Thank you, God, for all that you do for us which we
will never know about. Amen.
You’ve heard me quote part of an Elizabeth Barrett Browning poem before and it bears repeating. “Earth’s crammed with heaven, and every common bush afire with God; but only they who see take off their shoes, the rest sit round and pluck blackberries.” I carry the imagery and wisdom of that poem around with me because, indeed, fantastical things are happening all around us, earth is crammed with heaven, Creation is enchanted with the grandeur of God.
We
heard in today’s Collect – “Everlasting God, you have ordained and constituted
in a wonderful order the ministries of angels and mortals.” Today, September
29, is the Feast of St. Michael and All Angels, sometimes referred to as
Michaelmas. Though, technically, this day does not override the Sunday
readings, I’ve chosen to focus on it this nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost because
the ministry of angels is often misunderstood or overlooked, yet theirs is a
wonderful and sacred vocation to consider.
We
heard in the reading from Genesis that Jacob had a dream in which he saw a
ladder going from earth to heaven on which the angels of God were ascending and
descending. When he woke up, he realized that the bush of divine presence had
been burning around him, he just hadn’t noticed. Giving attention to angels is
a way of reminding ourselves that “surely, the Lord
is in this place.”
To
begin, what are angels? Thanks to pop culture and art, we’re probably conjuring
up images of human-looking figures in white robes playing a harp on a cloud. Or
maybe we’re thinking of a baby with wings. Neither of these images though are Biblical
or helpful. That idea about the cherubs, as we often call them, actually comes
from Italian art. The chubby, winged, and naked children that we are so
familiar with are called putti, which became popular in Renaissance art. They
are connected with the Roman god, Cupid, not the God of Israel. So, at least
for the rest of this sermon, get rid of that mental image of angels.
For
a lot of us, much of what we think about angels comes from either John Milton’s
Paradise Lost, which is great literature, but not theology, or from the
1990s television show Touched by an Angel, featuring Roma Downey and
Della Reese. If you missed it, in that show there were guardian angels who
helped people in need until they were revealed in the end in a “candid camera”
sort of moment. The depiction of angels as God’s clandestine emergency
responders might have made for entertaining television, but it’s not exactly
grounded in Scripture.
So,
what then can we say about angels? To be clear, this sermon is something like a
pack of dogs trying to describe humans – we’re simply on different levels of
being and reasoning, so hold this all loosely, for we are contemplating
realities that run deeper than our intellect. However, there are some truths
about angels given to us in Scripture that we can cling to.
The
first is what an angel is: a messenger. Now, this point is somewhat lost on us
today. I find it frustrating how many ways there are for me to receive a
message. You can send me a text message,
an email to either my personal, St. Luke’s, or Hood email address, you can mail
something to my house, hand me a note, leave a voicemail on my work or mobile, or
send me a direct message on WhatsApp, Facebook, or Instagram. We have so many
ways to receive a message that we often lose messages.
Well,
this wasn’t the case in the Biblical world. Today, sending a message costs us
almost nothing, but it used to be an extremely expensive and slow process. You had
to find a messenger that you could trust to actually deliver your message to
the intended recipient and not an enemy. And, depending on how far the message
had to go, it could take weeks to carry on a correspondence that we can take
care of in thirty seconds. Think about the story of Pheidippides, the folkloric
inventor of the marathon. This messenger was sent from Sparta to the city of
Marathon to request help fighting the Persians, and then to the battlefield to
announce the victory, and then collapsed dead after running something close to
175 miles in two days. So, in that context, when someone would go through the trouble
of sending a message – it was a big deal that required our full attention.
Angels
are tasked with delivering important and urgent messages to us. It could be a
word of comfort, inspiration, warning, judgment, or mercy. One theologian has described
God as being “lovingly loquacious.” In other words, God has a lot to say. Some
messages come through nature, some through the Holy Spirit speaking directly to
our heart and mind, and sometimes the message comes through an angel – someone who
comes to us with a message.
Gregory
the Great was the Pope around the year 600 and he said that angels denote a
function more than a nature. In other words, anyone and anything can be a
messenger of God. One 20th-century theologian said “God may speak to
us through Russian Communism, a flute concerto, a blossoming shrub, or a dead
dog. We do well to listen to him if he really does.” So, yes, of course, humans
might be used by God as heralds of the Gospel, but that doesn’t make us angelic
beings. Today, on Michaelmas, we’re talking about actual angels.
Sometimes
the message that God has for us cannot be carried by a human messenger because
a human simply isn’t up to the task. Think about the angel who delivered the
message to Mary that she would carry the Messiah in her womb – no human could
have come up with, understood, or conveyed that message in such a way that Mary
would respond with “Let it be with me according to your word.” To be sure, such
angelic announcements are rare, but when the message is as grand as “for unto
you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord”
only a heavenly being can bear the weight of such a proclamation. Just because
most of us will never receive such an angelic visitation does not mean that
Jacob, Zechariah, or Mary did not.
So
that’s what an angel is – a divine being, meaning they are not made up of
matter as we are, who delivers a message. Angels, therefore, are not something
we become. If, when someone dies, someone tries to comfort you by saying “God
needed another angel,” you have my permission and admonition to, in the name of
the Church, rebuke them. Not only is it wrong, it’s also mean to suggest that
God is capricious enough to cause someone grief just to add someone to the heavenly
payroll.
In
Scripture, four heavenly beings are given the title and rank of Archangel.
These four have special places among the hosts of heaven. First, there is Michael,
the namesake of this feast. Michael is the captain of the heavenly army. He is
something like what we would call a “general” – he is the leader of the battle
against the forces of evil. Next, there is Gabriel, the deliverer of extremely
important messages – he is the one who came to Mary and said “Greetings, favored
one.” Then there is Raphael; his name in Hebrew means “God heals,” and is a specially
appointed divine healer. And there is Uriel, whose name means “God is my light”
and delivers messages of wisdom, strength, and perseverance. What matters about
these Archangels isn’t so much the exact specifics of their identity – but rather
the one who sends them. Their appointment signals to us that God works against
evil, intends healing for us, and is our guide.
Two
other classes of heavenly beings are worth mentioning, though they aren’t
technically angels as their ministry is not that of a messenger: seraphim and
cherubim. Seraphim are some type of fiery serpents who around found near the
throne of God and sing praises to God. When we sing the Sanctus, the “holy,
holy, holy,” we are given the privilege and honor of joining our voices with
the song of heaven. And there are the cherubim, which, again, are not cute
little babies with harps. Cherubim are more like those really big guys in black
suits who accompany political leaders; they are God’s “enforcers.” Cherubim are
stationed at the entrance to Eden to protect it and they are those who carry
and support the throne of God. Of course, at this point some of this language is
metaphorical, as God does not have a physical throne in the way that the King
of England does, but the point is God has more pieces on the proverbial chess
board than we realize.
So,
you might wonder – why care about any of this? Isn’t this one step from
literally wondering how many of these supposed angels can dance on the head of
a pin? Hardly. The ministry of angels has several important things to say to us
and they ought to be an integral part of our faith.
The
first lesson is humility. Angels remind us that we, humans, are not at the
pinnacle of Creation. We like to think of ourselves as the cream of the crop,
the top of the pyramid. But we are not. There is so much more to Creation than
we will ever know. There are truths that the human mind will never discover.
There are realities that we do not have access to. All knowledge can’t be
contained in a textbook and not all truths can be proven. There is more to the
universe than we can measure or understand, and angels remind us to not get too
big for our britches.
Secondly,
angels help us to persevere in hope. Don’t give up and don’t get weary. It may
seem, from a human point of view, that we’re going to hell in a handbasket. It
might feel like evil, greed, and violence are stronger than love, mercy, and
generosity. Angels tell us that the struggle against injustice and oppression
is not up to us alone. Sure, God might use in that struggle, but the fate of
the world is not up to us. God has options, plans, and players that we are
ignorant of. So don’t give up and don’t get weary.
At
this point, some might wonder whether or not the idea of “guardian angels” is
Biblically accurate. To be honest, I really don’t know. There’s not much evidence
for it in Scripture, but I also trust that God is up to a lot more than we know
about. Just don’t get sentimental or obsessed about it.
Thirdly,
the ministry of angels tells us that we are never alone. We heard this idea from
the reading from James – which we’ve been reading through in September. James
tells us that community matters – when we are suffering or cheerful, we should
gather the community around us to pray and celebrate. There’s a great hymn that
notes that we are a part of a mystic sweet Communion, a fellowship divine. The
Church we belong to includes not only those in this Parish, but also all those
who have been joined to the Body of Christ across space and time. And then
there are the angels, archangels, cherubim, and seraphim. Belonging is
something that we all long for, and angels remind us that we are never alone
and we are always a part of something far bigger and more glorious than we can
begin to imagine.
Lastly,
angels remind us about the seeming quirkiness of God. For some reason that only
God can explain, God likes to use Creation to get stuff done. Instead of acting
unilaterally, God wants collaboration. God does not act as a dictator but welcomes
participation. So when there’s a message to deliver, God uses angels. Which
means that when God wants to share the message of forgiveness and grace, you
and I are conscripted into doing that work on God’s behalf. Just as God uses angels
for heavenly missions, we, too, are instruments in God’s purpose of love.
In
the reading from John, we heard Jesus say, “You will see the angels ascending
and descending upon the Son of Man.” No longer do they move up and down a
ladder as Jacob saw, but Jesus himself has become that bridge of connection
between heaven and earth. That’s why Jesus is sometimes called the “King of
Angels.” And as the King of Angels, Jesus is the champion over Sin and Death,
he is the deliverer of the Good News of grace, he is the healer making all
things well, and he is the light of the world guiding us in the way of love.
Today,
we celebrate and rejoice that earth is, indeed, crammed with heaven. Thanks be
to God!
