Coming Clean, volume 2

When I was in Washington, I bought a copy of The Episcopal Handbook. Hilarious little how-to. One of the questions they ask is whether coffee is the third sacrament (the answer is "yes, probably").

I've got to admit that the coffee hour was one of the main things that attracted me to St. Matthew's. Now when I say "coffee," that's really a poor description. The menu at the most recent included (and I'm sure I'm missing something):

• Home-made chicken rice soup
• Home-made rolls
• A cheese and sausage tray
• Chips and nacho sauce
• Date bars
• Fruit
• Coffee

By local standards, that was a fairly slim "coffee" menu. There always seems to be more than enough, and you're always welcome to sit at anyone's table. "Coffee" takes at least an hour after church. It's an extremely important part of what happens there. I recently took a couple of loaves of bread to a potluck, and people are still talking about them. (As bread goes, it wasn't that wonderful, but I feel very good every time someone brings it up again.)

I think the welcome there is an extremely strong draw. When I showed up for the first time, the priest actually remembered that I'd visited two years ago. They seem honestly glad to see me, and that hasn't diminished now that I'm a "regular." (Later I'll talk about the odd string of coincidence when I walked in the first time.) OK—it's an extremely small group (like 30 or so), but I'm still impressed that they keep offering me ways to participate. It takes a bunch of people to make Sunday happen. Aside from the food and the invisible things like cleaning, there are greeters, a reader, a couple of torch-bearers, someone to carry the cross, and a few others. And it's assumed that these responsibilities will rotate throughout the congregation. Not a spectator sport at all.

Anyhow, the welcome is strong, and from what I hear, that's an Episcopalian characteristic.