Michaelmas 2007

Speaking Index

Delivered 29 September 2007, the Feast of Saint Michael and All Angels

Good Evening. Welcome to our worship this evening.

Is your goose cooked? For centuries, Michaelmas was an important day in England. In the spring the fields were planted, lambs were born, and poults of all kind broke free of their eggs. Farm families labored through the spring and summer to grow plants and raise animals that would feed them through winter. The wise farmwife wouldn't start eating into that bounty too soon, or next spring her family would go hungry. So the tradition grew that you never killed a goose until Michaelmas, and after church on Michaelmas I'm sure almost everybody that had a goose to cook sat down to that rich flesh.

No, even though this is Michaelmas, the Feast of Michael and All Angels, I don't have a goose in the oven. I have in the past, but we haven't had room here on the island and it's an incredible amount of work plucking the things anyway.

Genesis 28:10-17
Revelation 12:7-12
John 1:47-51

Grace and peace to you from God our Father, and from his son Jesus the Christ, and from the Holy Spirit. Amen

Have you seen an angel? Would you know if you had?

Perhaps you've watched Touched by an Angel? That's not much of a guide, because we understand angels to be directly created, thus not having sex in the reproductive sense, every indication we have is they're all male, and no indication that they age.

Certainly you've seen It's a Wonderful Life, possibly every year since childhood. That's not much of a guide either. Angels are capable of error, witness the fall of Lucifer, but there's no indication that they are bumbling fools like dear old Clarence was.

On the other hand, we don't really know all that much about angels. They do make some important appearances in scripture, but theologians over the centuries have told us a lot about these creatures that didn't come from the Bible itself. In fact, a lot of it comes from the Zoroastrians, an ancient Persian religion based on the writings of the poet Zarathustra, who lived sometime between six hundred and six thousand years before Christ. This may not be a bad thing, as there is much in common between Zoroastrianism and Judaism, except that their god was named Mazda.

If you've been fascinated by angels, either by their appearance in popular culture or the sketchy biblical accounts, you're not alone. The Jews, particularly the Cabalists, had learned or imputed quite a bit about the angels. The Old Testament as we define it lists two archangels, but the apochrophal book Tobit has Raphael telling Tobias that he is one of seven. The Cabalists were deep into numerology, and Ptolemy's vision of the universe included seven planets, so they paired each of the seven archangels with a planet. Fortunately for them, they didn't have to put up with the astronomers adding and subtracting planets from one year to the next. Some early scholars took up the same theme, pairing the archangels with the seven lamps in Revelations.

The four that are named in our scriptures are Michael, Gabriel, Raphael, and Uriel.

Michael is the warrior, the captain of the heavenly armies, and the prince of the people of Israel. He battled Satan for the body of Moses, so that the Israelites could carry their dead leader over Jordan and bury him in the Promised Land. According to Revelation, he had much earlier led the armies of heaven against the great dragon and his armies, that would be Lucifer and the forces of Hell.

Gabriel is God's special messenger, appearing to the prophet Daniel to explain his dreams, appearing to Zechariah to let him know that he would have a son, John the Baptist, and appearing to Mary to announce the coming of Jesus, as we will hear in song in a few minutes.

Raphael came to earth to visit Tobias. Disguised as a man, Raphael accompanies Tobias on his quest, helps him achieve it, and then provides a cure for his father's blindness.

Uriel appeared to the prophet Ezra when he demanded of God how Israel could be kept in misery if God is just. According to the account in 4 Esdras, Uriel came to Ezra to tell him that God's ways cannot be known by the human mind.

These last two stories are from what we call the Apocrapha, old testament books that we don't include in our bibles. The Roman and Anglican churches do and there are some marvelous tales told of the minor prophets there. Given a choice, I'd much rather see Esdras, Ecclesiasticus, and Tobit in the bible than Leviticus, with all it's dietary rules.

I mentioned Lucifer, a fallen angel we know as the tempter from the Garden. The bible also mention Beelzebub, ruler of the demons, which we believe to be another name for Lucifer or Satan.

Then there is Apollyon, the angel of the abyss. We don't know his rank, but it's his job to guard the gates of hell, on our side.

Now I've raised the question of rank. The four angels I named first are all archangels. Despite the expectation from the word arch meaning over, this is actually seen as the second-lowest rank. Most of the other angels we see in scripture are just angels, not identified by name, and the angels are the lowest ranking of the lot. But they don't call it rank.

The angels are arrayed in choirs, by which they don't mean groups of singers, although the angel choir that showed up for the birth of Jesus was actually a choir in our normal sense. Confusing? Wait, there's more!

A fifth-century Syrian monk who signed his works Dionysius the Areopagite apparently spent a lot of time working on the angelic hierarchy, and came up with nine choirs of angels, from the Seraphim at the top all the way down to your garden-variety Angels at the bottom. Pope Gregory I, my namesake, rearranged the list a little. Dante used two different lists, he followed Dionysius in the Convivio but used his own order in The Divine Comedy. Because I'm fond of Gregory, and because our hymn of the day uses his arrangement, here is his whole list, from top to bottom:

Seraphim
Cherubim
Thrones
Dominions
Principalities
Powers
Virtues
Archangels
Angels

I don't think there are extra points available for committing those to memory, or any spiritual advantage to using one system over another. It's probably enough to know that if you're in a situation that requires the attention of a Seraph, somebody's in deep trouble, and falling on your face, either in worship or fear, is probably appropriate!

Isaiah saw Seraphim, two of them flanked Yahweh on his throne. The Seraphim have six wings; with two they cover their faces to signify humility, with two they cover their feet, by which Hebrew means the lower body, to signify chastity, and with two they fly, signifying obedience in performing the errands the Lord may give them.

It was a pair of Cherubim that were left to guard the gates of Eden, but no description was provided. The Psalmist tells of Yahweh riding a Cherub, flying on the wings of the wind. Maybe Apollyon is another.

Artists through the centuries have worked hard to bring us angels. The annunciation alone has led to countless depictions of Gabriel and Mary. Gabriel normally has a gorgeous and fairly feminine face, and is portrayed as more beautiful than Mary. Was Gabriel prettier than Mary? We have no idea, but the early church didn't want to encourage lustful thoughts of the Virgin Mother, so the artists went along and always made her less beautiful than the angel.

Michael is also portrayed as an attractive person. Depictions of Michael are very similar to those of Saint George because both slayed dragons. Both are shown in military costume, often chain mail and other armor, brandishing a staff, lance, or flagpole, with one foot on the neck of dragon recently deceased. If the title of the painting isn't available, you can tell the difference because Mike always has wings, George doesn't.

Medieval depictions of the Cherubim often resemble the Griffon, a creature of Greek mythology with the head, chest, and wings of an eagle and the hindquarters of a lion. They would make fearsome guardians indeed.

The angels and archangels take human form, most often with wings. In some cases the artists doubtless assumed they actually had wings, but wings were also used to symbolize any being from the spirit realm, so the wings may not be there to suggest that Mike and Gabe actually flew around like birds.

So what are we to do with angels? Where do they fit in the theology of the modern Lutheran?

They are signs of God's power sent to earth, no matter how rarely. When it's urgent, God does have creatures that he can send to talk to us directly, and we are encouraged to be open to all we meet because we can't tell when we might be visited by an angel.

They tell us that no matter how good we are, how godly we feel we've become, we must remember that the higher we climb the further we have to fall. No human has ever fallen as far, or had the chance to fall as far, as Lucifer. It's best to remember that.

They also tell us that no matter how good we are, there are other creatures greater than us. We have our place, and it's not the top of the totem pole. It never will be. We need to be content with the tasks we are called to. We must not presume to be more than human, God has other creatures to fulfill those tasks.

They remind us that God prefers not to do his good works directly, but wants to give those opportunities to his creatures. That is a model for us. Those who accept God's love will show love for one another. The angels don't wait for God to come and do it himself, neither should we.

Finally, they remind us that we are not alone, that we don't have to depend on the feeble gifts of a mortal, that the Father and the Son surround us with the Holy Spirit, and every once in a while, an angel will come to earth. Maybe to speak to us. Perchance to slay a dragon.

This is what we call Good News. This is the Gospel of the Lord. Amen.