From The Pastor's Desk - November 2016
Do not worship any other god, for the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God. Be careful not to make a treaty with those who live in the land; for when they prostitute themselves to their gods and sacrifice to them, they will invite you and you will eat their sacrifices. -Exodus 34
November is a strange month. It comes from the Latin word, Novem, which means nine, even though it’s the eleventh month on the calendar.
It begins with a strange celebration we call Halloween, and ends with an anticipation of Christmas. In between we have All Saints Day, Thanksgiving and Black Friday. (Not the black Friday before Easter.) We also find out which football teams will probably go to the playoffs, get our first snow, finish raking autumn leaves and start going to church with more regularity now that sports leagues and cottages and other activities have ended.
A strange month.
Halloween, or All Hallows Eve, is supposed to be like Christmas Eve is to Christmas. All Saints’ Day is a day we faithfully look forward to where we celebrate the wonderful, faithful souls that have gone before us. But instead, it’s a weird kind of begging day where we try to frighten each other and have wild parties.
All Saints Day has been forgotten everywhere but the church. As if we should forget our parents and grandparents and others who have gone to glory before us. Just another day to recover from the sugar hangover (and other hangovers) and sort our candy.
Thanksgiving is a holiday started by our nation where we give thanks to God even though our country says we shouldn’t mix our patriotism with our faith and we remember how blessed we are compared with others . . . and, of course, we watch football.
Black Friday is becoming Black Thursday and is all about trying to see if we can break a record for showing excess in spending year after year as we buy more than we need of things we don’t need, and forget the people truly in need we just thought of the day before.
And we end the month by starting the Advent season as we celebrate Christmas, which hasn’t happened yet, all over the place, by buying gifts for each other instead of birthday gifts for Jesus on his birthday. Then when Christmas does come, we put the Christ child and his accompanying manger companions away in a cardboard box for another year.
A strange month indeed.
Many years ago a man named Tertullian asked, “What has Athens to do with Jerusalem?” We mix the legacy of Athens with its philosophies, military focus and excess desires, with the heritage of Jerusalem with Jesus and the church and concern for the least among us.
We mix our worlds together and can find ourselves following other gods without even realizing it. November gives us many special days and opportunities to turn holy days into holidays or holidays into holy days . . . and remember, our Lord is a jealous God.
A strange month, or a holy month??
Pastor Tom