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The Sixteenth Sunday After Pentecost
O God, who declarest thy almighty power chiefly in showing mercy and pity: Mercifully grant unto us such a measure of thy grace, that we, running to obtain thy promises, may be made partakers of thy heavenly treasure; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen. (Proper 21)
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The Sixteenth Sunday After Pentecost
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Scripture citation(s): Daniel 12:1-3; Revelation 5:1-14
A Sermon by
Fr. Spurlock
on
Daniel 12:1-3; Revelation 5:1-14
✛
Angels: What They Are and Are Not
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Today we have been observing the feast of Saint Michael and All Angels, angels being a wonderful and mysterious part of God’s creation, but also an often misunderstood and underestimated part of creation. Let’s try to consider what angels are by first thinking through what angels are not. The most important distinction to make right up front is that angels are not human beings. Angels are not people who are alive and they are not people who have died. For example: some of us are tempted, and do say, that our choir boys are angels. Trust me, I live and work alongside them, they are not angels and try as they might, they never will be.
Young people, who help little old ladies to cross the street, aren’t angels either. And little old ladies who sometimes need help crossing the street and who bake you cookies and love puppies and dote on babies are not angels. All of them, choir boys who sing beautifully, and boys and girls who are helpful, and little old ladies who dote on babies are all wonderful, and kind, and generous. But, they are not angels, they are good human beings.
Along this line, one of the most unhelpful and untruthful things we can say about angels is often prompted by the death of a human being. I know this is said, because I have heard it with my own ears. When children die, or someone dies under tragic circumstances, we sometimes hear that God took them from this earth to be an angel in heaven. I don’t know which is crueler, to suggest to someone who is grieving that they and their loved one departed mean so little to God, or to lie to someone who is grieving by trying to console them with sentimental rubbish. If God wants more angels in heaven, he will create them, as he did in the beginning. He does not have to cause little children to die or to kill our loved ones to populate heaven with angels. So, angels are not humans and humans are not and do not become angels. This is better when you think about it, because we all get to continue being what God made us to be: angels in their order, humans in theirs.[i]
Just like he did with us, God made angels an entirely separate order of creation. They are different from us in the way that elephants and stars are different from one another, or the way that trees and the water in the sea are different, and in the way that the earth and the sun are different. We don’t think that elephants are less wonderful because they’re not stars. They are each wonderful in their own way, and God made them for their own purposes. So we don’t think any less of humans because they’re not angels, and we don’t think any less of angels because they’re not humans.
And because angels are creatures who are made, this leads us to another important thing that we can say about them. Angels are not co-eternal nor co-equal with God, they have not existed alongside God from the first, but rather they move and have their being because God made them. Therefore they should not be the object of too much interest or fascination. They are not objects of worship, and we do not bow down, worship or pray to angels. Indeed, Saint John was warned about this very thing. John writes, “Then I fell down at [the feet of the angel] to worship him, but he said to me, “You must not do that! I am a fellow servant with you and your brothers who hold to the testimony of Jesus. Worship God!”[ii] In that respect, angels and men were created for the same end; to love God, glorify his name, and to participate in his will for creation.
And while we don’t know exactly when God made them, we do know that they were already present when events began to play out in the Garden of Eden. And it is in the garden where we begin to see the human, which is body and spirit combined, interacting with the angelic which is purely spiritual. And right there we have another significant distinction to make. Angels are entirely spiritual. They can manifest themselves a body, so that they can be seen and heard, but they do not have bodies because they are entirely spirit.
Mention an angel and you might immediately come up with an image of a baby or a man or a woman with wings. I have sometimes heard people ridicule heaven because they have the stunted view that to live there is to be relegated to a never ending existence in the company of plump babies with stunted wings playing harp music as the ages roll drearily by. This is an anemic view of angelic existence and grossly underestimates the great diversity, power, single minded-devotion, and zeal by which angels live.
Angels have revealed themselves to people from Adam and Eve, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, Moses, Ezekiel, and Daniel, and Saints John, Paul and Peter, the Blessed Virgin Mary. Our Lord Jesus himself was attended by angels throughout his life from his conception to his nativity to his temptation in the desert, his agony in the garden, and his resurrection and ascension. And the angels are still at it, revealing themselves to people just like you and me in our own day. It wasn’t much more than a year ago that I preached a sermon about meeting a woman on the subway to Queens who I am convinced was an angel.
And each one of these countless manifestations has taken slightly different forms. Yes, there are angels with faces and bodies like humans with wings. But there are also angels of fire, angels, without bodies and only faces and wings, angels suited up for battle who carry flaming swords in their hands, there are angels whose entire bodies and wings are covered in eyes, there are angels with four faces that depending on which angle you view them from have the face of an ox, man, eagle, or lion, there are angels described as wheels within wheels again covered with sleepless eyes, and then there are angels like the one I met on the train who didn’t look like any angel I’d ever seen, a haggard and harassed, women who asked me for spiritual help, but wound up ministering to me in ways I hardly dare ask or imagine.
And that brings us, having considered what angels aren’t and are, to what angels do. Saint Gregory the Great said that the title angel says less about an angel’s nature than it does about an angels office, or vocation, or job. Angels exist to glorify god, to stand as guardians over God’s people. To do God’s bidding in heaven and on earth, to deliver his word and message to people, to lead worship in heaven, to assist his people on earth in prayer and supplication, to adorn and beautify heaven and earth with such pure and spiritual presence, to fight against those angels who have fallen and seek to harm and destroy the creatures of God. And in that we see so much of our own Christian vocation. Love God, worship and glorify him, pray for his kingdom to come, and that his will be done here now as it is done in heaven already. Defend the weak and broken hearted, guard and watch over those of our brothers and sisters who are weak and in need. And do this knowing that we are co-laborers, fellow workers alongside such a beautiful, powerful, mysterious order of creatures who are the angels in heaven and on earth.
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[i] This aspect of human existence has its very own appointed feast day: All Saints Day. We will celebrate that feast this year on November 2. The sermons then should give more insight into life after death for humans.
[ii] Rev 19.10
