Worship - 2 November 2025

Summary of this week's theme

‘Why are we here?’ It’s one of those universal questions, simple to ask but difficult to answer.  An easy response (‘to live’) immediately leads to the harder one: how should we live?  George Herbert reminds us that even the most mundane acts can be made holy: ‘who sweeps a room, as for thy laws, makes that and the action fine.’ 

Yet still, we long for something more, sensing that we were made for more than routine.  These three days of Halloween, All Saints, and All Souls - invite us to face life and death honestly. They remind us that life is brief and precious, and that living well means living as the gospel teaches. 

In Luke’s ‘Sermon on the Plain,’ Jesus blesses the poor, the hungry, the sorrowful, and the persecuted.  Each blessing challenges our attachment to wealth, comfort, and reputation.  The corresponding woes warn of the emptiness of self-sufficiency and entitlement.  Simon Tugwell captures this paradox: ‘We must learn the task of weakness, of non-achievement, of coping with our own poverty and helplessness.’  That is part of what it means to live well.  All Saints and All Souls celebrate those who have shown us how - those who lived as open channels of divine love. 

A few years ago, after finishing the Coast to Coast walk, I watched the animated film Coco, inspired by Mexico’s Day of the Dead.  In it, the dead live on through the memory of the living.  It’s not inconsistent with Christian belief: remembering and telling the stories of those we love keeps them alive in our hearts.  That tradition of remembrance echoes our own All Saints and All Souls observances. 

And what of Halloween?  Despite its associations, it is simply the eve of All Hallows.  It confronts death, saying, ‘You will not have the last word.’  The skeletons, ghosts, and gallows humour remind us of a truth we often avoid: life is short.  Yet, as the Prayer Book says, ‘In the midst of life we are in death’ - and also, in the midst of death, we are in life.  The resurrection assures us that death cannot have the final say. 

So, why are we here?  We are here to be conduits of love - receiving, reflecting, and sharing the love of God.  On All Saints we honour those who modelled that love; on All Souls we remember those who shared it with us.  And through our remembering, in a way, we keep open that channel of love between this life and the next.