The first Sunday in October is World Communion Sunday and the day we participate in our denomination’s annual Peacemaking Offering. The last Sunday is Reformation Sunday, a day to recall the Protestant revolution of the late 15th and early 16th centuries. The final day of the month is Halloween, the evening before All Saints’ Day. Each of these days is a reminder of an indispensable element and a cause for celebration in our identity as Christians.

The first is that the church is a worldwide body at the center of whose calling is the work of peacemaking. We are part of a fellowship of more than a billion people who have been touched by the power of God’s love and healing and who in turn, by sheer grace, are able to offer that love and healing to others. There is a feeling of strength and joy in the awareness that we are part of a community so large; a feeling of excitement and humility that we are challenged to think and act within a perspective that stretches far beyond our provincial concerns; a feeling of gratitude that we can recognize and celebrate our interdependence as a reality that draws us out of ourselves and into one another as true brothers and sisters.

The second day, Reformation Sunday, reminds us that other men and women who were giants of intellect and courage and self-sacrifice prepared the way long ago for the privilege we have of understanding ourselves as part of the priesthood of all believers, that is, as people who can directly invite God’s Spirit into the intimacy of our individual and communal lives as we interpret God’s written word, the Bible, and God’s living Word, Jesus Christ, for ourselves. We are invited into the adventure of reading the Bible (sola scriptura!) and living out its words (sola fide!) without the interference of religious elitists who would seek to control our thinking. Or as Paul put it, “for freedom Christ has set us free.”

The third day, Halloween, was originally intended as a day of preparation for remembering the spirits of faithful Christians whose earthly journeys have come to an end, but who have bequeathed to us their examples of steadfastness and hope in Christ. We remember that we have been nurtured in our faith by others.

These three days in October are special gifts to celebrate. They remind us that God wills peace for all people, that others have struggled for our right to study and know that will, and that we walk in the footsteps of forebears who have kept the faith for our sake. Thank God that we find our identity in such a community!