Well, church is over for another Sunday. The last curl of candle smoke has wisped out over the altar, the hum of the motor that drives the organ softens into silence, the Altar Guild ladies are in the sacristy cleaning and storing the communion vessels, and I head there as well to peel off my alb, store my stole, and sign the registry book.
For those unfamiliar with the arcane nomenclature favored by Anglicans, a sacristy is a room just off the chancel area where the before-and-after work of the service is done and the "props" are kept. Some are a large as an apartment, and some are more like a cluttered walk-in closet.
An old bit of clergy humor says that the preacher delivers three sermons for every service: the one he preaches before the service begins, the one preached during the worship event, and the one he preaches in the sacristy in which he includes all he things he wishes he had said, or not said, during sermon number two. Some of my best homilies have been delivered in the sacristy as part of my mental replay of the service just ended.
That includes a run-down of the congregation. Any alert pastor knows who was present and absent.
I know the Jones are out of town. Old Mr. Adams was probably too sick to make it. Miss Ida, as usual, scowled throughout; she hasn't liked me since I said I don't believe in a literal heaven or hell. If my sermon consisted of only words of Jesus from the Bible, she'd say I had done my customary poor job. And where were the Thomas kids? Their folks probably slept in, dad severely hung over, again.
Of those who were here: Dr. John looked like his mind was having an out-of-body experience, probably rehashing his treatment of the patient who died last night. Alice Simmons smiled beatifically; she would smile beatifically if my sermon threatened hellfire and damnation before nightfall.
They looked like they listened. Did anyone really hear what I said? Did I say what they needed to hear? From preaching sermons that aim at nothing important and hit it every time, good Lord deliver me!
In a minute I'll join them for the second service of the morning around the coffee pot. We'll chat: casually, friendly, pleasantly. But will we really be aware of each other? Will what was said and heard here make it to gut level, will it make any difference in how we live?
The four kids whose father ran out on them, leaving the mother to hold the family together; the 12-year-old twins who aren't quite making it in school because they are confused and scared about their mother's losing battle with the bottle; the man close to retirement whose company just laid him off because of the national financial crisis — how will things be different for them for having been here, now that church is over?
Clergy are inclined to play God; I have occasional acute attacks. What arrogance makes me think that what I say will make a difference or enable those who look to me for spiritual guidance avoid or hurt less from the wounds caused by the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune? Ordination does not convey divinity or cosmic-class wisdom.
But the sermons: They're what I have to offer, tools of my trade. If only the ones I deliver from the pulpit could be as good as the ones I preach in the sacristy.
Editor's note: W. Jackson "Jack" Wilson is a psychologist, an Episcopal priest, a sometime academic and a writer living in Colorado. He writes with humor, whimsy, passion and penetrating insight into the human condition. And in Pushkin, Russia, a toilet is named in his honor.
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