Sermons

St Michael & All Angels

Sunday 28 September at 10am

David Paton-Williams
Readings: Revelation 12.7-12 and John 1.47-end

"A Community of Angels"

Today we celebrate the feast of Michael and All Angels

20 years ago I served my curacy in South Shields, in the church of St Michael and all Angels, and I thought of them on Tuesday morning. I was having a look round church here and discovered that Michael and the angels takes pride of place here in the window at the east end. And that leads me to ask a question: "Have you seen an angel this week?"

You might think that question ranks alongside "Have you ever seen the Loch Ness Monster?" or "Have you ever been abducted by aliens?" as a bit on the wacky side. However it is not as strange a question as you might think. After all Jesus said to Nathaniel (and through him perhaps to the whole Church) "You will see angels."

Angels have been part of Xty, Judaism, Islam and some other religions for thousands of years, but in the recent past they have often been dismissed as a rather primitive form of pre-scientific religious belief.

However angels are now having a great revival. There are countless books and websites dedicated to them; they appear regularly in novels and films; and in new age circles people can even go on angel workshops to learn how to communicate with their own personal angel. On Friday night Jenny and I were in Ripon Cathedral for what they call an Angel Dinner and during the meal a friend who was sitting next to me said that while she had lots of issues and questions about Christianity, angels were one thing that she found made complete sense.

No doubt there are all sorts of reasons for all this but it does seem that there is now room once again in our world for angels.

So what are angels like and what do they do?

In popular cartoons angels are often pictured as the souls of the dead hanging around on clouds with their obligatory harps.

However, in the Bible, angels are spiritual beings in their own right, inhabiting a spiritual realm beyond this world but who connect with this world from time to time.

1. The first task angels have in the Bible is to worship God.

Our first reading came from the book of Revelation and in several places in that book they are pictured gathered around the throne of God singing his praises.

Like us they are created to worship God, to offer all that they and all that they do to him.

Our worship isn't just something that happens in church on a Sunday morning or evening. Our worship is our lives - lived for and offered to God. In the words of George Herbert in a well-known hymn: "Teach me my God and King in all things thee to see,
and what I do in anything, to do it as for thee.

To do things for God - at home, in our work places, at school, the community or wherever - is to offer him our worship.

And so, with the angels and archangels our worship is our first and highest calling expressed through all that we are and all that we do.

2. Guardian angels, protecting others from harm and evil

I grew up in an M&S home with the vague impression that St Michael was the patron saint of children's underwear.

However, in the book of Daniel, archangel Michael is described as the protector of the whole people of God, the guardian angel of the whole community of faith.

And the concept of guardian angels is deeply rooted in the Christian tradition. Back in the 4th century St Ambrose wrote that:

"The servants of God are protected by invisible, rather than visible, beings. But if they guard you, they do so because they have been summoned by your prayers." "If they guard you, they do so because they have been summoned by your prayers." Again this is not far from our own calling. We too are called to be guardians: guardians of the natural world guardians of the poor and vulnerable in society and across the world guardians of the young, the elderly, of people in their hour of need, whoever they may be.

And in our reading from Revelation, Michael and his angels are pictured waging war against the forces of evil and defeating them for the sake of the whole of creation.

Like Michael and the angels, as it says in our baptism service, we too are called to fight against the evils we find in our world, against everything that diminishes, corrupts or destroys life and called in the power of the Spirit, to overcome evil with good.

3. The third function of angels in the Bible is to be God's messengers - and that's all the word angel means - messenger.

Through the Bible they are pictured entering people's lives to bring all sorts of messages: announcing coming events - like the birth of Christ; explaining the meaning of events, like the resurrection. sometimes bringing a message of warning or hope but always one that people needed to hear.

And once again we are called to God's messengers: to bear witness to the reality of God and the good news of his love in Christ.

That may mean discussing matters of faith with our friends and family, or simply inviting people to come to church with us.

Or it may be that the message we are called to bring is one of comfort and encouragement to people in their need.

If I ask you again, whether you have seen an angel this week, you are probably not thinking of someone dressed in white with big feathery wings,

you are probably thinking of a human being of great kindness and helpfulness

or someone who had just the right words for you in a situation

or someone who pointed you towards the faith

or a stranger who stepped out of the crowd and for no other reason than the desire to do good helped you when you needed it.

Whoever they were and whatever they did, they were angels. expressing their worship of God through their lives, acting as guardians
and bringing a message of God's love - spoken or unspoken.

On Monday night at the Collation service we dedicated ourselves at St Edmund's to a shared ministry: a shared ministry with three elements the worship of God, the service of others and bearing witness to our faith.

In other words we dedicated ourselves to being a community of angels, angels for each other, angels for the people of this parish,
angels for the life of this city and the world around.

That is our calling as a church together we have to work out what that means in practical ways as, with God's help, we go into the future together.

So have you seen any angels this week?
Just take a look around - there is one sitting next to you!

© St Edmund's Church, Roundhay