I Wish I Could Say I Was Surprised

Some mornings I tune into a morning prayer service on YouTube. There have been times when the scripture readings and message have been meaningful. 

When I tuned in today, October 31, the clergy person welcomed everyone to All Hallows Eve. 

Here's a little background on this hallow or "holy" observance in the Church calendar: For centuries, the Church - particularly the Roman church and its 'derivatives', have observed All Hallow’s Eve as an evening vigil to watch and wait for the two holy days (which became All Saints' and All Souls' Days) that honor the friends, family, and heroic saints who are now part of the “cloud of witnesses” spoken of in Hebrews 12:1, and who the Church says is cheering us on from heaven as we run the race set before us. All Hallows’ Eve is said to be similar to Christmas Eve in that we [all] are eagerly and festively anticipating the holy day that follows. So, to recap: October 31 is All Hallows’ Eve, November 1 is All Saints’ Day, and November 2 is All Souls’ Day.  

This observance is not based on any command of Jesus or what the Holy Spirit instructs us in scripture  to follow (actually warnings against these observations are what you will find!). The beginnings are from long-held pagan observances celebrated by certain cultures around the world as the Day of the Dead. October 31 through November 1 was the date of a Celtic festival called Samhain, which marked the end of the harvest season. The Gaels believed that beginning at sun down on October 31, the boundary between the dead and alive thinned, and the dead would return home seeking hospitality among the living. If the dead  were not appeased, they would wreak havoc on livestock and crops, causing sickness and famine. So on October 31, the Gaels would don costumes, light bonfires, and imitate sorcery practices in order to ward off evil spirits and appease the dead, or suffer terrors from demons. In certain Latino and Caribbean cultures (some being influenced by African traditions), this observance appeases the dead by offering foodstuffs and gifts and wearing costumes representing the dead. Other cultures practice ancestor worship - revering the spirits of dead family and friends as homage to them, and appeasing them by offering certain sweets, other foodstuffs, etc. So, as was the Roman church's practice, it subsumed the pagan ritual in compromise to those pagan, idol worshiping people it was attempting to make obedient to the Roman church. In 835 the church supplanted this pagan festival, setting All Saints Day on November 1, the same day as Samhain. They replaced the havoc and mischief created by the evil dead on Samhain with a hopeful watching, waiting, and celebration of the holy dead, God’s saints. In the 11th century the Abbot (leader) of a Roman church monastery instituted All Souls' Day as the companion to follow All Saints' Day (previously it had no single fixed date on the church's calendar). Similarly with the contemporary context, a number of mainline church systems wrap this dead and devil worship in white clothes to camouflage the original pagan ritual observance. 1/

   ....So back to 2023: after a welcome / opening prayer, the clergy person proceeded to read 1 Samuel 28. For those not familiar with this passage, it concerns a king of Israel, Saul, who, bereft of God's presence and support because of his rebellion against God, desperately seeks to reach out to a now dead prophet and priest of Yahweh, Samuel, who had spoken God's words of rejection to Saul some time back. Now Saul wants God to fix what was going on in Israel as a result of his own rebellion. So, not hearing from God in his prayers, Saul seeks counsel from a seer, a witch at Endor, to reach out to Samuel's spirit. It gets even worse for Saul...

As the clergy person began the reading, I immediately saw the direction this message was going in:  about a witch on All Hallows Eve. After the reading of chapter 28, the clergy person described a personal experience growing up in the southwest where there was a heavy Mexican cultural influence. One of the cultural traditions is the celebration of the Day of the Dead (Dia de los Muertos), which is considered as a holy observance where, as noted above, there is a celebration of those dead who would make the annual visit to loved ones. Some of the celebrations have individuals dressing up as persons risen from the grave (the themes of what is Halloween). Those family and friends who are alive set up an altar called an ofrenda that is adorned with skeletal representations of some sort, candles, pictures of the loved ones, and may have food or drinks placed before it. Some claim to even speak to the dead spirits of the loved ones as the evening transitions to All Saints Day. 

And then, the clergy person held up a picture of their own ofrenda that was adorned with representations of skeletons, candles and mementos of loved ones who have passed. The clergy person beckoned those listening to deeply remember and honor on All Hallows Eve those family and friends who have passed away according to their own tradition. And as the clergy person was about to lead the listeners in The Lord's Prayer, I instantly switched off the video. My spirit felt like it was an act of blasphemy (yes, that's a strong term but that is what it felt like to me at that point). Do I go too far on this? Am I taking all of this out of proportion? 

And just a couple of days prior, a high-ranking and infamous LGBTQ clergy person was guest preacher at a world-renowned house of worship. 

I wish I could say I was surprised at any of this. I've seen it before in other iterations. But today it struck me even more soberly: to me it was like back-to-back Revelation 2:12-29. It made me and makes me very sad. I do mourn for the universal Church (I mean the entire Body of Christ) and the taints of apostasy it is experiencing, much like Jeremiah and the prophets mourned for Israel and Judah (and even Christ's sadness over those covenant people) because of its turning away from Yahweh and following after idols or created god substitutes. Even after the holocaust of Assyria's and Babylon's genocide, capture, and scattering of the people, after the 70 years of exile were over and they were returned back to the land -- once a land of promise, but which was now under the authority of the then current empire and succeeding empires (and the trauma they leave in their wake), the chosen people still returned to their rebellious ways. The chastisement and change of location was never to be the cure; what was needed and is always needed is a change of heart, which can only happen by God's hand. That is what we need in the Church today - Christians whose hearts were and are being changed, being sanctified to become like Christ, Christians whose lives are living sacrifices to God and not to the world and the devil. 

Church, here is the matter for us to ponder: Worship and celebration of the devil and this world one night, then a couple of months later hailing and celebrating the magic of Christmas. That is, observing and celebrating Christmas as a time of magic. Have we become so engrossed in the refashioning of God's miraculous sending of His own Son to earth to become Redeemer of mankind to open a way back to God into a season of mystical and magical granting of all whims and fancies and fulfillment of wishes? A recasting of what God has done into a beckoning of a holiday 'spirit' that promises material blessings of some kind or another, while subordinating the sacrifice of God, shunting it to a tertiary place, or not even observing the significance of what God did at all? Is this honoring Christ? Is it really a mass or holy observation of what Christ did? Is it honoring God the Father? Is it honoring God the Holy Spirit? Or does it totter on the brink of blasphemy? 

Please, please make it make sense! 

1/ -Excerpted from a page on the Little Way Chapel Church website. Other online sources include the Encyclopedia Britannica, the Catholic Encylopedia, university pages, etc.