's Day and the occasion of my birthday.  In the middle of a very wet June the sun shone and family, friends and parishioners gathered in the vicarage garden for a wonderful celebratory party.  Prior to the party I preached the following sermon to mark the thirtieth anniversary of my ordination as Deacon.

This month I celebrate thirty years since I was ordained deacon in Boston Parish Church in June 1977.  Doesn't time fly when you are enjoying yourself?  In common with the Orthodox and Roman Catholic Churches - the Church of England has three orders of sacred ministry - Bishop, Priest and Deacon.  To mark three decades of ministry - I am today wearing my stole diagonally - like Miss World wears hers - to show that although I am, of course, a priest - I am still a deacon - that is one who serves.  Now the word "ministry" is a portmanteau sort of a word, in that it can almost mean whatever we want it to mean.  The New Testament uses the word to cover a huge range of meaning - almost anything that the Early Church is doing is called ministry.  So we need to define more closely exactly what we mean by ministry.  Those who handed you your service books at the back of the church are engaged in ministry just as much as the celebrant at the altar.  But for today - as it is thirty years since I became one - I'd like to concentrate on the ministry of the deacon.

For centuries deacons were thought of as the first stage of ordination, for which the priesthood was the real goal.  I was ordained deacon in June 1977 and in June of the following year I was ordained priest in Lincoln cathedral. The single year between a person being ordained deacon and then priest is, I suppose, rather like an apprenticeship.  Priesthood comes as a reward for good behaviour as a deacon.  But the history of the Church tells quite a different story.  The ministry of the deacon was quite specific, unique and permanent.  I personally would love to see a revival of the permanent diaconate in the Church of England because the ministry of deacons has quite a lot to teach us about the ministry of Christ.

The ordination service of deacons outlines this specific ministry quite clearly when it says: - "Deacons are ordained so that the people of God may be better equipped to make Christ known. Theirs is a life of visible self-giving.  Christ is the pattern of their calling and their commission; as he washed the feet of his disciples, so they must wash the feet of others."

One of the things that I do every Maundy Thursday is literally to wash people's feet and dry them with a towel - following the example of Jesus, our Saviour on the very first Maundy Thursday.  That is the crux - not of the particular ministry of the deacon - but actually of the ministry of every Christian.  As it says in the service of Baptism we are all called to 'shine as lights in the world to the glory of God the Father'.  To be visible self-givers, washing the feet even of the people we do not like, and who may even revolt us.  For each and every person is made in the image and likeness of God - our job as Christians is to discover that image and likeness, even if it is well concealed under several layers of repellent unloveliness.

So, to what extent do we reach out into the forgotten corners of the world? For Christianity isn't just about being reasonably nice and polite.  It is about living the gospel in all its challenges by searching out and ministering to the poor, the weak, the sick, the lonely, and those who are oppressed and powerless.  Deacons are specifically called to minister at the margins of society and the margins of the church, at the very edge of the Church, where the church and indeed God is almost only a faint echo.

There is a well worn story of a new vicar who arrives at a church who preached a challenging and, by common consent, an excellent sermon on his first Sunday in his new parish.  The congregation turned up on the second Sunday hoping for something equally stimulating - and were most surprised to find that he preached exactly the same sermon over again.  They gave him the benefit of the doubt and kindly assumed that he was a bit absent minded and had picked up the wrong sermon but lo and behold it happened again on the third Sunday.  So, the Churchwardens thought they ought to have a quiet word and went to the vicar and told him that everyone thought it a bit strange that he had preached the same sermon on three successive Sundays. "Ah!" said the vicar, "When the congregation does what I have asked in that sermon about living out the gospel, then I shall preach a different sermon."

Well, of course that could never happen here in this parish church.  Everyone always goes out after all our services and does exactly as Father has preached, so that I never have to repeat myself!  Or do we?  For it is the nature of humanity to forget, and even to employ selective hearing with regard to the things we do not wish to hear.  It is the nature of humanity to hear, on occasions, exactly what we want to hear and forget the rest.  It is what the Church calls a tendency to sin - and we all do it.  When that same vicar came to the end of his ministry in that parish the congregation gathered to say farewell and the Churchwarden in thanking the vicar for his ministry said - "Father, we're going to miss you, for in this parish we never knew what sin was till you came!"  Well, Jesus once invited the one who was without sin to cast the first stone.  We all do indeed sin - not particularly nasty sins, I'll grant you, but falling short - diminishing others - not always treating them as we ourselves would like to be treated.  We all do it - that's why God sent Jesus along - to show us a new and better way.

And that reminds me of perhaps the most important part of the ministry of the deacon.  Austen Farrer once described priests as "walking sacraments".  Well, I'm sure you will all be familiar with those little yellow self adhesive "post-it" notes that we stick on things to remind us to do this, that or the other.  Well, a very good title for a deacon is a "post-it" note on the Church reminding us all to reach out into the forgotten corners of the world, making visible the love of God - reminding the rest of us that this is our job too.  Not just the deacon's job - but ours.  For unless we have reminders to make visible God's love - then we tend to forget.  Perhaps all members of the congregation should have a "post-it" note stuck on them today, to ensure that we remember to reach out into the forgotten corners of his world to remind us of what God calls each and every one of us to do in his name.

Here's to the next thirty years!