“Bringing the love of Jesus to a hurting world”: Devotion series by ADM CEO Mary Un
Our CEO Mary Un was honoured to be asked by Bible Society Australia to write a one-week set of devotions for their Daily Bible series.
In Sydney’s Inner West, from 1890, Deaconesses were trained in theology and practical ministries by Deaconess House, now known as Anglican Deaconess Ministries (ADM). These pioneering young women served the destitute, orphaned, sick and dying in the growing colony of NSW.
This devotion series by Mary Un is based on a 1917 publication, the Deaconess Book of Devotions (printed during World War I). Mary says, “107 years later, I am left to guess why the author chose the seven passages from Scripture that open this little book of devotions. What is clear to me is that she, like the Deaconesses before and after her, had a theology rooted in the belief that with God as our help and strength, we are free to fearlessly model our lives on Christ’s.”
Day One
For this is what the high and exalted One says— he who lives forever, whose name is holy: “I live in a high and holy place, but also, with the one who is contrite and lowly in spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly and to revive the heart of the contrite. - Isaiah 57:15, CEV
The Deaconess’ (an order of Christian women established in Europe in the early 1800’s) were fulfilling a specific calling to minister to the lowly. Male church leaders rarely had time or access to the very vulnerable in their communities, whereas Deaconesses were welcomed into slums, brothels, orphanages and sick houses.
Deaconesses understood that heaven will be filled with the contrite (repentant) and lowly in spirit (humble). This fuelled their commitment to bring Jesus to the most desperate in their communities and shaped their understanding of themselves. Without Jesus, their spiritual poverty would be just as deep as those they ministered to. How could they bring an effective message of complete forgiveness and acceptance found in Jesus if they believed themselves to be better than others? They too were desperately looking to Jesus to revive their spirit and hearts.
We would do well to head the warning of Proverbs 16: 18-19:
“Pride goes before destruction,
a haughty spirit before a fall.
Better to be lowly in spirit along with the oppressed
than to share plunder with the proud.”
Consider your own status before the Lord—do you consider yourself ‘contrite’ and ‘lowly’? For there is no place for the self-righteous and self-important.
Prayer:
O God, whose nature is to ever have mercy and to forgive, receive our humble petitions; and though we are tied and bound with the chain of our sins, yet let your great mercy loose us, for the honour of Jesus Christ our Mediator and Advocate. Amen.
Day Two
Whoever dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty. I will say of the Lord, “He is my refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust.” - Psalm 91:1-2, CEV
In 1938, a 22-year-old NSW native, Deaconess Mary Andrews, boarded a ship bound for Japanese-occupied China, following a call from God to be a missionary there. During her 13 years of missionary service, she brought the good news of Jesus to hundreds of Chinese people who were desperately searching for hope in lives marked by poverty, war, and loss.
The story of her two terms on the mission field is one of miraculous rescue and answered prayer. Over and over, Mary tells of escaping Japanese forces, starvation, theft, life threatening illness, and even death, which she attributes to the prayers of the saints.
In her letters, she wrote of God’s protection as though she expected nothing less of him. While on home assignment she told every group she addressed that she was able to confidently face the dangers in China because she believed, “For me to live is Christ and to die is gain.”
Mary is recorded as challenging her Christians brothers and sisters:
“The measure of what you can do for the world will be simply what you let God do with yourself.”
Only armed with the knowledge that the Most High God is my “refuge” and “fortress”, can I dare to ask God to help me take up Mary’s challenge?
What would it look like for you to trust God to do with your life what he pleases?
Prayer:
Lighten our darkness, we pray O Lord, and by your great mercy defend us from all the perils and dangers of this day; for you are our refuge and strength. Amen.
Day Three
“The student is not above the teacher, nor a servant above his master. It is enough for students to be like their teachers, and servants like their masters...” - Matthew 10: 24-25a, CEV
The commission to “assist in all such good works as shall be committed unto her, to nurse the sick, to visit and relieve the poor and afflicted, to tend and instruct the young and ignorant, to minister especially to women…” was included in the original Sydney Deaconess’ ordination.
There are direct parallels to Jesus’ own ministry priorities: healing the sick, sharing meals with the outcast, and extending welcome and worth to women and children. The student-teacher relationship is evident.
As a follower of Jesus, I should expect to lead a life like his. Jesus ministered to the lowly and rejected. He came to heal the sick, not the well. Where I try to navigate my life to avoid suffering, Jesus’ concern is not to spare me from distress. In fact, he gently explains to us that as his disciples we should not expect to live lives of ease.
Why did the Deaconesses joyfully choose to turn towards suffering: their own and others? Surely it is because their confidence was anchored in the eternal life that their teacher, Jesus, had secured for them.
Is an eternal place by the Father’s side enough for me, for you, to consider turning from comfort to a life lived in the footsteps of Jesus? How will you live today in light of this?
Prayer:
O God, the protector of all who trust in you, without whom nothing is strong, nothing is holy, increase and multiply upon us your mercy; that with you as our teacher and guide we may so pass through things temporal that we do not lose things eternal. Amen.
Day Four
“If you love me, keep my commands. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever—the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you.” - John 14: 15-17, CEV
One of my favourite Deaconess stories is that of Ivy McGregor. After her ordination in 1926, she joined Bush Church Aid, taking up a position in the Wicannia diocese of far Western NSW. In order to travel to remote parishes, she was gifted a Chevrolet that she drove, solo, down thousands of kilometres of desert roads. By all accounts she was a colourful character, who had a deep love for Jesus and was able to keep rustling up joy as she served him in outrageous situations (camels regularly featured in tales of her ministry).
Like Ivy’s, the life of a Deaconess was often a lonely one. Most Deaconesses were unmarried. They ministered across multiple parishes, so rarely enjoyed the close relationship of a church family. Many felt called to missionary service where there were few other believers. To maintain this solitary life of ministry they must have had a firm knowledge of the presence of the Holy Spirit.
In the hours leading up to Jesus’ death, he reassured his disciples that they would not be left alone to continue his work. He tells them of an eternal advocate who will encourage and comfort all who love and obey him: the Holy Spirit.
God knows that we are prone to distress when faced with loneliness and, even worse, wandering hearts without his guidance. The Spirit helps us look up and out, beyond the here and now, so that we can depend on God’s future.
When you next feel the pangs of loneliness, consider the ever-present gift of God’s Spirit, for he lives forever with those who love and obey Jesus.
Prayer:
Almighty God, let your Holy Spirit dwell with us and keep us in peace and let your blessings be upon us forever, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Day Five
"And wherever he went—into villages, towns or countryside—they placed the sick in the marketplaces. They begged him to let them touch even the edge of his cloak, and all who touched it were healed.” - Mark 6:56, CEV
Desperately ill people flocked to Jesus for healing. I can see how Jesus’ ministry is mirrored in the unglamourous, and difficult ministry of hospice care.
In Australia, hospice care was largely delivered by religious organisations until government involvement in the 1980’s. In 1907, Anglican Deaconess Ministries (ADM) established Homes of Peace, a ministry dedicated to caring for the very ill and dying. For the next 100 years, this was a cornerstone of ADM’s ministries.
In Mark 6 we see the tender intimacy of a living body imparting life and health to another. And yet while Jesus went about meeting a person’s physical needs, we know from the Gospels that what concerned him was granting eternal healing.
As opposed to sinful humanity, Jesus did not see people who are sick and dying as worthless and no further use to society. For he knew they were on the verge of eternity, a breath away from joy and glory and peace. They needed only ask, a whispered plea, a fleeting brush past his cloak, and he will grant them the healing that allows them to slip from this world into eternal life. It is Jesus’ ability to spiritually heal that must have spurred the deaconesses on as they ushered hundreds of souls from this life to the next.
There at the precipice of life and death, Jesus stands, arms outreached — “My poor, weary child. I have healed you. Come, today you will be with me in paradise.” We need only to ask, and we too will be spiritually healed.
Prayer:
Grant, O Lord, our poor and broken spirits’ healing. Be our guide in doubt, support in weariness, comfort in sickness and sorrow, that you may be to us an exceedingly great reward on the day of revelation of your only begotten Son; to whom will be all honour and glory, world without end. Amen.
Day Six
"Yes, and I ask you, my true companion, help these women since they have contended at my side in the cause of the gospel, along with Clement and the rest of my co-workers, whose names are in the book of life.” - Philippians 4:3, CEV
I suspect this passage was cherished by the early Deaconesses for the way Paul recognised women as welcomed and celebrated servants in the work of the Lord. They, like women throughout history, contended with a society that believed women to be of lesser intelligence, value, and social capital than a man. In the face of the daily burden of irrelevance and contempt, the women of Philippians 4 stood as a reminder of their deserved place in gospel work.
Sadly, by virtue of being women, the lives and ministries of ADM’s early Deaconesses were not deemed significant enough to thoroughly document. Where their stories have been swallowed by the obscurity of time, Euodia and Syntyche live on as a testament to God’s esteem of women. An essential half of humankind made in his image, co-workers in and heirs to his kingdom.
I count it a privilege to play my part in ADM’s long history to equip and raise up women to bring the love of Jesus to our broken and hurting world. What would it look like for you to esteem the women God has put in your life?
Prayer:
O Lord Jesus Christ, who did receive the service of women, and gave them a place of honour in your church, grant that the women of this land may feel a new power in their lives which will impel them to give themselves, their souls and bodies wholly to your service. Amen.
Day Seven
Our help is in the name of the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth. - Psalm 124:8, CEV
These six passages from scripture in the 1917 Deaconess Book of Devotions end with a prayer drawing upon Psalm 124. How fitting for women whose lives were shaped by the promise that God was their help and strength.
No doubt this was a treasured and heartfelt prayer as they carried the distress and desperation of the hurting people and communities they ministered to. How else could they have faced the difficult days God had laid before them? The Deaconesses knew that they needed only to call on God’s name, and he would be their ever-present help in times of trouble.
As Anglican Deaconess Ministries continue the work of equipping women to bring the love of Jesus to a hurting and broken world, my prayer is that we will continue to be quick to ask God to be our help; relying wholly on his strength and not our own as we lay our lives down in service of him. While I cannot profess to know all that God has in store for us, I trust he will work his good purposes — as he always has.
Today, may we rest in the knowledge that he, who created the earth and flung stars into the heavens, is our helper and strength.
Prayer:
Our help is in the Name of Lord, who has made heaven and earth. Be our strong rock and house of defence, that you may save us. Lord, hear our prayer, and let our cry come to you. Lord, have mercy on us. Christ, have mercy on us. Lord, have mercy on us.