October turns over to November with two significant days that often get buried under a pile of Halloween candy. The 31st is Reformation Day, which remembers Martin Luther nailing 95 theses on the Wittenberg church door protesting the shortcomings he saw in the church of his day. This action is considered the symbolic catalyst for the Protestant Reformation, a movement that dramatically transformed not just the Christian church, but all of Western Civilization.

Then today is All Saints Day. If you want to get into the weeds concerning a church holiday (and I always do), some celebrate All Saints Day as a memory of all the faithful who have gone before us. Others celebrate solely the canonized saints and then remember the rest on All Souls Day the next day. Because of my priesthood-of-all-believers-confessing Baptist roots, I tend towards remembering everyone on the same day. The way I see it, the lessons I learn from St. Francis of Assisi and my Grandma are equally profound and important.

Reformation Day and All Saints Day hold together our past, present, and future. The animating force behind the Reformation is that the church should always be moving forward to God’s calling of us. Since we are all flawed individuals, the Christian institutions are always stumbling in the vocation of loving God and neighbor. Thus we always need to take sober stock of the church’s actions and reform for a more Christlike tomorrow. All Saints celebrates the hope, courage, conviction, and failures of past Christians who can illuminate that way forward.

I make up TV shows in my head all the time. I had this idea for one called God Cops. It would be a normal police procedural, but the crimes investigated were violations of the Ten Commandments.

Just imagine the “Good Cop, Bad Cop” interrogation of a man who allegedly did some work on the Sabbath. Or the precinct’s frustration when someone who used God’s name in vain is back on the street because the judge rules that commandment is more about misrepresenting God than an exclamation. Or a cool, aviator glasses-wearing, mustache-sporting detective sliding across the hood of the car to take down a perp looking covetously at his neighbor’s cow all while a funky guitar riff is punctuated by a blast of horns.

It would have been glorious and would have made so, so many people angry. The inspiration behind this satiric ridiculousness was that people often seem really eager to police religious adherence. It is as if their whole conception at the root of following God is a notion of crime and punishment. You obey the commandments so the Almighty doesn’t throw the book at you and there are scores of people who believe they are deputized to carry that out.

Jonah is a children’s Bible story staple because of its big fish. Someone decided long ago that if an animal is in a tale then it must be a great story to tell to kids. This is a terrible idea and Noah’s Ark is at the top of the list why. But Jonah has a large sea creature and he learns a lesson so we make that exclusive content of children’s church and don’t really pay it any heed as adults.

That’s a mistake because Jonah is a fascinating little story with a nasty little protagonist who learns a lesson yet not the lesson and a God who is filled to the brim with mercy.

When I was told this story in church as a kid, it was said that Jonah ran because he was scared. He didn’t want to go to Nineveh because he was afraid to deliver the message. This isn’t true; at least not how it was framed to me. Jonah says so himself. He ran because he was afraid that God would forgive the people of Nineveh and Jonah did not want to see that happen. This prophet would rather disobey God—risking his life and the life of some unwitting sailors at sea—than see people he considered his enemies receive grace and restoration.

This is a story we should read regularly as adults.

One of my favorite pictures ever of our two boys was taken in the final month before I moved to Tennessee. The two of them are dancing in the sprinkler in my parents’ yard. The sun beams down on them. And I know that it sounds cheesy, but it looked like every children’s Bible illustration of the Holy Spirit shining down. But instead of a just-baptized Jesus and a dove it was our 6 year old and 3 year old joyfully frolicking in the grass. Though that was not going to save the world, it still looks like God is saying, “This is good. With them I am well pleased.”

Even four years later, that picture never ceases to make me smile. There is something so joyous and pure and good about it. It captures a memory on to which I try to hold as much as I can. It’s one of those moments that reminds me why EA and I do this parent thing even though it often drives us up the wall these days.

Many years ago, Paul wrote that our love must be sincere and we must hate what is evil. But he had a third piece of instruction that feels like the engine that drives the other two: hold fast to the good. For us to have a love that is authentic and the strength to push back on the injustice that inflicts wounds on all of us, we need to cling to whatever good we find in the world.

Tonight felt a little bit like the sun peaking through the clouds after a fearsome storm. Things will still not be normal for quite some time. The effects of the storm are ever present. To be honest, I don’t even know for sure if the storm has passed or we have just caught a break. I just know that right now there seems to be some daylight.

The last time that we met as a youth group was over five months ago. We filled the gaps where we could. We rode Zoom to the end of the school year. We made front porch visits in the summer. But like so much else in this year gone sideways, it was not the same. And today was still not the same. We met outside scattered around the church’s campus. We wore masks and kept our distance.

But we were together and, in the midst of chaos and the tumult of this year, that felt like a victory.

It also felt like a victory to create something new. Our youth and children’s ministries teamed up to put together a drive-in worship service for families. Beneath the late August sun, we sang and ran and danced and reminded those dear to us that we love them and God does too. It was gratifying to hatch this scheme with a great group of people, have no idea if anyone would show up, and then watch the parking lot fill with cars. That too felt like daylight.

Matthew 15:21-28 goes a little something like this:

Canaanite woman asks Jesus to heal her daughter. Jesus ignores her. Canaanite woman persists. Jesus implies Canaanite woman is a dog. Canaanite woman points out that even dogs get scraps. Jesus is impressed with the Canaanite woman’s response and heals her daughter.

Pardon?

This is the gospel passage for the Lectionary today. People have to actually preach on it. It’s a crazy passage because on the surface it undermines one of the most fundamental things that Christians have long believed about Jesus: that he was the compassionate, sinless human embodiment of God. Yet in this passage, he coldly shoots down the requests of a mother with a sick child; all because she was not one of his people.

²⁵ But she came and knelt before him, saying, “Lord, help me.” ²⁶ He answered, “It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.”

That isn’t great! It’s disconcerting and troubling. It seemingly runs against a lot of what Jesus says/does when he encounters Gentiles in other passages. It seems to run counter Jesus preaching that we love our enemies. The problems are only amplified as we are presently having important cultural conversations about how certain people groups are discriminated against.