A Special Day

The Pastor’s Page
Today is a special day.
Not only is it the first Sunday of the last month of 2009, the year we dedicated to understanding and keeping covenant, but it is the day when one of our own, Dr. Cynthia Tyson, completes the covenant she made with God about a year ago when God called and she answered, “Here I am, Lord.”
She completes that covenant in the sense that today, she is ordained. She has completed a year of study and mentoring, and now goes through the ceremony which marks the end of that process, but her work as a deacon has just begun.
Being a deacon is no small thing. The first deacons were appointed by apostles who noticed that there was bickering among the church people. The Grecian Jews were complaining about the Hebraic Jews, saying that the widows of the Greeks were being overlooked in the daily distribution of food.
It was church mess, and was growing in intensity, as church mess does.
These first deacons – there were seven of them – were appointed by “The Twelve,” who said, “It would not be right for us to neglect the ministry of the word of God in order to wait on tables. Brothers, choose seven men from among you who are known to be full of the Spirit and wisdom. We will turn this responsibility over to them and will give our attention to prayer and the ministry of the word.”
Deacons are called to help the undershepherd of any church. They are called to be full of the Spirit, to be serious about their relationship with God. They are called to be servants in the deepest sense of the word, attending to the needs of the people, whenever there are needs to be met. They are the right hand of the pastor, and they are the smiled upon of God.
I watched Dr. Tyson struggle through her call to be a deacon. I heard her first whisper, her suspicion that God was calling her, her timidity in wondering if she would be shunned because she is a lesbian, but her conviction that she would have to risk that because first and foremost, she would have to be faithful and obedient to the God who called her. I watched her break down in tears when she finally walked the aisle at one service, a service where I called forth people who had been “called.” She sobbed in my arms as she said she’d been called to be a deacon. She whispered, she sobbed, but she came forward.
Throughout her walk, her fierce love for God has shown through. When I could not “be there,” she was. When I said I needed a huge tree for the front of the church, to tell the message that “Jesus is the light of the world and that we are the light of the community,” she went looking for a tree, and found one. When I announced that we were going to study covenant this year and that I wanted a rock in the sanctuary to remind the people of the Biblical story of how a rock was to be the testimony of the people that they had made a covenant with God, she and Dr. Judy Alston went and found that rock.
She comes to Bible study. She teaches others. She studies like no student I have ever had. Her seriousness about her call is evident and obvious.
I think God must be smiling, for here is one who has said, “Here am I Lord, send me!” and means it. The Deacon Board is blessed to have her. Advent United Church of Christ is blessed to have her …but mostly, God has to be glad that she came forward and said “yes” to the call to serve.
We embrace you, Dr. Cynthia Tyson. We embrace you and your ministry. We celebrate the work you have done and support the work you have yet to do. The work has really just begun, but this far on the journey, God must surely be smiling.