You might want to get a coffee, this will be a big one.

Sexton is an English-ized word which came from the latin “Sacristan”. Say Sacristan about thirty times fast, and you can see how Sacristan becomes Sexton. This may be how we ended up with “Santa Claus”

“Saint Nicholas”
“San Nicholas”
“San Neeklas”
“Sanne Klas”
“Santy Klas”
“Santa Claus”

It seems to have done the same thing in Dutch who say “Sinterklaas”, or maybe we ended up with that in some roundabout way.

Anyway, enough digression. (Though I will always love English, and the twists and turns it makes).

A Sexton or Sacristan is the man who maintains the physical plant of a Church. From the Latin Sacristanus, the “tender or keeper of sacred things”

I have done this job, beginning at my Father’s side as we tended the chapel where I went to high school, fixing the roof, repairing the altar, putting much needed heat in the confessional, varnishing pews. Then at our parish church, where the job consisted mostly of dealing with linens and vestments and cleaning.

The job of Sacristan or Sexton comes with it the humility of being the one who serves, the satisfaction of serving something useful and meaningful, and the dignity the office bestows upon you. Having done the job, I highly recommend it for bringing you closer to the Creator.

In the Church of England, the job is called “verger”. No more wonderful description of this office can be found than in the W. Somerset Maugham story “The Verger”

“There had been a christening that afternoon at St. Peter’s, Neville Square, and Albert Edward Foreman still wore his verger’s gown. He kept his new one, its folds as full and stiff though it were made not of alpaca but of perennial bronze, for funerals and weddings (St. Peter’s, Neville Square, was a church much favoured by the fashionable for these ceremonies) and now he wore only his second-best. He wore it with complacence for it was the dignified symbol of his office, and without it (when he took it off to go home) he had the disconcerting sensation of being somewhat insufficiently clad. He took pains with it; he pressed it and ironed it himself. During the sixteen years he had been verger of this church he had had a succession of such gowns, but he had never been able to throw them away when they were worn out and the complete series, neatly wrapped up in brown paper, lay in the bottom drawers of the wardrobe in his bedroom”

The story is short, charming, worth reading, and I would be fine with it if you went there and read it first. The rest of this post, with spoilers, will be below the fold, for when you return, or for those who don’t want to read it.

Albert Edward Foreman cannot read. He is a middle aged man and has no desire to learn, and is told by the new Vicar of St Peters that this is an untenable situation.

A temperate man, Albert does occasionally indulge in a smoke, and on his trip home learns that the street he is on has no smoke shop. So he decides to open one. He does, and it does well, so then starts another. He does well enough that he has nearly a dozen before he knows it, and is making money hand over fist.

He goes to the bank to make his most recent deposit and in conversation the bank manager discovers he cannot read.

“And do you mean to say that you’ve built up this important business and amassed a fortune of thirty thousand pounds without being able to read or write? Good God, man, what would you be now if you had been able to?”

“I can tell you that sir,” said Mr. Foreman, a little smile on his still aristocratic features. “I’d be verger of St. Peter’s, Neville Square.”

We have been the vergers of this great nation. We have toiled in dignity and humility to serve her as we have been taught, and we have done so well and admirably. The fruit of our labor is all around us; while under attack from without and within, we are still the greatest nation on earth by almost every conceivable metric.

We have been told that we are no longer useful, those of us who patiently toiled in silence, doing our best. We must decide- like Albert- that it is high time for us to move on to the next thing, and benefit from the fruit of our toils ourselves. Are you ready?