Deacons, priests and bishops, oh My!

Sat in Durham cathedral this morning and we'd just started the bit of the liturgy leading into renewal of ordination vows. I look ahead, over the page, to see that the directions invite the deacons to stand to hear and respond, then ask the deacons to sit and the priests to stand for their bit. I was a bit dischuffed: as far as I understand it I am both deacon and priest. The bishop didn't apply a spiritual vacuum cleaner to remove the grace of diaconal orders when he applied hands to ordain me into presbyteral orders. And yet the staging of the liturgy seems to imply that state of affairs. Now, if were were British Methodists the liturgy we performed at that point would have been accurate: British Methodism has diaconal and presbyteral orders but in parallel; one is either one or the other. However, catholic order, which Anglicans preserve, 'stacks' the orders one on the other.

Probably the reason for my dischuffment lies in part with my own valuing of my diaconal calling and ordination. For me it is important both theologically and symbolically that presbyteral orders are conferred within, so to speak, the context or frame of diaconal ordination. It echoes my own struggle to make sense of both my reading of the NT and my sense of calling to ordination: fundamentally the call to serve the people of God is the prior and controlling call. We can only lead /elder if we first serve; our eldership is modelled after the servant King.

So I was unhappy to be implicitly asked to rank my presbyteral ordination higher than my diaconal. So, in common with half a dozen that I could see (my wife among them), I stood to affirm my diaconal commitment and did not then sit down but remained standing to affirm my presbyteral undertaking.

I do think that it is important that we who are in priestly orders should not be allowed to forget that we remain deacons and so liturgies like this should not be constructed to let that happen.

Now I recognise that the positive side of what was attempted was probably to affirm the ministry of deacons who are not ordained priest. And that is good and right; particularly if we are to encourage a permanent diaconate which we say we are committed to. However, we need to do that differently. Of course, there is the question about the way that the service arguably reinforces a hierarchical valuing of the ministries; the diaconal vows are treated as if belonging to a distinct ministry, yet in reality it seemed that all those reaffirming those words were either presbyters or hoping soon to be. Do we want that? If we are to create a permanent diaconate, is that really the way to do it? But perhaps I'm being a bit oversensitive about that.

Anyway, how should we restructure the liturgy to encourage all those in deacons' orders, including Bishops and priests, to stand in solidarity of ministry and yet allow those who are deacons alone to have a dignity of their own?

Well the former could be met by having all the ordained stood at the beginning and each order sitting down as their particular commitments were concluded (ie the deacons sit before the priestly undertaking was read, and the priests sit before the episcopal commitment is re-affirmed). However, that wouldn't seem to give a particular dignity to the deacons-alone, though it would be a better solution than what I saw today.

Perhaps it might work to add to the above suggestion that a lay person ask the first question of all the ordained, the non-presbyteral-deacons would then ask the presbyters the priestly question, and the presbyters ask the bishops their question.
Could that work?

PS; a note to my students from Leading Worship: the above is something of a (partial) reflection on an act of worship bringing some theological concerns to bear on a moment of liturgy and considering both the sign-value of the act as it happened and using the theological considerations to try to re-envisage that liturgical moment to address the theological and practical issues raised.