Saints and sinners

"The only difference between a saint and a sinner is that every saint has a past, and every sinner has a future."  Oscar Wilde.

I think of this quote often.  For someone who embraced decadence, who lived a life of hedonism, who certainly did some very unbiblical things, Mr Wilde was accurate in this assessment.  After all, isn't accepting Christ as our Savior a promise to do better with each fall?
Who among us can say we haven't sinned, even, and perhaps especially, after accepting the challenge of Jesus?  After all, even years after setting on my path to become an Orthodox Christian, I still get angry, sometimes a bit too easily.  I still am willing to pass by a beggar in the street, sometimes because I have no money to give them, but just as often because I admit I find them intrusive.  Not so much annoying, but intrusive.  By ignoring them, is it not possible I am also ignoring Jesus?   In Matthew 25, doesn't He tell us that "what we did for the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me"?
In thinking about my own failures, I now am forced to confront what the failures might have been of those saints I admire and have read about.  St Lawrence, a martyr from the early church, and for whom I was named, certainly had a sense of humor, as legend has it that while he was being burned alive on a gridiron, he commented to his executioners "You might want to turn me over; I am done on this side".  Did he harbor any anger for what he was being put through?  How exactly could his actions before his martyrdom hurt those who cared about him?
I also think of St John Kochurov, Heiromartyr of the Bolshevik Yoke, who I chose as my North American Patron in the Orthodox Church.  He certainly labored to build a church in Chicago, but what might have angered him during that time?  Was it all righteous anger for the faith, or was it the petty annoyances of the mundane world?  We do know that he was the first priest martyred by the Bolsheviks; in fact, that anniversary approaches at the end of this month.  What we don't know are things about his life that are not related to the church or his martyrdom.
Of course, I would be remiss if I neglected to mention St Paul.  After all, a man who wrote so much of the New Testament was, at first, a persecutor of those he eventually became a saint to.  If he could go from persecutor to saint, why can I not change myself in a similar fashion?
So, other than lack of money, what is to stop me from giving a panhandler a quarter the next time I see one?  Why should I get too angry at anyone for something trivial, like having a different opinion than I do?  OK, if they threaten to take away my religious rights, I think that can qualify for righteous anger, but other than that?  What about the driver who cuts me off?  Should I allow myself to ramble on angrily, or forgive them, and pray that maybe they will be more careful next time?  Perhaps most of all, what about those who I inspire to anger, or cut off in traffic?  What about those who get angry with me for not thinking the way they do?  Are they not as deserving of the same forgiveness I seek, and am I not as deserving of the scorn I have given?
I feel quite certain I will never be seen by many as a saint, unless, of course, I am somehow martyred for the church, which I can honestly say I do not forsee.  Yet the path of Orthodoxy, and indeed Christianity, is not a final destination, as Father Igor always told me in my catechumen classes, but rather, it is a work in progress.  I will not deny that the ghosts of sins past, like the ghost of Christmas Past in "A Christmas Carol" can sometimes find ways to tempt me into feeling unworthy, but the joy that fills my heart as I hear the opening lines of every Divine Liturgy "Blessed is the Kingdom...."  offers me a new beginning that is only made possible by Jesus and His promise of salvation in the Kingdom He taught of.  That anyone would do for me what He did for me in his ministry, by His teachings, and by His sacrifice, and that He left a church to preserve it all to this day, makes me wonder why I fail to show that mustard seed of mercy or offer the fruit of forgiveness and yet still feel welcomed in His church.
It is true that only God knows what is in the hearts of any person, myself included.  It is also true that Christ can change hearts, as He did for St Paul, and for that, I can be both hopeful and thankful.  I can be hopeful that because of Christ's love for me, I can change, and I can be thankful that, as a sinner, I have a future, as Oscar Wilde so keenly pointed out to me in his writings.