15 Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy - Part 1

Now there was an old-fashioned rhyme that children were taught. Certainly in England, I don't know if it was anywhere else. It was one of these rhymes for predicting what you're going to be when you grow up. It said, "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Sailor, Rich Man, Poor Man, Beggar Man, Thief."

And then, John le Carré the novelist, took that rhyme and swapped it around to write his spy thriller. Which was an incredible thriller, "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy," which was later turned into a TV series, and then a movie. It was interesting when I was thinking about deacons.

The role of deacons and the function of deacons. For some reason, this thing "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy," came to mind. As I thought about it and I worked through it, I realized that these four job descriptions are really useful hooks to understand and think about the role of deacons.

The Tinker: Fixing What’s Broken

And so that's what I want to do now is go through those four things. Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. And how each of those job descriptions describes some element of what a deacon is or should be. So the first thing is a tinker. If I ask, do you know what a tinker is or was?

Most people shake their heads and have no idea. So let me explain. Certainly, in the days before a disposable society where you just throw things out all the time, a tinker would be an itinerant worker. He would go from town to town and village to village.

And he would arrive in a town and set up his stall and fix things. He would fix pots and pans and sharpen knives. Things that people needed to maintain in order to have a functional and healthy lifestyle. Where their jobs could be easier and their work could be easier, they were reliant on a tinker.

And the tinker wasn't an important person, he wasn't a rich person. It was a job that required some humility and sense of service. He would go where he was needed and he would fix what was broken. I think that's a beautiful picture of what the heart and function of a deacon can be.

That as a deacon there's a willingness to position yourself anywhere where there is a need. To humble yourself and to serve the people. And to serve the people by saying, "I will come alongside you and do what you're not able to do and fix the things that need fixing."

I will use what skills, what knowledge, what abilities I have to help you do what you can't do alone in order that your life will be better. I don't mean a self-improvement, "you can have a better life" message, but that we can be more like Jesus and be more effective in the kingdom.

Because we have somebody who will come alongside us and help fix what is broken and strengthen what is weak. For me, that is the heart of a deacon and a servant. To come alongside people and give yourself for other people's betterment. To go where you're needed and fix things that are broken.

To improve upon things that aren't working properly and to find solutions to problems. A tinker would arrive without appointment, just set up, and then people would bring problems and things that were broken to him. When he didn't know how to fix it, he would find a way.

He would be creative. He would use what skills he had to find a way and find solutions. And one of the things I love is when a deacon is able not to come to me with problems, but come to me with solutions. Even when I was a sales manager.

Sales people are some of the most difficult people to manage in the world because they're always telling you the problems. They're always telling you the product's too expensive and the competition's too big. I had a sign on my door which said, "The only problems that are dealt with in this office are the ones that come accompanied by possible solutions."

I would be happy to sit with anybody who would say, "Hey Mike, I've seen this problem, do you think this solution could work?" Sometimes the suggested solution was rubbish. But at least they were coming with the right attitude of how can we resolve the problem.

As an elder, I'm not saying I'm going to close the door, but I love when deacons come to me and they say, "Mike, I've seen a problem. I've seen a shortcoming. I've seen a hole. Can we fix it this way?" That is beautiful.

I think that is something that we want to see from our deacons. Deacons aren't the ones who point out the holes and point out the problems. Deacons are the ones who help fix them. And that's the job of a tinker. And then there's a tailor.

The Tailor: Covering Others’ Weaknesses

A tailor is somebody who makes clothes. Who clothes other people, who uses his skill to make other people look good. And the job of all of us in the kingdom is to make other people look better than they already do. My job as an elder is to help other elders and the deacons and the sheep to look better than they are.

And be better than they are. There's also an aspect of this that is very important that I want us to consider. In Genesis 9 we have Noah. And God has just wiped out humanity because of their depravity. He finds a righteous man in Noah.

He restarts with Noah. Then, the first thing that Noah does is he gets drunk. I can just imagine God saying, "Already? Noah, already? I started afresh and already you've messed it up." He is naked and passed out drunk in his tent. And his one son walks into the tent and sees him and walks out.

He comes to his brothers and he says, "Hey guys, come and check out dad. He's passed out naked in the tent." He exposes his father's weakness. He exposes his father's nakedness. And nakedness, as we see with Adam and Eve represents guilt, shame, weakness, our own inabilities.

The two brothers, they respond very differently. They walk into the tent backwards so that they don't look upon the father. And they cover him with a sheet. And they cover his dignity. They cover his failing. They cover his weakness. The one son is cursed because he exposed his father's weakness and laughed at it and he mocked it and undermined his father.

As leaders we need to be like the other two sons, who cover over each other's weaknesses. Who cover each other's nakedness. Just as a tailor, his job is to create clothes to cover nakedness. I'm not talking about covering up sin or covering up problems.

That gets us into trouble. We are a people who live in the light. But there is a difference between covering up and covering over. I have, surprisingly to some of you, led congregations. I am really not the most gifted pastoral person in the world.

But as I've led congregations, both congregations that I've led in the past have grown in numbers and have grown in health at least over a period of time. And I can attribute that to the fact that I've had people on my team who are very pastoral.

And instead of pointing at me and saying, "Look at His weakness, look how bad He is. I wouldn't trust him to shepherd my dog." What they've done is they've used their gift, their calling, their skills to be as pastoral as possible so the congregation looks healthy and I look like I know what I'm doing.

If each of us has that heart that says, "I want to cover over your weakness." Instead of me thinking, "I'm a great evangelist" and complaining that we're not doing enough evangelism, saying, "my role is to make the church more effective in evangelism." Instead of me saying, "look at all these terrible teachers."

Use my gift to make everybody look better. Not to push my agenda, but to contribute the unique gifting that God has given. Because nobody else can be me. And nobody else can be you. But when we come together, we more fully reflect the nature of Jesus.

So, I wanna say if you spot weaknesses, if you spot gaps, if you spot a lack of gifting in your leaders. Don't point it out and undermine, but use your own gifting and ability to cover over. If you spot sin, then follow the biblical mandate and address it.

Go to your brother, address him. If he doesn't listen, then take somebody else. We're not going to cover up sin. But even where there's sin, there's ways we can do it. We can do it in an honoring way or a dishonoring way. We can go to the person or we can gossip.

We can seek redemption or we can seek punishment. And so we need to be tailors. We need to be those who know that our job is to help cover other people's nakedness. So we're going to end this session here. And then in part two, we're going to look at the other two job descriptions of soldier and spy.

And look at how those teach us more about being effective deacons in the kingdom.