Growing up on the more rural end of things, my siblings and I would have to go into town for the trick-or-treating festivities, or to participate in the parade in hopes of winning cash and/or candy prizes to satisfy our gadget or rotting-our-teeth craving. Except, what I remember more now is being at my babysitter’s house, when I believe I reached the whole too “cool” stage to go trick-or-treating anymore. Instead, I would help hand out candy to the complete strangers coming to her house.
There is something to be said for extending just the slightest form of hospitality, even for the briefest of moments. Yes, it’s been going on for quite a while, so maybe we shouldn’t be that impressed, but there is something to be said about even a little bit of hospitality, a little bit of kindness, a little bit of…community.
One aspect we often take for granted with this whole trick (or trunk!)-or-treating business is giving children the opportunity to express themselves in a unique way that they may not otherwise. Granted, the costumes can get rather excessive/expensive for the adults making the purchase, or putting in the time to make them (more power to all of you who do such creative/time-consuming things), but for many young people who are ridiculed for how they are in terms of personality and social interaction, Halloween provides an outlet for the “different” to be “cool.” Not to mention, for many people of all ages, it’s not always easy to walk up to a place you’ve never been, to people you don’t know. It makes many anxious and completely un-easy in their hearts, and for that one moment: that little bit of hospitality, that little bit of kindness, that little bit of community can be quite transformational for that young child of God.
Perhaps this fall holiday should remind us just how far-reaching this God truly is every day of the year. Yes, God can be in your home, being right beside you as you open the door: giving you the courage to be convinced for another year that it is worth opening an entrance to your house and opening the door to your heart as well. God is, also, fully capable of being with the child, who may be going through the toughest time at school, and right now, at this point in their life, Halloween is their favorite holiday: so that they can be more like themselves for one night. God can, also, be at the hospital with the nurse who wishes she could be out there with her child trick-or-treating, but can’t. God can be the encourager, the weeper, the strength, the reformer, and everything in between, all at once in infinite places.
Granted, the costumes may not always make sense to us, but we also cannot wait to open our doors to our churches, our homes, our own hearts, until what lies on the other side makes complete sense. That’s not how compassion works. Perhaps the only way for it to even make a little more sense to us is by opening the door to let them in anyway. And even if it still doesn’t, we offer that little bit of hospitality, that little bit of kindness, that little bit of community, because the Holy Spirit is churning within us far too much to do anything less, whether it be Halloween, a Sunday morning, or any day of this life. Because every day is a new opportunity to experience God in infinite ways in in infinite places. Amen (so let it be, oh God)!
In Christ,
Pastor Brad