Halloween 2025

 And so our beautiful October comes to a close.  

Today is Halloween, and I live in a house that will have no trick-or-treaters.  We have discovered a Roku channel that offers nothing but NYPD Blue, so we'll probably watch some more of that.  I used to watch the show in the 90's, and I forgot how compelling it is.  I stayed up later than I meant to last night as I hoped to see how a narrative arc about a serial killer would end, so I may go to bed early tonight.

In my adult life, I approach Halloween as the beginning of an important time that lasts three days.  I'm a theology geek, so I call it a triduum.  Halloween emerged from its pagan roots as a natural bridge to All Saints Day (November 1) and All Souls Day (Nov. 2). More on those holidays in the coming days.

This year, I'll spend Halloween writing a sermon.  This year, what scares me is the willingness of politicians to let SNAP benefits expire.  I can create an All Saints sermon that references the Biblical texts, our current political situation, and all the saints who have come before us.

I still have to teach, of course.  But the semester has revealed that my classes on MWF are nothing to fear or dread; no classes are, but I'm trying to use Halloween words today.  In Brit Lit, we'll cover Joyce's "The Dead," in a bit of serendipity.  In English 101, we'll sketch leaves and pinecones and acorns while we explore how sketching might impact our ability to describe things.

That class will probably be more openly enthusiastic than the Creative Writing class where I did the experiment yesterday.  Every semester, I know that each class will have a different dynamic, but each semester often surprises me in how that dynamic plays out. 

I will wear my candy corn earrings one last time.  Here's a picture that I took at the school's pumpkin patch a few weeks ago (look at that glorious blue sky!):

This morning, I'm thinking of past Halloweens:  in childhood, where I'd spend months planning my costume, the joy of all that candy.  I'm thinking of 2016, where Halloween was my first day as an administrator at a new job, and my first impression of people was the costume contest and the joy with which they approached the idea of a costume contest.  

I'm wishing I had time to bake, time for more contemplation.  Well, maybe next year when Halloween will be on a Saturday.  This year, I'll continue to enjoy these elements of my best life:  getting ready for my Sunday at the country church I love so much, fun classes to teach today, and cozy time in the evening as we cook together and then revisit quality TV from decades past, while I stitch a new quilt top for the well-worn quilt on our bed.

Spiritual Direction Book Launch

On Friday, October 24, I finished teaching at Spartanburg Methodist College and headed down to Columbia, SC.  I was intrigued by a book launch, and the stars aligned so that I could attend.  One of my grad school friends came with me; she and I are not only grad school friends, but also writers and creative people who have been fascinated by book launches.

That said, we weren't sure what to expect.  Melanie Dobson, the head of the Spiritual Direction Certificate program at Southern Seminary (LTSS), wrote the book, so it made sense that the book launch would be at Washington United Methodist Church downtown.  The event took place in the smaller chapel, a beautiful choice.

I knew very little about the book, but I knew I would buy it regardless.  I like to support writers generally, but I especially like to support writers I know.  I knew that my book purchase would also support All Good Books, an independent bookstore in 5 Points.  I was happy that they were there and set up early; we arrived early too, so we bought our books and settled in.

The book launch was great.  Melanie Dobson spoke a bit about how she approached both the book writing and spiritual direction.  Then we watched group spiritual direction happen.  Three members of her spiritual direction group were present and they came forward.  We watched a shorter version of what they do when they are together in their regular, private meetings.

There was an opening prayer, and then the directee spoke for five minutes.  There was a moment of silence to see what bubbled to the service.  Then each of the women spoke to the directee for three minutes each about what they thought God might be saying.  Then there was closing prayer.

Then came an interesting twist:  we did a bit of spiritual direction too.  We broke into smaller groups, 3-5 people who happened to be sitting near us.  One person volunteered to be the directee, and the rest of us gave insight.  It was slightly shorter, and slightly less personal, since we didn't know each other.  But it was deeply satisfying nonetheless.

Afterward, there was an actual meal in the fellowship hall.  I was expecting refreshments, but something more along the lines of cheese and crackers.  The meal was salad and soup and bread--but a much more extensive selection than I'm used to seeing:  4 soups, several breads, several crackers, and 3 types of salad greens with about 20 bowls of various salad toppings to choose from.  We also had dessert!  I regret that I took no pictures--it was really impressive.

The book signing was leisurely, which gave us time to meet others and to have more personalized attention from Melanie Dobson.  I did feel bad for her--it seemed like it might be exhausting, but I realize it could also be gratifying.

As the evening progressed, I found myself thinking about whether or not I wanted to do more with spiritual direction.  I earned the certificate and promptly moved on to being an MDiv student.  I'm just recording this whisper, because I want to remember it.

If ever I do decide to do more in the field, the book is an amazing resource, with lots of great ideas for how to do spiritual direction--it's the best resource I've seen on the subject.

Meditation for This Coming Sunday, All Saints Sunday

 The readings for Sunday, November 2, 2025:

First Reading: Daniel 7:1-3, 15-18

Psalm: Psalm 149

Second Reading: Ephesians 1:11-23

Gospel: Luke 6:20-31

This Sunday we celebrate All Saints Day. It's a strange time of year for us Lutherans. We celebrate Reformation Day, we celebrate Halloween, we celebrate All Saints Day. To celebrate All Saints Day, we have the Gospel reading about the actions of Jesus which most frightened and disgusted some of his contemporaries. Would his actions have left modern people similarly outraged?

Think about his actions and your current life: what would make you feel most threatened? Jesus healed the sick, and most of us would be OK with that, especially if we're the sick people. We tend not to worry too much about technique or qualifications, if we feel better.

Do we feel threatened by Jesus forgiving sins? Probably not. We've had two thousand years to get used to the idea, after all. But if one of our contemporaries started traveling around, telling people their sins are forgiven--well, that's a different matter. Even if they make these pronouncements in the name of Jesus, we might feel queasy.

The action of Jesus that really seems to send people of all sorts into orbits of anger is his habit of eating with the outcasts of society. Most of us are prone to that discomfort. If you don't believe me, take a shabbily dressed person to a nice restaurant. See what happens. Suggest that your church operate a soup kitchen where the destitute will eat lunch every day; suggest that lunch be served in the sanctuary. See what happens. And it's not just your fellow church members--your local government might also chime in about what can and cannot be done on church property.

Here's the Good News. Jesus saw the value in all of us. Jesus especially saw the value in the least of us. When you're feeling like a total loser, keep that in mind. If Jesus came to your community, you'd be the first one invited to the table.

That's the good news about All Saints Day and Reformation Day. We tend to forget that all the saints that came before us were flesh and blood humans (including Jesus). We think of people like Martin Luther as perfect people who had no faults who launched a revolution. In fact, you could make the argument that many revolutions are launched precisely because of people's faults: they're bullheaded, so they're not likely to make nice and be quiet and ignore injustice. They're hopelessly naive and idealistic, so they stick to their views of how people of faith should live--and they expect the rest of us to conform to their visions. They refuse to bow to authority because they answer to a higher power--and so, they translate the Bible into native languages, fund colleges, rescue people in danger, insist on soup kitchens, write poems, and build affordable housing.

The world changes (for the better and the worse) because of the visions of perfectly ordinary people--and because their faith moves them into actions that support that vision. If we're lucky, those people are working towards the same vision of the inclusive Kingdom that Jesus came to show us.

The Feast Day of Saint Simon and Saint Jude

Today we celebrate the lives of Saint Simon and Saint Jude--two of the disciples about whom we really don't know much.  

Jude was the disciple called Judas, but not Judas Iscariot, so some traditions shorten the name.  The Gospels of Matthew and Mark call him Thaddeus.  Once we thought he wrote the book of Jude in the New Testament, but now, scholars don't.  He is known as the patron saint of lost causes and hopeless situations--and hospital workers.

Simon isn't Simon Peter, but Simon the Zealot.  The Zealots were a subset of the Jewish people who were nationalist in the extreme.  Perhaps they are an offshoot of the Maccabees or maybe they were a more simple form of terrorist, rising up against the Romans for any variety of reasons.  He is the patron saint of curriers, woodcutters, and tanners.

We celebrate them together because tradition has it that they travelled together as missionaries.  Tradition tells us, but not many original sources.  Were they really martyred in Persia?  That's the most widespread tradition, but there are others that say Armenia, Britain, Egypt, and points in between.

When I contemplate the 12 original disciples, I'm struck by the wide variety of people called by Jesus.  I'm amazed at how Jesus could keep them a cohesive group--and when he didn't, it still worked anyway.  That gives me hope for today.

Recording of Reformation Sunday Sermon

It was a good Reformation Sunday at Faith Lutheran, in Bristol, TN.  I preached a sermon that was typical, in some ways, circling back to Luther.  But I took a different approach this year, my third Reformation Sunday with this congregation.  I urged us to compare ourselves to the older Luther, who spent the last part of his life translating the whole Bible into German, not to the younger Luther who nailed those 95 theses to the Wittenberg door.

You can view the sermon here on my YouTube channel.

You can read the sermon manuscript in this blog post on this theology blog.

My Sermon for Sunday, October 26, 2025, Reformation Sunday

October 26, 2025, Reformation Sunday

By Kristin Berkey-Abbott





John 8: 31-36




Typically, I tend to approach Reformation Sunday through a historical lens—and a very old history, at that. You probably do too—it’s an occupational hazard of being a Lutheran. We hear the word “reformation,” and we think of that day back in 1517 when Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses to the Wittenberg door.

Even when I try to think about more recent history, the examples I come up with are still a hundred years old, like the reformation that leads to modern day Pentecostals. That Reformation happened in LA, the Azusa Street Revivals that began in 1906.

Don’t get me wrong—it’s wonderful to know our history. But the danger is that we think that the time of Reformation is over. We think the Holy Spirit might be somewhere taking a long, well-deserved nap.

This problem of seeing Reformation as a historical phenomena compounds as we grow older, at least for most people I know. When we’re younger, many of us grow up hearing the stories of past generations and wondering where we’ll fit into that story—or how we’ll break out of the old stories. We dream of the mark we’ll make on the world: maybe it’s writing a great American novel or making a film that will capture our time in a way that others don’t. Maybe we’ll break a sports record. As we get older, most of us settled into lives more ordinary. If we’re lucky, we have successes, sure. But they’re likely not the ones that people will make into banners that will hang on church walls 500 years from now.

Even when we see possibilities of the God doing a new thing, like the election of a bishop for the national organization that we had this past summer, we may look closer to home and wonder why God doesn’t ever do a new thing closer to where we live. I know that the search committee of Faith spent a lot of time in the past year working with two synods and with Redeemer Lutheran over across the state line. For a time, that might have felt like a new way of being church was about to emerge, only to have it all end rather abruptly.

Here is where our historical lens can fail us, as we look at that distant church door in Wittenberg in 1517 and feel like we’re failures as we compare ourselves to a young Martin Luther. We might look at our own faith journey and wonder if there’s anything we feel as strongly about that we would say, “Here I stand. I can do no other.” These days, what kind of stand would we have to make to result in being taken before our newly elected bishop to make an accounting of ourselves? It’s tough to imagine.

But how would our stories about ourselves change if we compared ourselves not to young Luther, but to Luther in his later years? Not Luther, the transformer of the Church, but Luther, the translator of the Bible into German?

When Luther made his stand, he needed to lay low for awhile, which turned into 10 months hidden away in Wartberg Castle. He needed something to do—so he translated the New Testament into German. He went on to translate the whole Bible into German, a project that would take the rest of his life. We might say that’s how he spent his retirement years.

It's a project that he wouldn’t have had time to do, had his life not taken the wrenching path that it did when he nailed his theses to the door. Luther didn’t want to create his own religion. No, he wanted to improve the one he already had. If we could go back to 1516 and talk to him, he would not have had a vision of creating a name for himself as one of the most influential thinkers of the Christian church. Like many of us, he was looking for ways to get through the day with his integrity intact. In 1515, he was made an administrator, in charge of overseeing eleven monasteries in his province—no time for Biblical translation there.

The 95 Theses are very different than the kind of theological writing that he also completed while sequestered in Wartberg Castle. The 95 Theses, published when Luther was still a very busy man, are like underdeveloped wisps of thoughts. I hear the word Theses, and I think of something a graduate student would produce. That’s not what Luther created in 1517.

In the 1520’s, on the other hand, Luther produced his best writing—writing that he had time to create because his life had taken an unexpected turn, because he faced the change and made the best of it.

So, if we sit here on this Reformation Sunday, wondering where the Holy Spirit is in our own lives, rest assured that God isn’t finished with any of us yet. If we sit here on this Reformation Sunday feeling bad because we haven’t done the important work we were put on earth to do, rest assured that there is time. Is there enough time? That depends on the work and the larger world.

But here is good news: the work that God gives us to do is not ours alone. We don’t have to finish it. We are here in the church that Luther built—but although he gets the credit, he was not the only builder. In fact, if others hadn’t published his 95 Theses and distributed them beyond the church door, we might be sitting in a very different kind of church.

In my sermon last week, I went off script. You may or may not remember that I talked about the dreams and visions that God has printed in our hearts—not our collective heart, but in our individual hearts. I’ve come back to that idea through the following week as I’ve thought about Reformation Sunday. I’ve thought of each one of you as I’ve prayed, and rather than feeling afraid, I’ve felt intrigued and curious about what God might be doing in our individual and collective lives.

This coming week, I’ll not only pray for us as individuals, but for Faith Evangelical Lutheran, as a congregation. I believe that God has a vision for us as a bigger group too, and I continue to pray for clear discernment of that mission for us all.

For those of us lucky to live long enough, we know that our vision for our future will change. What we wanted when we were young—those hopes and dreams might change as we age, particularly if those hopes and dreams of our youth required the body of our youth. We know change is scary. During the crises that create the opportunity for reformation, God promises to be with us.

It’s easy to focus on shattered dreams as the heartbreak that they are. But shattered dreams can make way for something better. Realizing that we’re no longer on the path we once assumed we were on can make way for us to find a more satisfying path.

So, if on this Reformation Day you’re comparing yourself to the Martin Luther who nailed those theses to the church door, comparing yourself and coming up short, take heart. If you’re looking at pictures of Faith Lutheran in past years and feeling sad about our current place in the world, take heart. Perhaps what will emerge will be the modern equivalent of the translation of the Bible into German.

What is that modern equivalent? Churches have been asking this question for decades. I am not sure, but I do know this: the translation of the Bible into a language that all could understand is one of Luther’s most significant contributions to moving the world from a medieval viewpoint to a more modern one. In fact, this project of Luther’s last years may have transformed the world in a much more profound way than the nailing of the theses on the Wittenberg door.

So, in this time of late autumn, let us remember the fullness of our heritage, both as ELCA Lutherans and members of Faith Lutheran, here in the far northeast corner of Tennessee. Let us remember that although the signs may point towards winter, the Holy Spirit is not done with us. I say again, God has imprinted in all of our individual hearts and in our collective heart as Church hopes and dreams that we are uniquely equipped to bring to fruition. Let us continue to discern the full bounty of God’s hopes and dreams and let us trust that God will help and guide us to that harvest.

Forbidden Fruit

Much of my teaching this week revolved around apples, which I wrote about in this blog post.  These are the Pink Lady variety: 

We also discussed apples in the Genesis story.  Of course, apples aren't in the Genesis story; it's just forbidden fruit.  So I also got to talk about Milton and "Paradise Lost."

It's interesting to think about how many of our ideas that we assume are Biblical are actually from British Literature.  And these days, I'm thinking about how many of our Biblical metaphors are from agricultural times that not many people understand these days.  

The bushel as a unit of measurement is probably not in the Bible, but I had my students lift the bushel box of apples, just so they would have a sense of how much it weighed.