All Hallows
Sermon by the Revd Dr Brutus Green
Readings: Revelation 7.9-17, Psalm 34.1-10, 1 John 3.1-3, Matthew 5.1-12
People sometimes get a little funny about churches having events on Halloween. I think the concern is that Halloween is the time of the enemy. A celebration of the devil and all his works. I’ve not myself known any ‘worship’ to happen on 31st October, and I think it would require a strange attitude to children dressing up and hunting sweets to see something truly satanic. Though by 6 o’clock Oberon has usually lost his generally cherubic disposition. The date is also the anniversary of Martin Luther nailing his 95 theses to the door of a church in Wittenberg, the symbolic start of the Reformation, and commemorated widely in Europe as “Reformation Day”. I’m sure our Roman Catholics friends would have something smart to say about that.
But no, despite certain protestations, I think it would be hard to see a significant threat any longer coming from paganism, monsters or the diabolic in this regard. In fact, I suspect something rather the opposite, that Halloween, even in its commercial Americanised guise, is an entry point to faith, rather than an enemy.
The great enemy of faith, today, is not perverseness; it’s not magic, idolatory or other religions, it’s materialism. It is disenchantment. And I don’t mean shopping. Just that solid, stubborn view that if I haven’t seen it with my own two eyes, I shan’t believe it.
And I also don’t mean science. A great many scientists have faith; have an inspired sense of wonder. I read a rather lovely essay from a Professor of Developmental Genetics, who’s also a priest, describing how viruses are ‘a rather beautiful and clever part of God’s wonderful creation’. It was a sort of defence of COVID-19, not in an insensitive way, but making the point that viruses are integral to the entire created order. And, of course, as much as we might be a bit down on viruses at the moment, mosquitos kill around 3/4 million people a year, and even the majestic hippopotamus has blood on his hands killing 500 Africans a year.
But no, it’s not science that is the enemy of faith, it’s scepticism.
Scepticism it seems to me suffers from two major faults. First, is a lack of humility. People of faith rarely claim to have all the answers. To believe in God is to acknowledge an otherness we cannot comprehend; a dimension of life that is largely inaccessible; the fallibility of the human condition. To have faith is to see through a glass darkly. But the sceptic believes she has the answer. She believes she sees the world as it is.
Scepticism’s other major fault is a lack of wonder; a lack of imagination. To believe in a world purely of empirical, describable things; to reduce personality, spirit, the human condition, to DNA, chemical reactions and biological impulses, creates a sad, world without heroism, beauty, or goodness.
You are simply a placeholder in the middle of a chain reaction. Though I’m quite sure Diana Ross wouldn’t see it that way.
Which is why at Halloween we are in the realm of Christianity. If you’re identifying evil, it means you can also identify good. The actions of monsters provoke the responses of heroes. The otherworldliness of the wicked, may remind us of the spiritual forces which shape creation. But, more, even in the joy, the imagination, the thrill of the night terrors, the artistry of becoming something else, points to the wonder and imagination that might lead us to God.
If we live in a world that is in some way enchanted, if there is more, if there is good and evil, we have begun a journey of faith.
The other aspect of Halloween is that it’s really the flip side of the All Saints coin. The word even comes from All Hallows’ Eve – the Evening of All Hallows – All Saints. It’s the Carnival side of Christianity – The night of darkness before the victory of day. The restless dead that points to the eternal peace of Christ. The fear that is cast out by perfect love.
In a sense then, Halloween reminds us of our present darkness. Of the suffering that this world is heir to. And one of the unifying aspects of sainthood is the endurance they have shown. This might be through poverty like St Francis; through illness like St Julian; through church politics like St John of the Cross, who was kidnapped, imprisoned and tortured for months by a rival group of monks; through the great many forms of torture and death endured by the martyrs at the hands of politicians, war criminals and terrorists – still today. One has only to look at what’s happening in the South of France; to the Easter Day bombings in Sri Lanka; the fearful lives of Christians in the Middle East; to be reminded that faith has always carried risk, and for some great cost.
‘These are they which came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more; neither shall the sun light on them, nor any heat. And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes.’
This is part of our world which lives on the Eve of All Saints’ Day, a celebration of all the lives that make up the body of Christ. A day that celebrates the triumph of the Church. A day that celebrates the victory of good over evil, of perfect love casting out fear.
Again, the coming weeks look gloomy. Winter really is coming, and with this Halloween announcement, the threat of the White Witch cancelling Christmas, we’ll need all our resources of faith, hope and love, to endure as we must and bring everyone with us to the Eucharistic morning. So though the night be dark and full of terrors, against the cold wind of secularism, let us keep the faith of the Church, with All the Saints of 2000 years who have shown us the courage and compassion, the humility and child-like wonder, that are the hallmarks of following Jesus Christ. And with perfect love let us cast out this fear. Amen.