Sermon. St Michael, Angels, and Us

 

Sermon. St Michael and All Angels, Little Ilford. 27.09.20

 

Feast of St Michael and All Angels (transferred).

·        Genesis 28.10-17

·        John 1.47-51

 

Anknüpfungspunkt.

An – knüp – fungs – punkt.

Anknüpfungspunkt.

 

Normally, you’ll have guessed, I would be saying: “Repeat after me”. But we are not supposed to raise our voices unnecessarily. So you’re spared.  

Still, aware that we have not had a linguistic detail in a sermon for a little while, today I bring you:

Anknüpfungspunkt.

 

Anknüpfungspunkt is the German for “point of contact”. “Contact point”. The background here is that over very many years Christian thinkers have been debating what kind of point of contact we human beings have with Gd. Is our point of contact with Gd something natural, or is it something Gd Gdself must bring about? That may sound like a an overcomplicated question (at best), but theologians have seen that quite a lot follows on from how you answer that question - about the whole business of relating to Gd. And, because of lot of those theologians have been German, the debate was often in German, and so the German word for “point of contact” has stuck. In German. Anknüpfungspunkt.

 

Today I want us to reflect on Anknüpfungspunkt in a different way.

 

I want to ask what kind of Anknüpfungspunkt – what kind of point of contact – we as a particular Christian community – a worshipping community - might have with people around us. Do we have anything in common – in common, that is, if we ever want to try to talk about the things of Gd?

 

Here’s an idea. We do have an Anknüpfungspunkt, a point of contact, with those around us, and that point of contact is…

 

our very own St Michael, whose Feast we mark today. Or rather, since we are “St Michael and All Angels” the point of contact is with all angels, among them the Archangel Michael.

 

I say this because it has been suggested that angels have scarcely been more popular than they are in our society, now. If we start talking about angels to those around us, it is not too unlikely they will be receptive. There are different layers to this.

 

·        First, there are more Christians around us in the UK than is sometimes suggested.

·        Second, there are many more who are “residual Christians” (they don’t call themselves “Christian” but they may tend to “think Christian”).

·        Third, among those of other world faiths, including those represented in our locality, many also believe in angels, or angelic or heavenly beings of some kind.

·        And fourth, think of all those people who say: “I’m spiritual but not religious”, or, more simply: “I don’t know what I believe”. Among them are many people who believe in angels, or who are open to belief in angels.

 

The last survey I could find (from 2016) showed that a third of Britons believe not only in angels, but specifically in guardian angels.[1] That may not sound like a huge number, but think it through: it suggests at least every third person you meet may have some kind of sense of angels. That is not nothing.

 

What do people believe in, when they believe in angels? Are they just fond of and open to suggestion from ABBA? Or Robbie Williams? Or whoever it would be these days (it won’t surprise you that I don’t know)? I think it’s a little more than that.

 

It seems when people believe in angels, they believe in mostly-hidden beings, who are there to support them in some of these ways:

·        they will keep them away from danger;

·        they will bring them help;

·        they will run their angelic fingers through their hair;

·        they will wipe away tears;

·        they are there for them;

·        they think the world of them.

 

Lovely. But are we not compelled to ask: is that the biblical view of angels?

 

It is not hard to show that it is not.

 

We know – but for completeness’s sake I will repeat – that “angels” in the Bible are simply “messengers”. We need context to see if they are heavenly or human or other creaturely messengers. But, much more important than that, let us remember the two most important roles of angels in the biblical account, more important than the bringing of comfort to worried people.

 

Firstly, angels exist to praise Gd.

 

To worship Gd constantly, joyfully, beautifully, unhesitatingly. From Psalm 103 [vv21-22a]:

Bless the LORD, you angels of his;

You mighty ones, who do perform his word;

Listening for the voice of his word.

Bless the LORD, all his hosts…

And, if we can think of not only the heavenly hosts but the cherubim and seraphim as kinds of angels (as we may), then let us note that it is the seraphim who sing the heavenly song, into which we are drawn [Isa 6.3; cf. Rev 4.8]:

Holy, holy, holy! Lord Gd of hosts!

Heaven and earth are full of your glory!

 And again from the Psalms [148.1]:

            Hallelu Yah!

            Praise the LORD from the heavens!

            Praise him in the heights!

            Praise him, all you his angels!

            Praise him, all his hosts!

We can think also of the angels who came to the shepherds after Jesus’s birth:

            Glory to God in the highest! [Luke 2.14a];

and it continues: from the Letter to the Hebrews [Heb 1.6b]:

Let all Gd’s angels worship him.

 

Secondly, in the Bible’s way of seeing things, angels, more than they are blond-haired beauties, are efficient and effective warriors.

 

• They bringing a plague upon Israel (2 Samuel 24:16–17);
• they smite the leaders of the Assyrian army (2 Chronicles 32:21);
• they patrol the earth as God’s representatives (Zechariah 1:10–11);
• they strike King Herod dead because he did not give God glory (Acts 12:23
• They carry out war against negative forces (Daniel 10:13; Revelation 12:7–8).
• they pour out bowls of God’s wrath on the earth (Revelation 16:1);

That’s quite a military career!

 

So really angels are messenger-soldiers/soldier messengers. And, when they are messengers, their message is not one of vague comfort. No angel in the Bible ever says: “There, there” or “You’re doing really well.” No. 

Their message is concrete, new, shocking, and typically scary. “You’re going to have a baby” (to pick the obvious example) may be good, excellent news, but it’s a promise of risk and change. Which is why angels often begin: “Do not be afraid!” Because, in the first place, we are afraid [Dan 10.12, 19; Matt 28.5; Luke 1.13, 30; 2.10; Acts 27.24].

 

So do we have, in angels, an Anknüpfungpunkt, a point of connection, with those around us? It turns out we may well not.

·        On the one hand, for some, angels are cuddly comforters who smooth our way in life.

·        On the other hand, for those of us formed by the biblical and Christian tradition, angels are fierce warriors, whom we meet when they bring us news which disturbs all our plans.

Where do we go from here?

 

Well, I will suggest that there is something about the more general cultural idea of angels that is right. Both wider society and our own Christian framing of things insist that angels are around; they are here; they are among us. 

And there is something in today’s texts which stresses that angels are around. It’s something easy to miss. Angels appear in a dream to Jacob in the First Reading, and are promised to Nathanael by Jesus in the Gospel. But notice the direction of travel:

            … the angels of Gd were ascending and descending…

            … you will see heaven opened

and the angels of Gd ascending and descending…

You see? The angels ascend first, and only then descend. So the angels are with us all the time. They worship Gd directly in heaven, sure, but their task is here on earth. They start with us. Here with us. Angels are around. And they are around, because at heart they are here to help us.

 

We can say that

angels are fearful,

but they tell us not to be afraid;

angels bring a message which disturbs us,

but they disturb in order to comfort.

They set us on an adventure which is the making of us,

which will make us who we truly are.

 

I don’t know if any of us will in real life get to say such things as these to those around us who are “spiritual but not religious” or who “don’t know what they believe”. We may; we may not.

 

But in truth we may be the ones who most need to hear about angels, who need to be clear who angels are and who they are not.

Angels are fearful,

but they tell us not to be afraid;

angels bring a message which disturbs us,

but they disturb in order to comfort.

They set us on an adventure which is the making of us,

which will make us who we truly are.

.

I wish you a blessed Feast.

 

As for whether I wish you your own encounter with angels,

well, I’ll take a step back,

and invite you to consider if you yourself want it,

if you want that particular, particularly challenging point of contact,

that particularly revolutionary Anknüpfungspunkt.

 

My hope us that some of us, some of the time, will.

Amen.   

---

[1] https://www.biblesociety.org.uk/latest/news/a-third-of-all-brits-believe-in-guardian-angels/

On Angels; On Fear

Sermon. St Michael and All Angels, Little Ilford. 24 December.

Midnight Mass. 

Luke 2.1-14

I believe in angels. 

I am trying to catch the eye of the choir. Because you are all angels, of course. But also to see if you are tempted to launch into song… “I believe in angels. Something good in everyone I meet.” An Abba classic. One you are all evidently too young to remember. Abba sang of angels many, many moons ago. Even Robbie Williams’ ‘“loving angels instead” is old hat. But what has not gone away is an interest in angels. The latest I heard was Saturday. I caught the very end of Any Questions? on BBC Radio Four. Evidently the final question had been something like: “Do you believe in angels?” And the panel seemed to be deeply divided. There was even one panelist who said although he was a Christian, he did not believe in angels, except when his three-year-old daughter asked him. Make of that what you will. 

It works the other way round as well. Make of this what you will: there are plenty of people who are not Christian, and not religious, and who do believe in angels. A survey in 2016 (quite recent) suggested that about 1 in 4 of the general population definitely believed in angels. And only 2 in 5 definitely disbelieved. Evidently, plenty of people keep an open mind. 

When you press people (frankly, I am guessing inside the Church as much as outside) what angels are like, a pretty constant picture emerges. Angels are beautiful. Either female or with feminine traits. Tender. Good singers. Angels are on your side; they are there for you. In particular, they are there to comfort you in distress and reassure you in doubt. They affirm you; they sustain you on the path you are on; their greatest concern is your self-esteem, if not your success. 

You may guess from the way I am describing things that this is not, quite, the biblical approach to angels. In the Bible, angels are fighters. They come to fight on Israel’s side, and guard their camp. Angels bar the way to people in the wrong. And angels announce news, news which is hard, challenging, shocking. 

Think of the three visitors who come to Abraham and announce that the 90-year-old Sarah is to become pregnant (no laughing matter, you may remember). And think supremely of the story we heard all that long time ago, on the Fourth Sunday of Advent [the morning of the same day], of how the angel Gabriel declares to Mary that she will bear a child - not of her husband - the one who is to give himself for the sake of the world. In short, if the most common thing that angels say is “Do not be afraid” (and it is) we might think that that is because, without such words of reassurance, when we met an angel, a true angel, an angel of the living Gd, we would be afraid, very afraid. Even “sore afraid”. 

“Do not be afraid.” “Fear not.” This the angels say to the shepherds. This Gd says often when speaking to biblical characters. They do say that the heavenly encouragement not to fear comes over 100 times in the Bible. I confess: I haven’t counted. But I am aware that they come so often that it’s easy to let the words wash over me, to barely notice them. Which is a shame. 

“Do not be afraid.” “Fear not.” We can imagine why we might be afraid, on meeting an angel. It is not the kind of fear we would feel when someone has a gun to our back. Or, for that matter, before a job interview, difficult exam, or in court, or such like. It is fear that springs from awe. 

Awe, wonder, amazement, bewilderment. It is hard finding the words, especially these days, These days, this kind of conversation is perfectly natural: 

“I’ve brought you a cup of tea.” 

“Awesome.” 

Here, and typically, “awesome” just means: “that’s good, you are kind, thank you; I welcome or approve of what you’ve done”. But “awe” means so much more than that. It does mean a kind of fear, in the sense that your body reacts as if to something fearful. Pulse racing, perspiration forming, adrenaline flowing. That particular kind of utter attentiveness that comes with being ready for fight or flight. In fact, if you experience real awe, one thing you will not do is say a cheery “awesome”. You are much more likely to be speechless. 

“Do not be afraid.” “Fear not.” This the angels say to the shepherds and this Gd often says when speaking to biblical characters. I do think it is natural to think that this means the angels say: “it is right and natural for you to feel awe and wonder, but there is no need for that to lead on to a fear which will hold you back”. But, having said that, I confess that we don’t have lengthy descriptions of fearsome angels to help us imagine an “awesome” scene. So, at least some of the time, something other than overwhelming awe might be the real issue. At least at times, the call of the angels, not to be afraid, might not so much be about the moment itself, but about the rest of our lives. 

What do I mean? I mean the angel might be saying this: 

“I am here to speak to you - just you - on Gd’s behalf. So this is the time for you to stand outside of your normal way of doing things. No, really. Now is not the time for you to operate on autopilot, for you to be driven by internal habit or external custom. Stop. Be still. Be ready to be present in a different way. Standing as you are in very Gd’s presence and attending to Gd’s very messenger, can you not now see how your normal way of operating in the world is… driven by fear? Not big fears, I grant you. You don’t live from minute to minute terrified. That would be exhausting. But, still, there are so many lesser fears that dominate things for you. ‘Will I get this right?… Will so-and-so approve?… Can I afford?… What if the x-ray shows up something?… Will the family actually get on this Christmas?’ 

All kinds of questions, usually around your comfort (you’re semi-conscious of those), or your status (you’re less conscious of those, as it is more frightening to look at them). Little, persistent, life-directing fears. “And in the name of Gd”, says the angel, “I tell you to let them all go. Just let them fall from you. Attend not to them, but to Gd, and Gd’s will for you. Do not be afraid. Fear not.” 

Of course, “do not be afraid” is never all that the angels say. (That might be just a little bit too like the old sign in the pond. You know the one? It said only, "It is forbidden to throw stones at this sign".) No, the angels today go on to share news, to help the shepherds see more of reality, and to command them to get going (though I admit the command is pretty indirect on this occasion: “You will find…”). And then shepherds are caught up with the angels in the glorious and beautiful and heavenly praise of Gd.

“Do not be afraid.” “Fear not.” Brothers and sisters, I am not going to labour the point. We need to get back to our own angelic singing, and, yes, we need to get on with our own Christmasses. You will realise that I have been suggesting that we are all called to be like the shepherds in one way or another. 

• That we enjoy such experiences of awe that we have. 
• That we are ever more aware of the little fears that can direct our lives if we let them. 
• That we are open to news of Gd and news from Gd. 
• That we are keen to act, to get going, when reality dawns. 
• That we are always drawn back to praise. 

At heart, simply, amid all the busyness of Christmas and all the emptiness which can follow, that we hear in the concrete ways we need to hear it: “Do not be afraid. Fear not.”