All Saints

Last week, in the kitchen after the early service, Penny France, in her lovely soft British voice said matter-of-factly that somebody had mentioned to her that I was considering the priesthood. To someone like me, a far, far from perfect being, it was a huge compliment.

So after Sunday school, I grabbed Patricia in the back hall and pulled her into the storage room with all the paper goods and the giant freezer. I repeated the conversation, adding, that my mother is the only person who has ever said I should be a priest because she thinks I’m compassionate (I’m not always) and organized (comparatively). So if I was taken aback by Penny, think how it caught my breath when Patricia similarly commented as if no big deal, she didn’t see anything “weird” about it.

I got an email from her later that day—reiterating basically what she’d said earlier. And I quote: “The idea of being a priest does not seem weird to me. Does that mean you should be one? Not necessarily. But it doesn't surprise me that others could see you in that role.”

No explanation. How could she see that? How could others? Here now, I know why. After today, after church, after All Saints' Sunday. Some of the biggest saints were also some of the biggest sinners. In a nutshell.

No wonder Patricia was not surprised. I could probably sin a whole lot more than I have in this life so far (it’s considerable) and there would still be a possibility, under the right circumstances and a liberal splash of grace, I could be a saint, let alone a priest. In fact, all things are always possible.

Ergo, if I could be a saint, anyone could be. Anyone. And I think that is reason for great hope. No matter what experiences and choices we are made of, we are all capable of unimaginable goodness.

So this was all dawning on me at the regular service today, which I attended because I was on the schedule to bear one of the elements (I took the wine, Elizabeth Wong Mark took the bread). This morning in the kitchen, I entered and the little children had just found hot chocolate powder and Bill Hancock was overseeing the hot water operations. I need not tell you the pleasure on their little faces as they anticipated the first marsh-mellowly chocolate cocoa of the season. I think I heard Ellen say something about buying it sometime last year.

Anyway, I piddled around in the kitchen long enough that I had to wade through the crowd of children (a bustling sea of red and white robes, and yes, hymnals can be used as weapons) to barely get ahead of the procession. I was only there an hour, but it was a good Sunday and a good day to remember the dead, with the autumn leaves filling the sanctuary through the glass, everywhere, between the heavy wooden beams, and bells and singing, and flute.

And the closing of the sermon: “As we gather at the altar to join the feast of bread and wine, a foretaste of that heavenly banquet, we stand with those whom we love and miss, and remember and name today.

“We do so knowing that this Eucharist joins us with all the saints. Those who are famous and those who are unknown. Those whom we remember with love, and those of whom there is no memory.

All present with God, and with us in this holy communion.
Amen.”