Sermon Illustrations

CHASING GHOSTS

By PATRICIA BUDD KEPLER, Editor-at-Large 

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As I write this, it is October, the orange-and-black month of pumpkins and witches and, in my part of the country, the turning of leaves, beautiful autumn days and the awareness of the coming of winter. By the time you read this, Halloween may have come and gone, but today it is on my mind. When I was a child, Hallowe’en was one of my favorite holidays. There was something wonderful about dressing up in a costume and daring to mix in the world as someone I was never going to be —- on the outside, anyway.

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I could be a gypsy, wild and mysterious; I could be a football player, tough, fearless and protected by all that gear (which I could hardly walk in); I could be a drum majorette, strutting my stuff; or I could be a flower; or a fairy; or a witch; or—.

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On that one day, I didn’t need to be “Goody Two-Shoes,’’ feminine, or limited to my own talents. Hallowe’en was a time to be what one wanted, to imitate what one feared, or even to take on the characteristics of what one abhorred. It was a time for chasing dreams and fears. It was even a time for toying with death, skeletons in the window instead of the closet; a time of defying the fates, witches riding on brooms instead of sweeping with them; a time of exorcising ghosts, getting them on the outside instead of harboring them in haunted souls.

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Hallowe’en was once the celebration of the Celtic New Year. They used the occasion to usher out of town the ghosts of the dead. They made offerings to the gods so that the short days and long nights would not turn into an absence of light or warmth be swallowed into the coldness of winter. It was a time when priests went trick or treating to keep themselves alive and give the  treats to those who had none.

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Those seem like good things to do on the eve of a new year. Everyone needs to purge some ghosts from their lives, to lay
up some store for the new year and to share their treats with those who have none. Everyone needs to beseech their God for light and warmth. And as Christians, we can celebrate without the sacrifices the pagan people and the early Hebrews believed Divinity required.

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We need a time for facing down fear, for calling forth demons, for taking on death, for letting our shadowy side out. It is interesting that Reformation Sunday is always the Sunday next to Hallowe’en, These activities are essential to reformation, the process of making things new. In Christ, we are baptized into new life. We are responsible for knowing ourselves and expressing rather than repressing our humanity.

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There is something healthy about a fanciful holiday that allows us to cavort with the hidden demons in life, to call 'them forth, to exorcise them. These demons have power only as long as they are trapped in the recesses of our minds and relationships. As we name them, Christ can sweep them out of our psyches and systems and fill us with his mind.

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A hallowed night in which we can playfully address the angry and repressed spirits in ourselves can be freeing. Accepting even our pagan side and ancestry is important for true self-love. Accepting our God’s connectedness to the ancient gods of long ago can lead us to understand the depth and breadth of the God about whom we sing, "O God, the Rock of Ages/ who ever more hast been.”

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Christianity emerged out of the faith of the Jews and Gentiles. It was a marriage of Hebrew and pagan religions. Those
Gentile forebears who became Christians did not all get circumcised, though they made some radical changes when they
became Christians. There must have been something worthy in them, some glimmer of the One God, some response
ability, something to offer. 

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We can no more return to their early gods than to their early society. There is no danger for us to acknowledge their
contribution to our lives. Along with the time-bound and primitive notion of divinity they had, there must have been some
connection to the God of Ages.

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Hallowe’en is a pagan festival. It is the eve of a Roman Catholic celebration of the saints. And it is remarkably close to the
Reformation. It is still one of my favorite holidays. It reminds me of my roots. 

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-In the Presbyterian Outlook