Sermon 668+September 28, 2011

The Feast of St Michael & All Angels
Fifteenth Week after Pentecost
807th Week as Priest
633rd Week at St Dunstan’s

Waiting on an Angel

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

It may surprise some of my students, but I enjoy the music of Ben Harper. Songs like “With My Own Two Hands,” I can change the world. Songs like “Waiting on an Angel,” which is, I suppose, the theme of this feast day, the celebration of St Michael and All Angels.

There are only four angels named in the Bible—but many more appear. Gabriel arrives in the Book of Daniel, and then again in Luke’s gospel he is the messenger of God announcing the birth of John the Baptist to Elizabeth, and then Jesus to the Blessed Virgin Mary, her cousin. Raphael is mentioned in the Book of Tobit, one of the apocryphal writings, and Uriel in another, the Fourth Book of Ezra, also known as the Second Book of Esdras, also from the Apocrypha.

Angels are there in the beginning of our Christian Testament, announcing the birth of the Christ Child, and they are there in the end, at the Resurrection of Our Lord. Angels are messengers, so their duty is to announce, to give word, to warn, and to sing in heavenly choir.

Most often angels come to us unawares, as the writer of Hebrews suggests. Even in the Old Testament stories of angels and Abram, the angel and Isaac, the angel and Jacob—the other appears first as man, then angel, then God himself. We are surprised by angels. They come to us to eat with us, to protect us from danger, to wrestle with us until the break of day. And angels always say the same thing at first: Do not be afraid. Do not be afraid? Apparently angels are pretty overwhelming as well.

Once upon a time, when I was the vicar of St Michael’s in Fayette, I held an intergenerational Sunday School after church. “What does an angel look like?” I asked the children. Kelly said, “They have long golden hair!” I drew the hair. “They wear white nightgowns!” said Emily. I drew the nightgown. “They have bare feet!” said Maggie. I drew the feet. “They have that thing on their heads!” said Laurel. “What thing?” I asked. “A halo!” two of them yelled. “What else?” I asked. Silence. Then Mary Catherine, the youngest, said, “A stick.” “A stick?” I asked. “What stick?” Mary Catherine replied, “You know, to hold their halo up!”

Angels occupy our songs, our movies, our mantelpieces, and our imaginations. They are swift, powerful, and dazzling. They are beautiful and delicate and divine. Angels are a mystery, a mystery that most of us would love to experience, and yet, we are always afraid.

Ben Harper sang that he was

Waiting on an angel,
One to carry me home.
Hope you can come and see me soon,
Cause I don’t want to be alone.

Now angel, won’t you come around here?
Angel, hear my plea.
Take my hand and lift me up,
So that I can fly with thee.

What are we expecting from angels? Deliverance. Rescue. Hope. Health. A way to heaven. A companion on the way home. In Psalm 91, read most often at the time of death, the priest says, “God has given his angels charge over you, to keep you in all your ways.” And at the very last the priest says,

Receive, O Lord, your servant, for he returns to you.
May he gaze upon you, Lord, face to face, and taste
   the blessedness of perfect rest.
May angels surround him, and saints welcome him in peace. Amen.

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