Let us now praise church custodians
If I were to put up a plaque at church, I’d want it to honor our crew of sextons.
The word sexton doesn’t exactly communicate sexiness any more than janitor and custodian connote glamour. Yet ask me in a given week who makes the quietest difference in the well-being of our congregation and I will tell you it’s the custodians. Title them what you will, these servants are living proof that God hides the blessings of the kingdom in ordinary but remarkable places and people.
Neither fame nor fortune guides the best church custodians. They give attention to little things—like toilets that don’t flush, Cheerios lodged between pew cushions, and dead birds that mistakenly thought a shimmery window offered a chance to mate with a really good-looking bird. I’ve watched one of our custodians make a barehanded catch of a mouse running down the trunk of a freshly cut Christmas tree. I’ve witnessed a custodian coax two neighborhood ducks back through the propped-open doors that they entered as uninvited guests, after he spotted them angling for the donut counter.
A few months ago, my wife and I dropped in to the Sunday night compline service at Trinity Church on Copley Square in Boston. The sexton was the lone greeter. Silence, candles, and incense met us inside the cavernous sanctuary. There were people present, too, though it was too dark to see how many were spread among the pews. A cassock-clad octet sang a Bach chorale, which I mistook for heaven.
