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Morning Devotion for the Season after Pentecost
November 4, 2024
Adeline Blanchard Tyler and her Companions
Reading: Romans 16:1-2, 17-20
I commend to you our sister Phoebe, a deacon of the church at Cenchreae, so that you may welcome her in the Lord, as is fitting for the saints, and help her in whatever she may require from you, for she has been a benefactor of many and of myself as well.
I urge you, brothers and sisters, to keep an eye on those who create dissensions and hindrances, in opposition to the teaching that you have learned; avoid them. For such people do not serve our Lord Christ but their own appetites, and by smooth talk and flattery they deceive the hearts of the simple-minded. For your obedience is known to all; therefore, I rejoice over you, but I want you to be wise in what is good and guileless in what is evil. The God of peace will shortly crush Satan under your feet. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you.
Meditation by Jeremy O’Neill
For each person that the Episcopal Church remembers throughout the calendar year, the church provides a set of lessons that somehow connect with memorable or inspiring aspects of that person’s life and ministry. Today the Episcopal Church remembers Adeline Blanchard Tyler, one of the first Deaconesses in our denomination. She was he was admitted to the office of deaconess on the 4th of November 1856 along with Caroline (Carrie) Elizabeth Guild, Eveline Black, and Catherine Minard. This group, which contained the first four women to be admitted to the office of deacon, marked their ordination over one hundred years before the Episcopal Church admitted women to the priesthood. This may seem radical given the times, but the letter to the Romans associated with Tyler’s remembrance shows precedent for women to be deacons dating back long before the Episcopal Church acknowledged such a call.
I presume that it is this identification of Phoebe as a deacon that prompted the church to include this passage from Romans, but I wonder about the line later in the passage: “I urge you, brothers and sisters, to keep an eye on those who create dissensions and hindrances, in opposition to the teaching that you have learned; avoid them.” Adeline Blanchard Taylor certainly served in a time of deep division – she provided medical and spiritual care in Maryland during the Civil War – but the call to avoid dissent and hinderance is perplexing to me in her context. It could be that that language just feels a but authoritarian to me, but I also think that God can work through what we as humans might perceive as dissent and hinderance.
Tyler’s biography notes that her group of deacons “cared for men, women, and children, Black and white, from near and far, and would become known as the United Deaconesses of Maryland.” In a time in American history where whether or not we could own our neighbors and fellow Christians as property was an issue so divisive it caused a war, the equality with which Tyler seemingly sought to provide care seems like it may have been perceived an act of dissent. Tyler was criticized for providing care to all who needed it, an act of defiance in a divided society.
I hope that we can follow that example of faithfulness and care for each other in opposition to smooth-talk, flattery, and expectations that we only look after those who are like us. May we be indiscriminate in our love and active in our working towards that which is good.
Prayer:
Merciful God, who endowed Adeline and her companions with faith and courage, wisdom and humility, and called them to serve you as deaconesses, ministering to the sick, the oppressed, and the poor: By your grace, grant that we, following their example, may live to serve you as they did, revealing your steadfast love to the world, through our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
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