Reflections on Pulse: 3 Characteristics of True Ministry
The day of the Pulse shooting five years ago, I was traveling home to Orlando from Louisville. As I waited in the airport, CNN and all the other news services were blowing up. And before long, my phone was blowing up too. Deacon Nancy Oliver called me early on to make sure I knew what was happening. She was outside the Orlando Regional Medical Center, where a number of the victims who were still alive were brought. Many of them couldn’t even get in.
It was hot, and these were her texted words: “I need to get water to these people.” Her deep concern in the moment was not who was hurt or what had happened or where they were when it took place but simply being able to serve, to reach out to those most in need.
This month, like many of us across the world and especially here in Orlando, I am recalling memories like this one of Deacon Nancy’s care for those impacted by the Pulse nightclub tragedy. But as we continue to honor the lives of those who died and comfort those left behind, I want to also consider a few lessons I learned in that season of loss.
1. True ministry reaches out to those most in need. As I highlight these lessons, I think it fitting to begin with one whom we honor this month: Ephrem of Edessa, a deacon in fourth-century Syria. Ephrem was unique in his selfless ministry to the hurting, yet at great cost to himself. He lived in a time of great famine, but even while hiding out for fear of being put to death for his faith, he found ways to serve others.
In that major famine, Ephrem distributed food and money to the poor and even organized a kind of ambulance service for the sick. In his culture, people would have assumed that the sick had lost favor with the gods and were thus deserving of nothing. Ephrem’s actions stood against that lie and, in fact, for the gospel itself. Why? True gospel ministry reaches out to those in need.
2. True ministry goes the extra mile. I saw this characteristic exemplified in the ministry of Deacon Michael Matheny in the aftermath of the Pulse shootings, who in the midst of many churches in the downtown area that turned away similar opportunities, encountered a family in the courtyard of our Cathedral who wanted a funeral for their Christian son who had been killed at Pulse.
Through Michael’s wonderful wise tenderheartedness, he worked out all the arrangements, gave me a call, and we met with the family. More than anyone else, Michael reached out to them again and again with true compassion and tender care.
When Ephrem and Nancy who left their places of safety to take provisions and other services to those most in need, they were going the extra mile. And that’s what Michael did as he served in the loving, unifying spirit of Christ Jesus our Lord.
3. True ministry invites the kingdom of God. I’ve rarely participated in a service more emotionally fraught than the Cathedral service for the ones who died at Pulse. And in the height of that emotion, at the distribution of Communion, a poised, gentle servant named Susan Shannon (whose own funeral we just held earlier this month) moved back and forth, helping people feel comfortable with receiving the sacrament of Holy Communion whether they knew our Episcopalian traditions or not. In her own wise and gracious way, she helped people experience the real presence of the Father. In a day of great division and separation, Susan’s welcoming calm brought the kingdom near, just as Michael’s extended care brought the kingdom near, just as Nancy’s selfless outreach brought the kingdom near.
All three aspects of true ministry come from a basic theological conviction that no matter who you are, God is at work in you. Even if I don’t agree with you. Even if I think you’re wrong. If even if I think you’re in sin. Despite all these “ifs,” God is at work, because his commitment, his plan is to gather all things into the life of his Son. And therefore we live in service as a foretaste of that kingdom commitment. And even in the prayer that we say every time we gather, which is, “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”
Whenever we reach out in ministry, we are saying, “OK, God. Let this be a chance where that happens: in the life of someone who does not know you, in the life of someone who is in rebellion against you or even in the life of a person who has wounded me – still, I reach out, because I’m praying for the kingdom of God to come here.”
This type of ministry, true ministry, is unbelievably difficult. It is selfless activity at the very least because I have to set aside all of my opinions, my prejudices, my own woundedness, to reach out and care for someone with whom I may be in profound, even hostile, disagreement.
But that was Ephrem. That’s really for me the heart of what it means to be a deacon and to be in ministry of any kind. I thank God for Ephrem and for the modern-day servants who have taught me so much. I thank God for that witness and face again in my own life the challenge and the call to pay attention to the margins.
The pandemic has brought food insecurity into our lives in unprecedented ways, but the true famine in our land is one of unity. In this time of famine, may God continue to raise up people with a different vision: of gathering all people into the life of Christ.
Do you have a personal memory of the Pulse tragedy or a reflection on true ministry? Share this blog and your response on Twitter. Please include my username, @revgregbrewer.
(This post is an adaption of Bishop Brewer’s sermon for June 10, 2021, in the Diocesan Chapel, Orlando.)
Photos by Erick Perez.
Unless otherwise noted, Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.