Transcript of Sermon – St Mary’s Pulborough Sept 28th 2014 St Michael and All Angels ‘Back to Church Sunday’

Sermon – St Mary’s Pulborough Sept 28th 2014

St Michael and All Angels ‘Back to Church Sunday’

Gen.28.10-17 Psalm 103.19-22 Rev 12.7-12 John 1. 47 - 51

In 2007 my daughter had been spending time at Camp America in Virginia. She was twenty years old. After Camp she took the opportunity for some travel – solo! While she was waiting at Philadelphia airport to fly to New York a terrific storm began to close in that meant flights were being cancelled.

However she was booked into a hostel in New York and they would only hold the bed until 2am after which she would have to find another place to stay. She didn't have the extra money or really know how she could go about finding another hostel if she just turned up in New York.

While she sat waiting and wondering what to do a man came up and sat next to her and started chatting. He then said he knew how to get on a flight to New Jersey (which is close to New York). He said they should go to the information desk. They managed to get the last two seats on the last flight out before the airport totally closed down. On arrival he waited until Tabitha had recovered her bags and then escorted out to the taxi rank. He gave the driver $30 and told him where she needed to go. Before he closed the taxi door he looked at Tabitha and said, ‘you are a wonderful person’ then closed the door.

When Tabitha turned around to say thank you and wave goodbye he had simply disappeared.  There were no crowds around so he hadn't melted into the crowds, but he had simply gone, much like he suddenly appeared at the airport in Philadelphia. Tabitha arrived at the hostel just as they were closing up for the night.

An angel perhaps?

Angels appear in our very earliest cultures in both myths and legends.

These also feature in both the opening book of our Bible, Genesis. Those of you who were paying attention to the readings will have noted the link between the Gospel of John and Jesus’ conversation with Nathaniel and that of Jacob’s dream, our reading from the Book of Genesis. In case you missed it then let me remind you it was to do with a heavenly escalator and angels going up and down.

In our reading from Revelation we meet Michael, who’s Feast Day tomorrow we are anticipating in our Eucharistic Celebration today. We also meet Lucifer, the Angel of Light who rebelled and was cast down to earth along with his angelic followers, namely the Satan and his demons. 

In between Genesis and Revelation angels are frequently mentioned in various forms and guises.

So, you may agree with Abba whom you might recall sang ‘I believe in angels’ or with any number of other songs about angels – particular Robbie Williams’ song – Angels.

In the Christian tradition the realm of angels developed into a hierarchy so we began to have Archangels, Michael and Gabriel probably among the best known. Then we have numerous other forms of angels including cherubs, cherubim and seraphim and all manner of angelic beings.

Some of these have the role of worshiping God day and night and others are messengers which is probably why we often view them with wings. They are the winged messengers from God or in Greek mythology from the gods.

However they often turn up in the Scriptures stories bearing the resemblance of men.

Think of Abraham’s three visitors, or the angels who appeared in the doomed cities of Sodom and Gomorrah.

This of course is what lies behind Eastern hospitality.

There was, and still is, a very strong tradition that you might indeed be entertaining angels.

An idea that gets carried over into the New Testament…

Hebrews 13.2 ‘Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels
unawares.’

That is of course a very important message for us to consider, especially as today is Back to Church Sunday.

And if you are here today by way of an invitation you are very welcome. If anything I might say or anything else in this Act of Worship is puzzling to you then please do come and ask questions afterwards.

Hospitality and welcoming the stranger ought to be very high on our agenda.

When I worked in hotels, especially some of the smaller ones, the staff would become almost like a family. Yet we all knew we were not there for ourselves but to serve our guests. To make sure they had the best possible experience they could have. To go out of our way, to walk the extra mile to ensure they were looked after and would speak afterwards with warmth and satisfaction of their visit. Best of all if they became regulars.

St Michael is a warrior angel fighting against forces of darkness.

Not only in the Book of Revelation do we pick this up but also in Ephesians 6.12

¹² For we are not contending against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world rulers of this present darkness, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.

It was whilst working in the bar trade that I saw the manifestation of evil and discord through the work of what are called poltergeist.  Nothing on the grand global scale of some of the horrors we are currently seeing being unleashed across the world, but nonetheless very scary and unnerving. Furniture smashed, bathroom cabinet ripped of the wall and thrown in the bath, banging and noise and disturbances, night after night.

C.S. Lewis wrote “There are two equal and opposite errors into which our race can fall about the devils. One is to disbelieve in their existence. The other is to believe, and to feel an excessive and unhealthy interest in them. They themselves are equally pleased by both errors, and hail a materialist or magician with the same delight”

(C.S. Lewis. The Screwtape Letter. 1941,p. 3).

C.S. Lewis held the firm view that the reality of the heavenly sphere and activity was not geographically placed somewhere in outer space, somewhere in the bright blue yonder, but close at hand in another dimension. Occasionally the curtain is drawn back as it where, and we see the reality.

We pick this up clearly in stories like that of Elisha the prophet as recorded in 2 King Chapter 6. Elisha appears to know exactly what the King of Aram is going to do and warns the King of Israel. So the King of Aram sends an army to capture Elisha and surrounds the city where Elisha was residing. Let me read for you direct from Scripture what transpired…

When the servant of the man of God got up and went out early the next morning, an army with horses and chariots had surrounded the city. “Oh, my lord, what shall we do?” the servant asked. “Don't be afraid,” the prophet answered. “Those who are with us are more than those who are with them.”

And Elisha prayed, O LORD, open his eyes so that he may see. Then the LORD opened the servant's eyes, and he looked and saw the hills full of horses and chariots of fire all round Elisha.

Warrior angels also appear to be waiting in the wings in the story of Jesus’ arrest. We read of a follower who was seeking to defend Jesus with a sword as the Temple Guard came to arrest him. Jesus told him to put the sword away, that should he choose, he could ask his Father, who would send more than 12 legions of angels to save him. That is over 72,000 warrior angels!

If you take into account the story of the might of just one angel in Isaiah 37.36 who in a single night slew a hundred and eighty five thousand men – that is some awesome power.

And in the battle against the dark forces we know that God will be triumphant. We know that the victory belongs to our God.

We know that not only by looking at the great battles described in the Book of Revelation, with Michael and All Angels engaged in deadly conflict against the enemies of God.

We know it supremely because of other angels we meet following Jesus’ arrest, trial and torture and cruel death. 

From Luke’s Gospel - and we are outside the tomb.

While they were wondering about this, suddenly two men in clothes that gleamed like lightning stood beside them. In their fright the women bowed down with their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here; he has risen! Remember how he told you, while he was still with you in Galilee: `The Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, be crucified and on the third day be raised again.'

There is no more important question in the whole world than the veracity of what those angelic beings spoke of.  ‘Did Jesus rise from death?’

For it that is true then everything changes. 

In his famous book ‘Mere Christianity’, C.S. Lewis makes this statement, "A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic--on the level with a man who says he is a poached egg--or he would be the devil of hell. You must take your choice. Either this was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us.” 

Holding a belief in St Michael and All Angels battling against the forces of darkness is not a prerequisite for becoming a Christian. Although it is very much part of a strong Christian tradition and our Lord himself spoke of them.

However believing and accepting the message of the angels by the empty tomb is fundamental to a Christian belief.

Accept that message and everything changes – nothing is the same again.

Should you accept that message then the only appropriate response is to fall at Jesus’ feet and call him Lord and God.

And in so doing we heed the words of St Augustine who said, ‘if Jesus is not Lord of all he is not Lord at all.’

Lord of your life, your work, your money, the place you live, your friends, your leisure – everything.

Romans 12.1-2  ‘With eyes wide open to the mercies of God, I beg you, my brothers and sisters, as an act of intelligent worship, to give him your bodies, as a living sacrifice, consecrated to him and acceptable by him. Don’t let the world around you squeeze you into its own mould, but let God re-mould your minds from within, so that you may prove in practice that the plan of God for you is good, meets all his demands and moves towards the goal of true maturity.’

Angels or no, we are now citizens of heaven awaiting the full and final revelation of King Jesus. Like angels we are called to be both messengers and heralds of God’s coming Kingdom. ‘Your Kingdom Come, your will be done on earth as it in heaven.’  That includes Pulborough or wherever you might find yourself this week.

It is well worth pondering just what that might mean for you as you eat your Sunday lunch today and go into the week ahead!  And as you step into the week be aware because you may find that you are indeed entertaining angels!