All Angels Day Sermon

Well…angels…We've got angels. Holy Smokes – based on the number of speckly bumper stickers that state “I see angels”, only heaven itself has more angels than the gold coast.  There are angels of the month, birthstone angels, dashboard charms that say, "Never drive faster than your guardian angel can fly." Bobble head angels, gardening angels, Mother's Day angels, well…you get the picture.

Its those little fat blonde babies with wings frolicking on every possible item that get me...chubby cherubs, swathed in white silk robes that appear on wallpaper, tv shows and movies…heavens, Tammy and I even saw an ad on TV for a guardian angel here on the conference "find out how to meet your guardian angel..."

But…if we relied on the mass sources to identify what angels were; well let’s just say John Travolta probably was not the most accurate artistic representation of what the angel Michael would have gotten up to…

The Hebrew Scriptures (that is, the Old Testament) use the terms מלאך אלהים (mal'akh Elohim; messenger of God), מלאך יהוה (mal'akh Adonai; messenger of the Lord), בני אלהים (b'nai Elohim; sons of God) and הקודשים (ha-qodeshim; the holy ones) to refer to beings traditionally interpreted as angels.  Daniel is the first biblical figure to refer to individual angels by name – specifically, Michael. The Hebrew for Michael is “who is like God” – but in the Talmudic tradition, you can understand that to be a question, not a statement – “who is like God?” (The Talmud being the central text of mainstream Judaism), – the implication being that no one is like God.  From the very start, we can understand that while the writers of the Hebrew Scriptures consider these beings to be otherly or holy, they were not God-like; and it would be foolish of us to think otherwise.  Here at the start, it is really important to state that there is no evidence of the Hebrews ever ‘worshipping’ angels, merely identifying them as messengers or warriors of God.  [This is important, because the postmodern view  is that Angels could be beings which exist outside of the paradigm of a deity, which is entirely unhistorical and really the stuff of science fiction...]

Because Messengers and Warriors is how they were most often depicted.  Etymologically, our English word “Angel” is based on the Greek “Angelos” or “messenger”, although in art and writing, angels; including Michael, are most often depicted as warriors.  In Daniel’s vision, the archangel Michael is identified as the protector of Israel, now while this has inspired a great deal of warrior-like imagery, it was messengers and protectors in a different sense that seem to be described in gospels, surrounding Christ:  They announced Christ’s incarnation in the world to the Mary and Joseph, and his birth to the shepherds; they are present and aid Christ in his 40 days in the wilderness, they strengthened him in his time of agony and are depicted as being present at his resurrection.

Historically, the view on Angels changed quite a bit in the first few centuries of Christianity, but if you are interested in the history of their perceived nature or the early and middle centuries, I direct you to Wikipedia or the online catholic encyclopedia – newadvent.org; both sites have good and accurate references to information about the biblical history of angels, and the study of them.  What I think most pertinent for us to consider on this All-Angels Day is what role they played and how we should see their presence as a reminder to us of our role and place in the world – because they certainly had theirs…

Now truthfully, the Hebrews had a different understanding of the world to us; and so did the Greeks and Romans, so naturally, the way they understood Angels and the way angels are depicted is probably different to how we should depict them in this day and age; so I’m not particularly partial to some of the militant imagery that is conjured; in fact, this is probably really unhelpful.  Michael and the angels definitely are understood to have thrown Satan from the heavens – but perhaps this isn’t an actual recollection of events – remember, Revelations came about because of god-inspired dreams.  Now I don’t know about you, but my dreams can be a bit whacky; an out of the ordinary way for my sub-conscience to reveal something to me…

Now Revelations has a bit of a bad rap – it has been misused time and time again to describe the end of time, to justify violence, murder and war – sadly it doesn’t often appear in our cycle of Sunday readings, because in my view it is the one book of the bible that demands more attention than any other in sermons or commentaries because of the intriguing nature of the revelation.  Powerful imagery, such as Michael and the dragon is (I think) used to emphasise the potency of the sacrifice Christ made on the cross – His death did what a heavenly war could not – that is, set in motion the restoration of the cosmos. 

But aside from the importance of the sacrifice of Christ, and subsequently the importance of our meeting together in worship and communion (9:00:  and the importance of baptism); what other important messages could we draw from the actual or literary focus of angels?

Well, I guess if Satan chose to leave heaven, he must have had a will to do so.  So too do we have that choice – to be in or out of God’s presence.  We, like the multitude of angels can sing in chorus and harmony of the sacrifice of Christ and our desire to know God better through scripture, prayer, worship, good works and neigbourly love.  I hope you continue to join us here in this aspect of it, because its special, its powerful.

I think it important that we take the lesson from the letter to the Hebrews of hospitality to be a reminder that there might be some valuable spiritual role in even the smallest thing we do.  St Paul wrote: “Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares".  With our shallower understanding we tend to think that hospitality (feeding someone in our home) is to meet a physical need for a meal, as well as a social need for companionship, as well as a psychological need, simply to talk with others.  But if the universe is pervasively and profoundly spiritual then hospitality is bursting with spiritual significance.  Our hospitality, if we treat it as such, is then an act which unfolds God before us. Therefore our hospitality has sacramental significance – it could be an act of communion – a significant rite in our lives.

Lastly, we should embrace the idea that there is more to life than that which we see in front of us.  I have never seen an angel but I suspect that they are present in some way which the material will never reveal.  There are a far many more dimensions to this world than just that which we touch, taste or see – why, who here has ever been moved to tears by a piece of music?  What of, for example, the prose or poetry of T.S. Elliot?  The soul destroying and heart up-lifting bugle call of the Last Post?  What about one Claude Monet’s impressions of sunset?  We should be inspired by the idea of angels to search ourselves and our world for the ethereal, and allow it to be a guide towards knowing God.

In doing these things, maybe we, like Nathaniel, from our Gospel reading today, may be privileged enough to know and see even greater things than these in our lifetime – perhaps even angels ascending and descending to serve upon the son of God, our Lord and saviour.  Amen.

References:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_%28archangel%29#cite_note-bibleverse.7C.7CDaniel.7C10:13.7CKJV-0 accessed Saturday September 25, 2010

http://www.victorshepherd.on.ca/Sermons/angels.htm accessed Thursday September 23, 2010

Restoring our neighbours humanity - restoring Christ's divinity - restoring our salvation

Well, I am into hour 34 of my second 40 hr famine.  Once again, it has been a really freeing experience for me – I suspect we undersell the value of depriving ourselves of the privileges we have in our society – at our own loss and cost – I suspect that we are caged or bound by the privileged position we have society.  I know better than I did last year what to expect, the headaches and the grumpiness my wife has had to put up with, but it also means that you won’t get a long sermon from me this morning – so it’s not all bad I suppose!  I will however state that my fundraising target of $1000 has a long way to go, so if you would like to sponsor me with a tax deductable donation, please come and see me after church.

I appreciate those of you who might sponsor me – because my little sacrifice is nothing without yours, so thank you.  Interestingly, today’s reading holds great insights into the notions of freedom and bondage...notions which I hope you’ll appreciate exploring with me.

In an essay titled: "He Put His Hands on Her":  The Compassion of Jesus Meets the Hypocrisy of Religion, Dan Clendenin recalls this story:

“Back in 2005 when I was in Ethiopia, I took a day trip to the mountains that surround the capital city of Addis Ababa. At the summit our group prayed over the city, enjoyed the panoramic views, identified buildings in the distance below, and gasped for breath after walking uphill in the alpine air. That was the fun part.

The disturbing part was our climb from the city center at 7,000 feet to the summit at 11,000 feet. As our mini-van belched clouds of light blue exhaust, the higher we went the more women and girls we passed carrying loads of firewood back down the mountain.

Barefoot and bent over at the waist, these women carried 35 kilo bundles of eucalyptus saplings, seven feet wide, down to the city center about ten miles away, all for a few pennies. The firewood carriers in Addis Ababa are a common sight, so much so that you can read about them in guidebooks like the Lonely Planet.”

I wonder which bound these women more – their constant crippling pain because of the manual labour they were bound to do, or the fact that if she stopped, she and her family would not survive.  This woman was truly in bondage:  Her bars were her birthright.

This story from our modern age causes me to wonder how the woman in Jesus’ time had been a cripple 18 long years.  Certainly the miracle straightened her back, but I wonder if she returned to a back breaking labour of some kind...or maybe not...

The 40 hr famine causes me to ask this question of us:  If, on the news tonight, we saw an image of, in our case, an Australian girl, 10 or 11, walking through the streets of, say, Southport back hunched over from her 12 hours of work she is forced to do every day to support her family, there would be an outcry.  What would we do to aid that girl? [PAUSE]  I daren’t say, that school’s like that I work for would put together a bursary pack to assist her education.  Big name organisations would get on board with housing and care for her family - let alone the government departments who would step in to ensure that the best interests of the child were kept at heart.  The scenario is shocking:  A girl, a daughter, perhaps a mother unable to do any more than she can just to get by.  There is no farming, no food, no nothing if she doesn’t continue back hunched over.  Shockingly and unfortunately, very real.

On a more prolific scale, we are facing a global food-shortage.  This is affecting hundreds of millions of people in our world, and draws to our attention to the struggle faced by Jesus.  More children are being sold into slavery; more families being destroyed and more and more lives, young and old, dying without a crumb in their hands.  The images available on YouTube and online are heartbreaking, and I urge you all to expose yourselves to the offensiveness of the situation.  Because it is very easy to become blasé about the suffering of others.  The religious authorities at the time of Jesus had.  By healing the woman, he proved their rules to be were utterly offensive to both humanity and God.

 It is in the face of offensiveness, I think, that we make our hardest choices – or maybe, it is in the face of offensiveness that our hardest choices seem easiest.  For Jesus it was simple – heal the woman – the notion of a day of rest is lost if one amongst us is suffering.  For his followers, it was not quite as simple as that; He was from God?  How could that be?!?!  How could He, Jesus – not a Pharisee, not a man of temple but a man of a carpenter be of God be healing people – and on the day of rest of all things!!!???  In the face of offensiveness, many chose to walk away from His invitation to follow. So to, do we have that choice:  we are here at an invitation...

Jesus in this very Gospel reading makes it clear.  There is work to do and we are invited to play a role in it.  There is no room for institutionalised religion if it holds people back from coming to God – which it was.  We are invited to play a wonderful role in that.  So thank you, thank you for coming here today.  Worship is an integral part of responding to this invitation.  Of course it doesn’t stop here.  We must be do’ers of faith – we must take our eternal statements and prayers and reflections into the world – because the world is empty without it; just look at it, the yawning chasms in many lives we encounter that could in some way be bridged by allowing faith to play a larger role; or a role at all!

How different would our society look if the faithful went to work in it in a way that offended secularism – in a way that caused our unfaithful brothers and sisters to reach for their rules shove them in our faces; saying the needy are not as important as you think.  The crippled are not as important as you think; in the attempt to protect the rights of those with much; our world is forgetting those with nothing.  Our society is merely masking an eternity of problems by holding up the disposable features of life in front of our eyes.  And when generations tire of holding this up, it will fall – and we will see then what state of religion or faith rushes in to fill vacuum.  [ because it is a vacuumous state without faith - The great apologist Ravi Zacharias said “nature abhors a vacuum!” and he is right – faith or something will rush to fill the void...let us hope that our actions ensure that it is the Christian faith that succeeds in breaking through this mask.

Our actions can cause this disposable existence to waver.

Our behaviours and prayers will cause this disposable existence to shudder and weaken.

Our faith CAN break down this new vogue existence which is consuming our society and cause it to lift its head, and look beyond – as to what the world we are creating might look like...if only we allow God into it.

But, how dare we think that we can improve the world without first improving ourselves.  How righteous could we be in our belief, if we are not willing to be zealous in actions and words?  This is the trap which the leaders of the synagogues and temple had fallen into.

The words of St Paul ring in my ears “ You have not come to something^* that can be touched, a blazing fire, and darkness, and gloom, and a tempest, and the sound of a trumpet, and a voice whose words made the hearers beg that not another word be spoken to them. "

We would be fools to think that we are not worshipping and taking part in something that could be incredible, and astounding for us; but will be utterly offensive to the world.

Maybe, like a meal for just 40 hours, maybe there is something that we can deprive ourselves of so that we can look at our world with new and fresh eyes?

Maybe we can be the instigators of a miracle – one that will see the desperately poor and the desperately hungry restored into their humanity, to share in Christ’s divinity...and maybe in doing so, we might have some chance of restoring our own.  Amen.

Wade on into the debate: Tolerance of other religions...

Well..I thought I would give my 2 cents worth on the cultural and religious debate going on...


11 Sept is a day rightly remembered with ceremony and sombre memories of what marked the start of the ‘war on terror’. However this year the squeaky clean image of American Christian morality... [cough cough] was tarnished by Pastor Terry Jones’ of a small church in Florida in his plan to burn copies of the Qur’an. This, along with the proposal to build an Islamic cultural centre and mosque 2 small blocks from Ground Zero has many people, Westerners and others asking questions about when is tolerance, well, tolerance – and when (if ever) is it ok to say no on religious grounds. It is not just the religious conservatives or fanatics speaking out on the topic – relatives and friends of the 3000 who died have spoken of their difficulty in accepting this...one family member was quoted by Reuters as saying they are building “too close to holy ground”.




I myself have strong (and I believe informed) views on the consequences of Western culture ingratiating itself with a religion (such as Islam) without accepting it or understanding it.


A wiser counsellor and author than I wrote that "feelings are experiences warped or enhanced by the past or a future shaped only by the imagination" (fibreglassfaith). And so I, like all Christians perhaps should endeavour to put any unrecognised personal feelings aside and reflect on the words of Christ, from the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 5 (vs 42-45): “[Jesus said] You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbour and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven; for He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.”


I believe Pastor Terry, like many others, was appealing to the worst in people. As Christ did, I hope I appeal to the best in you, not the worst – and as such, when encountering questions of faith of religiosity in our communities, you too will appeal to the best in others, promoting Christ not as the mainstream philosopher that he is so frequently made out to be, but a man of absolute compassion, absolute forgiveness, absolute charity and absolute grace. And in our willingness to share those qualities with others around us, might we too be inspired to look first for those qualities in the people around us.


I have found this prayer to be worthwhile...one of the good ones from the APBA:


Holy God, source of all love, on the night of your betrayal Jesus gave his disciples a new commandment, to love one another as he loved them: write this commandment in our hearts, and give us the will to serve others as he was the servant of all, who gave his life and died for us, yet is alive and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever, Amen.