All Saints Sermon by Rev. Dr. Ed Hird
Have you ever felt deserted? What was that like for you?
Isaiah 62:4 prophetically says, “No longer will they call you deserted. And in vs. 12 “You will be called a city no longer deserted.” The term deserted comes from the word desert. Have you been to a desert? Which ones? How many have ever been to a waterless desert? How many have ever spent forty days in a desert without water? Jesus did.
The 1st century BC Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius commented “The desert teaches you more about water than the ocean ever could.”
What can a desert teach us, if we have eyes to see? Bishop Peter calls Lent the season of the desert. Where did the early monastics go to seek God? Often the desert, the wilderness. The modern season of Halloween is a spiritual desert. Do I hear an Amen? Where did Jesus go after his baptism by John the Baptist? To the desert.
Isaiah 62:1 says “For Zion’s sake I will not keep silent, for Jerusalem’s sake I will not remain quiet, till her vindication shines out like the dawn, her salvation like a blazing torch.”
This Halloween, I will not keep silent about the goodness of God’s Kingdom. This is my seventh Halloween sermon at All Saints. Think for a moment of the deep traumas that Israel and the Jewish people have experienced again and again. Think of God’s covenant love for Jerusalem built on Mount Zion. God has never given up on Jerusalem no matter how many times it has been attacked and even destroyed. Psalm 122:6 reminds us to “Pray for the peace of Jerusalem: ‘May those who love you be secure.’” When Israel was attacked on October 7th 2023, I felt a strong leading to stand with the people of Israel, praying for the peace of Jerusalem. One of the amazing things about the Jewish people is that when they returned from exile to their historic homeland in 1948, they have turned a desert into an oasis, fulfilling the promise of Isaiah 35:1-2 that
“The desert and the parched land will be glad; the wilderness will rejoice and blossom. Like the crocus, it will burst into bloom; it will rejoice greatly and shout for joy.”
How many have ever watched the iconic movie Fiddler on the Roof? Jewish people love life and will even dance and sing to celebrate life “To life, L’Chaim”, especially at weddings. Can there be a wedding in the desert? How many of you would like to go to a waterless desert to have a wedding?
E. Stanley Jones, one of my heroes who started the Christian Ashram movement, said that Islam either finds a desert or creates one. Islam was birthed in the desert, a place of death, desolation, and barrenness. The very word Arab literally means desert. We tend to reproduce what we know. Halloween is a place that celebrates death, desolation and barrenness.
Isaiah 62:2-3 says that The nations will see your vindication, and all kings your glory; you will be called by a new name that the mouth of the Lord will bestow. You will be a crown of splendor in the Lord’s hand, a royal diadem in the hand of your God.
No matter how terrible that antisemitism has been and will be, God keeps vindicating Israel and the Jewish people. The Gentiles, the Goyim, the Nations have seen how God has spared Israel again and again when viciously attacked. God sees those of us who are grafted into the olive tree of Israel as a crown of splendor, as a royal diadem. Have you ever thought about salvation as a blazing torch? Jesus said in John 4:22 that salvation is of the Jews. God will never abandon his covenant people, both original and those grafted in, even when they may go through times of exile.
Isn’t it wonderful that you have been given a new name? We have been grafted in through our inclusion in the New Covenant, the New Testament. Jesus spoke of this in the last supper. “This cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me” (Luke 22:19-20; 1 Corinthians 11:23-25; Mark 14:22-25). Our taking part in the eucharist is a foretaste of the heavenly wedding banquet spoken of in Revelation 19:9: “Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb.” As Bishop Peter often mentions, there is nothing more intimate we can do than share together in Holy Communion. God indeeds provides a holy meal in the desert, as says Psalm 78:19. That is why once again on October 31st, Hallow’s Eve, we will be celebrating Holy Communion during a prayer vigil from 5 to 7pm. In the midst of the desert of death at Halloween, we will be celebrating l’chaim, abundant life as in John 10:10, even perhaps dancing at God’s heavenly wedding feast. God’s answer to the death of Halloween is the life of the Eucharist.
Psalm 78: 19 said
they continued to sin against him,
rebelling in the wilderness against the Most High.
18They willfully put God to the test
by demanding the food they craved.
19They spoke against God;
they said, “Can God really
spread a table in the wilderness?
20True, he struck the rock,
and water gushed out,
streams flowed abundantly,
but can he also give us bread?
Can he supply meat for his people?”
Canada, even with its strong Christian heritage, has become a spiritual desert. We Canadians have rebelled again and again in the wilderness against the most High. We have doubted that God can really spread a table in the wilderness, that he will given us our daily bread in the desert of Canada. To celebrate the eucharist together this Hallow’s Eve is our way of saying Yes, to Life, and No to death.
Isaiah 62:9 say that those who harvest it will eat it and praise the Lord, and those who gather the grapes will drink it in the courts of my sanctuary.”
Is it a coincidence that the last supper, drawn from the Passover Seder supper, includes the eating of bread and drinking the fruit of grapes? Jesus took bread and wine, bringing life from death, the life of Resurrection Sunday from the death of Good Friday.
God can really spread a table in the wilderness. God can supply even in great political instability and confusion. With my dad being born in Alberta, and marrying a BC bride, I am thankful that Alberta has chosen by a large referendum majority to stay in our sometimes-challenging Canadian marriage. John A Macdonald envisioned the miracle of Canada in 1867, as entering into a marriage. Macdonald saw the marriage of Canada as so significant that he even married his second wife Agnes at the same time. We don’t trust in politics for our salvation. But God makes a way in the desert. God can renew this troubled marriage of Canada and bring a second honeymoon.
Evil is so boringly predictable and deadly, especially at Halloween. True goodness, however, is so creative and life giving.
How many of you have ever been to an Ash Wednesday service? What draws you or holds you back? I see Halloween as a counterfeit Ash Wednesday, “Dust you are and to dust you will return.” Perhaps with the Halloween day becoming the Halloween month, it has become the counterfeit Lent.
Here’s what I like about Halloween. It faces our mortality. Here’s what I don’t like about Halloween. How it faces our mortality. It unsuccessfully tries to disarm death by making a joke of it.
Hebrews 2:14-15 says:
Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might break the power of him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil—and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death.”
Hebrews 2 reminds us that Halloween is really about the slavery that comes from the fear of death.
Over these past several weeks doorknocking, I have felt like a medical intern as I have stared at hundreds of corpses and skeletons. The gravediggers have been busy. There’s corpses everywhere you look. Perhaps it gives a new meaning to their being a skeleton crew working on government holidays.
One house had a smiling pumpkin head waving to me from a skeleton body, next to a happy smiling ghost. The skeletons often have enlarged alien eyes and skulls. While doorknocking, I saw a twenty-foot skeleton. One of the strangest two skeletons were a skeleton bride holding a skeleton bridegroom in her arms.
This reminded me of Isaiah 62: 4-5: But you will be called Hephzibah, and your land Beulah; for the Lord will take delight in you, and your land will be married. As a young man marries a young woman, so will your Builder marry you; as a bridegroom rejoices over his bride, so will your God rejoice over you
Hephzibah & Beulah speaks of life, marriage, and joy for Israel and those grafted in through the Messiah. Even marriage was being mocked at Halloween. Biblical marriage however chooses life, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and health, until death do us part.
Most things in deserts are dead. Canada and BC are pretty dead. But God gives us oases in the desert. In the midst of the death of Halloween, God brings new life in Christ when we turn to him. God is seeking after you even or more especially in the barren desert of Halloween.
Canada is a valley of dry bones, obsessed with its skeletons. Politics is famous for its skeletons in the closet. Every family I have discovered has at least one skeleton in its closet. Do I hear an Amen? Should it surprise us that many at Halloween drag out their family skeletons and put them by their front door?
How many of you know the Afro American spiritual Dem Bones”? It was inspired by the biblical vision in Ezekiel 37:1–14, where the prophet Ezekiel watches a valley of dry bones come back to life, symbolizing divine resurrection, hope, and restoration
Well, your toe bone connected to your foot bone
Your foot bone connected to your heel bone
Your heel bone connected to your ankle bone
Your ankle bone connected to your leg bone
Your leg bone connected to your knee bone
Your knee bone connected to your thigh bone
I hear the word of the Lord!
A dem bones, dem bones gonna walk around
A dem bones, dem bones, gonna walk around
A dem bones, dem bones, gonna walk around
I hear the word of the Lord!
This Halloween skeleton emphasis reminded me of dear Don Flumerfelt the new Anglican priest in Agassiz when he found a coffin with an indigenous woman’s skeleton in the children’s nursery. Assuming that a murder had been committed, he had the RCMP remove the coffin. Suddenly the local Oddfellows demanded that Rev. Flumerfelt return their coffin which they used in their secret rituals. When he refused, the Church Treasurer who was a Free Mason complained to the Archbishop who had Don Flumerfelt removed from the church. The Archbishop then reinstated Don Flumerfelt at the church before removing him a second time. Church skeletons can be very messy. So let me ask you Bishop Peter, during the repairs, have you discovered any skeletons in our church closets?
Halloween appears to embrace playfulness and humour. But it is the counterfeit imitation of true biblical play and laughter, which is done in the Spirit rather than in the flesh. As Bishop Peter both teaches and models, we need to both pray and play, as with our playful, humorous Bocche Tournament.
While doorknocking, I ran across a sign ‘welcome to our graveyard’.
Another said, “Welcome to our tomb. RIP”
One front door poster said: “Welcome. We’re dying to meet you.”
My dad’s classic dad joke when driving by a cemetery was his saying “People are dying to get into there.”
Halloween is obsessed with graves and cemeteries.
How often do you visit graveyards?
One deep anxiety of some people is where they be buried.
Some major metropolises rely on nearby satellite towns designated almost entirely for burials. For example, Colma, California (just south of San Francisco) has only about 1,500 living residents but over 1.5 million people buried in its massive collection of cemeteries.
The Catacombs of Paris house the remains of more than six million people in former stone quarries beneath the streets.
Tiny little Hong Kong buries many people at sea. Might there one day be one-hundred-story high rises just dedicated to burying the dead?
Have you ever wondered why Halloween ghosts are usually in white?
Before modern embalming and tailored suits or dresses were common, deceased bodies were wrapped in simple white linen cloth known as a burial shroud or a white bedsheet. When people reported seeing the spirits of loved ones, they often imagined them returning in these pale death cloths.
This Halloween, as Isaiah 62:10 puts it, God is calling us like John the Baptist to prepare the way, to build up a highway, to remove the stones, and raise a banner for the nations. Judaism was never meant to be only about itself, but rather a missionary force to reach the nations with good news.
How many of you have grass where you live? Can you imagine a park with no grass? Paved paradise and put up a parking lot. While door knocking, I have run into a lot of fake spiders and fake green grass. It’s amazing how popular fake things can be. Have you noticed how no one puts fake weeds in their front yard? Weeds never need gardening, watering, or fertilizer. I commend them to you.
How many of you have ever watched a Spider-Man movie? It is amazing how fascinated people become with spiders and cob webs at Halloween. People spend $140 million yearly on fake spiders from a $13 billion Halloween budget. I met a number of real spiders while doorknocking. Speaking of webs, how many have ever enjoyed reading the book Charlotte’s Web?
I have probably doorknocked 90,000 homes spiritually and politically. One practical use for political pamphlets is to use them as knives to cut through cobwebs? Are there any spiritual cobwebs that God want to cut through in your life? What are you entangled in that is hard to get out of? What keeps sticking to you when you try to throw it away? For me, I have to guard against the sticky root of bitterness.
How many of you have ever been bitten by a spider? Did you survive? Who invented spiders anyways? I wonder if they were better behaved in the garden of Eden. Take a guess at how many different kinds of spiders in the world. 53,000!
Estimates put the total number of individual spiders on Earth at roughly 21 quadrillion.
Sometimes spiders bite. Sometimes life bites. Sometimes life hurts badly. But God has the antidote as we receive Holy Communion by faith with thanksgiving. God indeed provides a feast in the desert. Never underestimate the healing power of Holy Communion, especially in the desert of Halloween.
Let us pray…
