On a call to deeper community in hard times
Michaelmas: 30th September, 2001
Fr John Davis, Vicar of St Peter's Eastern Hill
Apocalyptic visions from Daniel and Revelations. Description of warfare
in Heaven between the forces of good and evil, and Nathaniel amazed at having
the Lord speak to him by name, is told that he will see much more than that:
"You will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending
upon the Son of Man." (Jn 1:51.)
The first Sunday of this current emergency, we sought to steady ourselves
with the timeless calm and rhythm of the unfolding petitions and invocations
of the Great Litany in sung procession. Those prayers offer and say it all.
The community which shares in the offering of those prayers is wider than we
can imagine or hope, as all the angels and saints of God join our prayer.
Good Lord, deliver us.
We meet in worship today still surrounded by talk and fears of new and
terrible war, a possible war that could develop, taking us in directions we
cannot predict or understand. Yet even as each day goes past since the
terrible events of September 11, we dare to hope, we dare to pray. And as
our liturgical year unfolds, it happens that this weekend is the time when
a confronting possibility that goes against most of our presuppositions is
put to us: there could yet be another level of support and communication
available out there to be taken into account that is important and potentially
helpful. The tradition and the witness is rich. And it uses the shorthand
name of angels.
Today's commemoration urges us to take seriously an asserted layered sense
of community said to exist in this creation. This is a dynamic sense of a
reality that goes beyond that which we can see, such as ourselves and each
other, extending to all those other people we know exist, but never meet or
see. It extends too to our awareness of those who are part of our continuing
sense of community, but who do not share this time. We can still feel much
of a common bond or support from them. Community across time and space.
Possibilities of realities beyond the immediate and obvious. Extra dimensions
of communication, protection and purpose. Today's festival invites the
possibility of taking angels seriously.
Most of the churches I have served in have given considerable attention to
the place and ministry of angels. St Peter's has a very considerable number
praising God with Our Lady in the Lady Chapel, and here standing guard with
wings unfurled. We dedicated the two larger angel icons, the work and prayer
of Gwen Hollis, only two years ago on this day.
And whatever they might be thought to look like, the presumption of the
acceptance of angels is amply attested to in the Bible. There are many of
them. They have things to do. They are certainly said to surround God in
Heaven where they offer praise and do God's will. Their song accompanied the
Lord's birth; they ministered to him in the wilderness. They were there at
the passion and the resurrection. They were available as reinforcements. They
will assist at the Second Coming. In popular understanding as well, there
remain thoughts and hopes about individual watchful guardian angels.
St Michael specifically has a warrior image, either as the helper of
Christian armies in their battles, or as a helper for individual Christians
at the time of death. He is represented with a sword standing over or fighting
a dragon, as in our epistle today from Rev 12. There is currently a beautiful
poster available in our Bookroom featuring the big four Archangels of Michael,
Raphael, Gabriel and Uriel.
At All Saints' tide we will rejoice and reflect on the communion of saints,
that whole company of heaven that is there to populate our spiritual awareness,
to encourage, to inspire and to guide. On this festival, St Michael and All
Angels, we celebrate a similar sense of company and companionship at even
more extended levels – going further than some of our more rationalist
brothers and sisters would care to travel.
These creatures are said to be not human; they are also not divine.
Even with, or perhaps really because of the extraordinary level of medieval
speculation about them, they are a challenge to take on board intellectually.
But consider. The image of the heavenly streets paved with gold can be
understood to be an indication and illustration of God's most wonderful glory
reflected in what was round about. We need not get too hung up with the
specifics of that image to understand the point being made. Now what about
all this angelic imagery and narrative? Angels are presented as messengers,
worshippers, and active forces in the created order, working to do God's will.
They are presented as working alongside us and working to help the rest of us
in our same tasks of communicating and worshipping and being actively involved
in this world. We do not need to become too hung up with the specifics of the
imagery to get the basic point that there are said to be all sorts of levels
of support on offer for us.
This can be understood to be yet another indication and illustration of
God's most wonderful and active reaching out to the whole of Creation. The
ultimate expression of this identification of the Creator with the creation
was to be found in the Incarnation of Jesus, the Christ, and his unfolding
work of salvation and redemption.
The idea of angels has much to say to us then about community and
companionship, about shared vision and shared varied tasks, about our not
being alone either in responding to God or in facing the challenges of life.
These are by no means insignificant things to consider.
The Scriptures tell us the story of the people of God through many
centuries. The Children of Israel, even the prophets who from time to time
felt very exposed, the disciples, the first generation of followers of the
Way – they were none of them alone. It is a corporate vision. People
together, gifts together, life together, new life together. And this
stretches over the generations and the centuries. The intruding into this
of yet more levels of community and companionship going into other levels of
meaning and the created order is not so breathtaking. We are not alone. This
is the case in the particularly human sense, but also of course the point is
made again and again that we are not alone in a spiritual sense either. God
the Holy Trinity is never absent from the People of God. And then there are
the angels and the saints. A most vibrant concept of community.
We still have no idea where the events of these last few weeks are leading
us. In addition we face uncertain political and economic times at home. These
are very hard times for many people. They are hard times for many parishes
and we of course are not immune from these concerns. We Christians reach out
for the one who is the fundamental source and basis of hope, as God in Jesus
Christ indeed reaches out for us. We pray for guidance and discernment, we
pray for peace. We have an awareness perhaps, that indeed the fundamental
reassurance is going to come from that which we cannot see. It will be
under-girded by an awareness of a community that goes way beyond those
immediately around us. And this will see us through, together.
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