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Ministries of Word and Service

Diakonia — service — is part of the identity of Christ’s church. All Christians serve in Christ’s name. Already in New Testament times men and women carried the title "deacon" and had public roles of service on behalf of Christian communities. Across the centuries, both the service of all and the public ministries of service by some are reflected in Christian self-understanding, in theology, and in church structures. This rich history includes debates and fruitful insights. I write today to invite you into the continuing conversation.

In February a Consultation on Vocation and Service brought together representatives of the ELCA’s rosters of associates in ministry, diaconal ministers, and deaconesses to articulate how the theology and experience of vocation and service can help define their roles as publicly called leaders in the 21st century. Several pastors were also part of the consultation. Primary presenters were Professor Susan McArver, Lutheran Theological Southern Seminary, Professor Kathryn Kleinhans, Wartburg College, and President Duane Larson, Wartburg Theological Seminary. There were debates and fruitful insights and a univocal commitment to ongoing discussions. (For the consultation group’s concluding consensus statement, see the sidebar below. For the ELCA News Service report of the event, go to ELCA Consultation Examines Future of Word and Service Leadership.

As word spread of my proposal to convene such a consultation, I was asked again and again about my agenda for the gathering. Many assumed that I or others had a proposal to make. Four years ago, that would have been true. Then I was convinced that our rosters of deaconesses, diaconal ministers, and associates in ministry should be merged into one roster, a roster of deacons that would include various communities and sub-groups. That opinion was formed as I observed that for many in the church, these rosters and those on them were invisible and misunderstood.

Further, we seem to suspect that by holding up public ministries we risk diminishing the vocations of all Christians. I thought the New Testament term “deacon” as a roster title could be unifying and clarifying and that we would not need to spend so much energy distinguishing one roster from another.

But after talking with many of these ministers of the church and learning more about the history and richness of each roster, I backed away from certainty about my one-roster solution to the challenges. At the same time, I became even more certain that the mission of the ELCA is being limited because we lack a broad understanding and appreciation of the present and potential ministries of these rostered leaders and of the vocations of all. This church has many service opportunities to address. These convictions, shared by others, led to the development of the consultation. There was no agenda but to further the mission of Christ by drawing on the theology and experience of vocation and service.

Now, post-consultation, I do have an agenda — it is the conviction that diakonia is a concept that can ground a continuing fruitful conversation that honors the vocations of all and the important roles for public ministries of Word and service in the ELCA. Because the February consultation was so helpful, a follow-up committee was charged with developing means to continue the discussion. On this website you will have access to a possible model for regional consultations among representatives of the several rosters. There also is an annotated bibliography that includes global and ecumenical connections.

Your creative engagement is invited. Read, write to Lutheran Partners, comment on the web, gather a group for discussion, consider how a diaconal minister, associate in ministry, or deaconess might serve in your setting.

Stanley N. Olson is executive director of the Vocation and Education Unit of the ELCA, Chicago, Illinois.

Comment
by William A. Decker, editor

This article appeared in May / June 2007 • Volume 23 • Number 3

If God Be for Me — the Life of Paul Gerhardt

If you asked a friend to sum up your life in a few words, what do you think that person might say about you? This was done — posthumously —  for Paul Gerhardt (1607-1676), the 17th century poet, pastor, and hymnist of the German Lutheran church whose 400th birthday the church is celebrating this year.

A Lutheran congregation in Lübben, Saxony — where he had spent his final years as a pastor — apparently commissioned an artist to paint a large portrait of him after his death. An inscription, written in Latin, was added to the painting, which still hangs in the church today. Translated, it states: “Paulus Gerhardt the theologian, tested in the sieve of Satan, subsequently dying a godly death in Lübben in the year 1676 in his 70th year.”¹

Theologian. Tested in Satan’s sieve. A godly death. All accurate characterizations of this amazing individual.

But when you look more closely at his biography, it becomes apparent that his love for the music of faith energized, fundamentally, his whole life and ministry. Authors have described him as the “sweet singer of Lutheranism,” the “best devotional poet” in the Lutheran tradition, “the greatest hymn writer” in the German language, and among the “most significant poets in the history of hymnody.”²

Theologian: Gerhardt grew up near Wittenberg and attended the university where Martin Luther himself had been a professor a century earlier. There he met theological professors who showed him the elegance of the church’s song. Over his life, he presided in parishes in Mittenwalde, Berlin, and Lübben. He was one who held close to the historic confessions of the Lutheran movement and at the same time, was highly influenced by the pietistic renewal sweeping Europe. He wrote scores of hymns which clearly proclaimed the faith and also exemplified his personal love for Christ. He held tightly together the “head” and “heart” of the Christian faith as he preached, wrote hymns, and served his neighbors.

Tested: Gerhardt started his ministry in the midst of the Thirty Years War (1618-48) and knew personally its far-reaching devastation and havoc. Anna Marie (nee Berthold), his wife, and he had six children. But they lost three children in infancy. Later, a fourth child died. At the death of their fourth child, Anna Marie began to decline and died. Only one child, Paul Frederich, survived his parents.

Gerhardt faced inter-confessional conflict among Lutheran and Reformed Christians, as well as grinding friction related to matters of church, state, and conscience. Eventually, the governing authority told Gerhardt to step down from his parish appointment in Berlin. When townsfolk resisted, he was reinstated, only to discover within himself that he still could not abide by the government’s demands. He followed his conscience and left the Berlin parish within a short time.

“People suffered great losses through terror, disease, and hunger, and were often without hope,” writes Christian Bunners in The Pietist Theologians. “It was imperative for the church and its pastors to take part in personal and material reconstruction during and after the war years. For himself, Gerhardt viewed his decisive task to be the spiritual revival of the community through his hymns.”³

Godly death: One written tradition tells of his reliance on hymns as he faced his own death. He prayed a stanza from one of his hymns, “Why then should I grieve?” “The hymn speaks about death that cannot kill,” writes Bunners. “Death is like a door which closes behind it the suffering of life. It opens the way to the joy of heaven.”⁴

The 17th century was both different and similar to our world. But the gospel of Christ, the mainstay of hope then, as well as today, remains vital as together we face life which is still marred by war, hunger, disease, and conflict.

Hymns Still Sung
After 400 years, congregations, both in Lutheran and other faith communions, continue to sing Gerhardt’s songs. One of his most well-known texts is “O Sacred Head, Now Wounded” (ELW 351; LBW 116). Gerhardt refashioned the text of a hymn written by Arnulf of Louvain (d. 1250) which had its own roots in the mystical meditation practiced by Bernhard of Clairvaux (1091-1153).⁵ Johann Sebastian Bach wrote an arrangement of the tune familiar to many of us.

And there are many others. During his life Gerhardt wrote 139 hymns and poems.⁶ Nine of his hymns are included in the Evangelical Lutheran Worship, including: “O Lord, How Shall I Meet You” (241); “All My Heart Again Rejoices” (273); “A Lamb Goes Uncomplaining Forth” (340); “Awake, My Heart, with Gladness” (378); “Now Rest beneath Night’s Shadow” (568); “Evening and Morning” (761); and “If God My Lord Be for Me” (788).

Gerhardt believed that Scripture should have a primary place in his texts. For instance, Gerhardt utilized the Apostle Paul’s thoughts in Romans 8 to help him and his contemporaries face life with a hope founded on their love and faith in Christ.

“If God is for us, who is against us?” Paul argues. “Who will bring any charge against God’s elect?...Who will separate us from the love of Christ?”… Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?” (Romans 8:31-35)

“No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us” (Romans 8:37).

From a life which could clearly understand where Paul was coming from, Gerhardt penned his own confidence in God’s power in the hymn “If God My Lord Be for Me” (ELW 788):

If God my Lord be for me, I may a host defy;
for when I pray, before me my foes, confounded fly.
If Christ, my head and master, befriend me from above,
what foe or what disaster can drive me from his love?

I build on this foundation, that Jesus and his blood
alone are my salvation, the true, eternal good.
Without him all that pleases will vain and empty prove.
The gifts I have from Jesus alone are worth my love.

Christ Jesus is my splendor, my sun, my light alone;
were he not my defender before the judgment throne,
I never should find favor and mercy in God’s sight,
but be destroyed forever as darkness by the light.

For joy my heart is ringing; all sorrow disappears;
and full of mirth and singing, it wipes away all tears.
The sun that cheers my spirit is Jesus Christ, my king;
the heav’n I shall inherit makes me rejoice and sing.⁷

Within this issue of Lutheran Partners is the hope that the music of faith we sing today will continue to be used by countless congregations and musicians to teach and pass on both our heartfelt worship and knowledge of God and the story of Jesus Christ to the church for the sake of the world and its needs.

Our authors, from their own contexts, all point in that direction — as did our brother in the faith, Paul Gerhardt, centuries ago.