The New Priest
The new priest has tattoos and a husband. He is not like the old priest, who had only a neatly-trimmed beard and a dead wife. The wife was once alive, as all wives are for a time, but after some years she died, and the old priest was very bereaved. His sermons suffered for it, we all agreed, but we didn’t dare say anything. He was prone to crying at coffee hour after her death, and at regular Sunday services he would often falter in his speech, losing track of the Word as spoken through him and meandering into territory we would charitably describe as “trying to regain the thread.” Even the homilies that he gave every year, copied verbatim, which we had heard so many times and yet still loved, suffered under the new, dark cloud which overhung him.
And so after some time, encouraged by the Bishop and the Eastern Dean, the old priest retired. He still lives in town. We see him from time to time at the grocery on Sundays, and he asks us how things are going at St. Peter’s. We shake our heads and say to him, The new priest is nothing like you, nothing like you at all. And he says, Oh, you’re just saying that to appease an old man in his graying hours. And we say to him, No, truly, we miss you immensely, but we understand why you’ve taken time for yourself. We all deserve some time to ourselves, we say, and we mean it. The old priest nods somberly in his wise way and, gathering his Cheerios, moves on with a warm goodbye.
Meanwhile, the new priest is a vegan. We know because he would not eat meat at the potluck, and so we asked whether he was vegetarian, and he told us, No, I’m actually vegan. We then asked what vegan was. We were not aware of such things until he told us. He mostly ate the dish he brought, which had quinoa in it, which before that potluck we had never heard of.
We had also never heard of a priest having a husband. It is a very new thing for our Church. We are still getting used to it, frankly. We need some time. But we didn’t get any time, because the Search Committee and the Vestry went and foisted this fellow on us. They had their reasons. Among them:
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He is young.
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He is freshly out of seminary, and thus less likely to either die on us or have his spouse (a man, in his case) die on us.
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He is a gifted homilist (this we concede).
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He is interested in a pastoral approach to church-building, which should help with respect to our dwindling membership, which has become increasingly older and composed of fewer young families. He, the new priest, views the Church as a living, breathing organism which must address the time in which it finds itself, lest the Word become something untranslatable to our present moment.
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Finally, he represents where the Church is heading, not where the Church is.
On this last point we must provide a counterpoint. “Where the Church is heading” is very much a misnomer. The Church is not “heading” anywhere, in our opinion. The Church is an unmoving thing against which the tides of history have no sway. The Word is the Word is the Word, and so shall it be, forever and ever. To say that the Church is “heading” somewhere — and where, besides to the grocery after coffee hour?—is to concede that the Church has somehow faltered before the present moment and is in need of correction, reformation, change. Change does not happen simply for the sake of it. We have seen enough of it in our lives to know this. Change only occurs when someone is wrong.
And so we would like to suggest that there is nothing wrong with the Church, being that it is formed by the Word, which must, by definition be perfect. And furthermore, the new priest, with his tattoos and very small dog, represents to us a deviation in the wrong direction.
* * *
We bring out complaints to the new priest, in his office above the chapel. He sits cross-legged in his armchair in the style of professors and medical professionals, an affectation of leisure. We present our concerns around his appointment as our new priest, stressing, primarily, that we feel our voice have been unheard in the discernment process. The new priest, leaning forward now, asks whether Dorothy was part of the Search Committee or whether his memory is failing him. He presents it as a question, but really it is meant to derail us, to undercut our argument. We quickly acquiesce to this fact and continue.
You have not revitalized membership as the Vestry supposed you would, we say.
I’ve only been at St. Peter’s half a year, and these things take time, he says. Thought in my defense, we’ve already seen steady improvement in the matter.
Well, your handling of the columbarium was unsanctimonious and brash, we say.
It was sorely outdated and in need of immediate repair, he says. Swift action was needed, I’m afraid.
That simply isn’t the way things have been done here, we say, crossing our arms.
He smiles sadly at us, like we are unknowing children, and this annoys us.
I understand change is hard, the new priest says. God knows it’s hard. But to be the living embodiment of the Word, to be an expression of God’s love in the world, we have to be willing to take risks, to be dynamic in our faith and lives.
This is now the fourth time you’ve said the word dynamic in this conversation, we say, and we’re quite sick of the word, not only for the sound of it, but because we won’t sit here, despite the comfy chairs procured for us before the meeting, and have you, a young man, talk down to us like we don’t know what it is to be “dynamic in our faith and lives.”
We let our tempers get the best of us and say some unkind things to the new priest, for instance that his choice of paint for his office is a sickly green and not as gentle and verdant as we assume he was going for. We say many more flustered things, which we do not now remember, and when we have finished, we sit in silence and wait.
The new priest takes his time in responding. Leaning forward at his desk, folding his hands as if in prayer and staring down for a moment before responding.
I’m sorry, he says, if I’ve offended in any way. I’m only trying to follow God as best I can, trying to do as best as I can for St. Peter’s, and for you all. I hope you’ll give me time.
We’ll be speaking with the Bishop about this, we say, interrupting him in his attempt to schedule another time to hear our concerns.
He sighs at this and smiles in a way far wearier than his years woulds seem to allow.
By all means, he says. But in the meantime, always feel free to stop by.
* * *
We do not stop by. We instead immediately email the Bishop on Dorothy’s new smart phone, which her grandson set up for her. The Bishop gets back to us a day later and agrees to meet the following week.
In the Bishop’s office, we are served triangular, bite-size sandwiches. The new priest is not present for the meeting. He sent an email beforehand, we learn, getting the Bishop up to speed. The Bishop is a portly man, but in a handsome way, unlike the new priest, who because of his vegan diet is rail-thin and not how we like to imagine our priests. A certain roundness reads to us as Holy, and the Bishop, with his royal purple garb and tortoiseshell glasses, fits the bill. We all drove to the meeting together in Margaret’s minivan, an uncomfortable squeeze compared to the more luxurious seating arrangement we presently enjoy. The Bishop has fine chairs. Fine chairs indeed.
What can I do for you today, ladies, he says.
We’re here to talk about the new priest, and how we’re not very fond of him, we say.
May I ask why? he asks.
We tell him why. We are not sure why he feels the need to go through such a perfunctory set of questions when undoubtedly the new priest has already briefed him on the matter in a preparatory email, but as with anything in the Episcopal Church, there is a formality to be gotten through first before the real thing can be addressed, as if the formality itself is a kind of worship or prayer, a shield against the hurriedness and decaying moral compass of the world at large.
I’d like to tell a story, the Bishop says, if you all don’t mind.
He folds his hands behind his back as he walks about the room, which is painted a rich, Godly burgundy. He tells us about the first parish he ever served. He was a young man, then, he says, winking. We blush somewhat, though we wish we didn’t. They did not like him very much, he tells us, and it was precisely because of his youth. He can say now that some of what he attempted to do, his new ideas and initiatives, “didn’t land,” is the phrase he uses, “didn’t land.” But what “did land” pushed the parish in a new direction, not only away from its financial struggles but toward and even greater engagement with God and with each other. He pauses here, both in his speech and in his motion, having returned in a roundabout way to his desk.
The new priest is a good man, the Bishop says. Called by God to serve your parish, and he is doing the best he can. Stick with him. See where God will take you.
We consider what the Bishop has said. We respect him very much and have gotten to know and love him over the years. We remember his installment with great pleasure. It was a grand day, and joyous. We take his story to heart and are even persuaded by it for a few minutes, during which minutes we chat pleasantly with the Bishop and eat many mini-sandwiches and drink the tea which he has made for us with an electric gooseneck kettle he keeps on his desk. He is Anglophilic to his core, unlike the new priest, who feels to us regrettably American. American in the very worst way, with its disregard for ceremony, with its brusqueness masquerading as virtue, with efficiency placed over tradition. For instance the fact that he has made changes to our Christmas service offerings, going from the previous three (4:00PM, 6:00PM, and “midnight,” which actually begins at 10:30PM with lessons and carols) to only two services (5:00PM and “midnight”), which while reasonable with respect to declining attendance between the 4:00PM/6:00PM services, still strikes us as needlessly adversarial and abrupt.
We say this all to the Bishop, and hisface sours, wilting from its previous mirth.
Ladies, he says, I have to ask.
Here he sets down his tea and folds his hands, much like the new priest haddone before.
Is this really about Christmas? he says. Or is this about, say, something else?
We ask him what he means.
Here he frowns.
I recognize that Avery is new to you in, well, a lot of ways, and I just want to make sure that when we’re talking about Christmas, we’re talking about Christmas, he says. That there isn’t—he pauses here—something else bothering you about him.
We tell him to stop right there. We assure the Bishop that it is not his, his inclinations that bother us, no. We are not that way, we say, and we are resentful that you would insinuate such things.
I apologize, the Bishop says. It’s only that I have heard such discomforts in the past, from various parishes, being that this is still a relatively new thing for our Church.
But we do not hear him, because we are packing our thingsin a huff. To think that the Bishop would insinuate such things when all we were trying to do was voice what we thought of as legitimate concerns not only for our church but for the broader Church, those things being a lack of respect for tradition and the consequences thereof. And here we are accused of, of—of what? Of somehow being hateful for simply voicing our concerns about a man who has torn out the old columbarium with nary a plan to replace it, reduced the number of Christmas services, and ushered in a politicized era at the pulpit? (Refugees—always refugees!) No, we won’t have it.
So we leave. But instead of going home, we ask Margaret to drive us to the old priest’s home. We’ve sought his wisdom in the past, and we wished to seek it again. We were lost, and in need of a shepherd.
* * *
Luckily, the old priest was home. He was about to cook dinner.
These days, that’s mostly heating up some soup on the stove, he says, and chuckles in his old, priestly way.
We say to him that we hope we are not a disturbance, but we simply felt the need to talk to him, because we believe that of all people, he would be able to understand us best, since he’s known us, truly known us, not only by our words but by our acts, for upwards of two decades. The old priest nods.
Shoot, he says.
So we say our piece. We say all that we have said to the new priest and the Bishop and add some new things, such as:
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The new priest is very concerned with modernizing the aesthetics of the Eucharist, including a more spare dressing of the Eucharistic Table, which we find too spartan, despite his arguments centered around “humility in action and appearance.”
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The new priest has suggested that our Sunday School practices, long flagging and understaffed, be updated under the curriculum shared by the majority of Episcopalian churches, “Journey Through Adolescence (JTA),” and while we don’t have any particular objection to this program and its curriculum, we find it unacceptable that we should invest any amount of money into such things when our teenaged attendance ranges from three to five each Sunday. The economics are simply unwise.
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The new priest is smug and thinks he knows best, and while we are open to dialogue with him, we feel that he shuts us out at every turn, and moreover thinks of our concerns as trivial.
Here, the old priest interrupts us.
Friends, friends, he says. Did the new priest not sit down with you and talk over these things?
Yes, we say, we told you that. We attempt to continue our litany of issues in need of redress, but the old priest pats one of our knees (Ellen’s) and calls us “my friends,” which quiets us.
He has heard you out, the old priest says. And moreover, he has offered to continue hearing you out. Is that not enough?
We do not trust him to do anything, we say. He has taken none of what we said to heart. We feel, we feel—and here we struggle to hold back the tears. We then cry with the old priest, which we feel comfortable doing in his presence. We do not feel at all weak doing so.
We feel bygone, we say, as though we do not matter anymore. Surely you must feel this way too, Father?
We dab at our teary cheeks with handkerchiefs produced from purses. The old priest leans back and considers what we have said. He sits in a rich, upholstered leather chair in a living room the color of the deep sea, and his white skin, untainted by tattoo, seems like some bright light in the depths. He finally speaks after some time.
Yes, yes, I have felt that way from time to time, he says. But I know it is only God’s way to provide us with challenges, sometimes in the form of new people in our lives, who look nothing like us and act nothing like us and yet are still the very image of God.
He takes a sip of his soup, and another.
This is the challenge, this is the principal challenge of our faith, he says.
He then gets up to go to the kitchen and returns with hot water, which we did not know he had been preparing. He offers us tea. We decline, and he pours a cup for himself.
The rest, he says, blowing at the steaming cup, we must wait our turn to take up with God.
* * *
We leave the old priest and consider what he has said. We do feel better. The old priest has a calming presence, which we take to be an image or echo of the calming presence of God. They are vessels, priests, for God’s love in creation. The Word tells us that we are all called to this, but it is only priests who make a vocation of it. Only priests who, through a process of education, discernment, and arcane internal bureaucracy, are deemed worthy of standing before lay persons such as us to preach the Word.
Thinking it over, the question then occurs to us. Is the new priest an adequate vessel? Does the fact that he has what are referred to as “sleeves,” which include an inked Rose of Sharon and a profane Golgotha, make him an adequate vessel for God’s Word? Does his holier-than-thou diet suggest adequate humility? Does his husband, an older man who works as a “marketing specialist for a consulting firm based in New York,” seem to us an adequate partner in the same way that the old priest’s wife, God rest her soul, seemed to us? Does his hybrid car do enough? Do his changes to the quantity of Christmas services bring about more equity, more peace, more faith?
No, we do not feel so.
Now, we are not so arrogant as to believe our opinions absolute. We know there are a great many people in the congregation who feel differently than us, who very much like the new priest and the new direction he has taken St. Peter’s. Too, the newcomers seem to like him as well, to find him to be a draw rather than, as we feel, a hindrance. We can admit all of this, but we can not and will not chalk up our qualms to our age and its assumed conservatism. This we feel is a grave injustice to us, an insult, that somehow we could get to the end of our lives and be told that everything we’ve learned and felt is misguided. Why is it not the young ones who are discounted? Why is it that their preferences and observations are given such weight, when they’ve only been here but so long?
A week later, we gather for a light lunch at Betty’s Breakfast Bar and go over our conversation with the old priest. He heard us out, and truly so. Not in the pedantic way we’d been heard out before now. He too is old, like us, and so perhaps that was the deciding factor. He could appreciate our position. But still, we are not yet satisfied. Hence the light lunch. Together, we comb over the conversation and what we remember from it. What had been his advice? His final word?
The rest we must wait our turn to take up with God, Dorothy recites, as though from scripture.
This, like most of the things the old priest ever said, seems sensible enough. Wise, even, if a little obvious. But we are restless. Antsy. We all feel it. And looking around the plastic booth, an agreement is come to. Unspoken, but deeply felt by each, as though the same question occurred to us all at once. As though from God.
Why wait?
* * *
All it took was to die, which we do all together, except for Margaret, who takes her sweet time in death as she did in life. She’d always had trouble sleeping. It takes her a little longer than most, and so too with death. It’s easier to die than one might assume, and so we rib Margaret somewhat for her tardiness. She takes it in stride, dear Margaret, as always.
At the pearly gates, we push our way to the front of the line. We say excuse me to every soul, because if we are nothing else, we are courteous. At the front of the line, St. Peter, the namesake of our church, dressed not in flowing white as we might’ve imagined, but instead in a subdued blue chambray button-down, asks us to please take our place at the back of the line, that all will be processed in due time. We tell him that we have urgent business to discuss with God, which earns us a quizzical look.
Urgency is not a concept here, he says. We have a different sense of time. Or rather, what replaces time. You’ll get used to it eventually.
No, we say, we came to discuss the new priest and our concerns with his installment at our church, which happens to be named after you, by the way.
There are so many, he says.
What? we ask.
There are so many churches, he says. Named after me. I lose track. It is always an honor, however. Regardless, you will still need to wait your place in line.
But, we say.
It’s no use, though. St. Peter deposits us at the back of the line with a wave of his hand, and we find ourselves behind a very old man and a very young girl. The line inches forward with all the urgency of a small-town carnival, and we grow impatient. More and more souls appear behind us, displaced and expectant. As we wait, we keep our attention on what lies before us, which in this moment is the promise of everlasting rest. But we haven’t come here for that. We’ve come here to settle a score. To find an answer to the debate which has consumed us. Realizing that, and hearing ourselves for perhaps the first time, a darker revelation intrudes. As if from God Himself. We all feel it. Not all epiphanies foretell great things.
There is, of course, no going back. Some trips are one-way. Still, as St. Peter told us, there’s no rush here. There can’t be. So we step away from the line and, though the Bible strongly advises against it, we look back. Thankfully, we do not become salt, though perhaps it is what we deserve. We walk past countless souls on our way to the back of the line, which seems to stretch on for eternity, but does eventually find an end. There we find a small bench. It is a comfortable piece of furniture, and from its vantage, we consider the world we have left.
It occurs to us to pray. In a hurry to find an answer that sits well with us, we have exercised the very brashness we found fault in. And as any good Episcopalian knows, you ought not seek an answer, but rather a sustaining question. One which will guide you, teach you, and enrich you. Answers are not the language of God. Questions are.
Though it is likely too late for this, there on the bench in Heaven we pray for the new priest. Perhaps we do not understand his veganism. Perhaps we are not fond of his very small dog. His tattoos are undoubtedly profane (on this, we will cede no ground). But he is still a man. And a man of God, at that. And he is loved. By our community. By his husband, of course. And by God.
We stand and retake our place in the procession. We say one last prayer, and it is for forgiveness and humility. At the end of the long line of souls, we fold our hands before us and step forward.