Entertaining angels

Genesis 28: 10-17. “Jacob’s ladder” is one of those memorable bits of the Bible where the role of Angels is as a precursor to an encounter with the Divine. In both Hebrew and Greek, messenger and Angel are the same word, so the difference between an angelic or human messenger is provide by the context

Hebrews 1: 5-14. The qualitative difference between Angels and Jesus is being expressed here. The redemptive and authoritative person of Jesus as Son of God is being compared to Angels which are “Spirits in the divine service” of mankind

John 1: 47-51. “Angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man” recalls Jacob’s ladder in Genesis and means that these messengers from God will deliver God’s words directly to Jesus. Angels again seen as messengers or intermediaries from God.

Angels in the Judaeo-Christian tradition have always represented a direct link to God.

Jacob’s vision of angels precedes God standing right beside Jacob to assure him that his destiny is secure – that God will uphold his side of the agreement with him and this led Jacob to name the place where it happened Bethel – Beth- el – the house of God.

That leads us naturally to Jesus in the gospel story telling Nathaniel that he will see “Angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of man”, meaning that instead of God being located in a place – Bethel – He is located in the heart of Jesus Himself who mostly referred to himself as the “Son of man” after the prophesy in the book of Daniel.

And in the book of Hebrews it importantly emphasises the surpassing importance of Jesus in the economy of salvation, who although he was in human form, (lower than the angels in Hebrew’s description) in his work and divinity He is higher than the angels.

It is after all Jesus who in his sacrificial death came to redeem and save the world and, in his resurrection, to assure the world of the hope of a bright and blessed future in a new creation.

Significantly, In both Hebrew and Greek, angel and messenger are the same word, so anyone who comes with a message of love or comfort or insight is an angel.

Later in the book of Hebrews it says this (13:2)

“Let brotherly love continue. Do not forget to entertain strangers because in doing so you may be entertaining angels unawares”

Hebrews acknowledges that a human being can be an angel, a messenger from God” because God uses people to communicate his will, comfort and wisdom.

Instead of seeking out heavenly spiritual experiences that simply satisfies our own needs, we can choose to be a messenger of God ourselves.

We can dispense God’s love and grace in a word of love, encouragement, an act of charity or service. Kindness to people is an act of God.

In such cases we can pass over from being a messenger to actually embodying the message.

Every church building embodies a message from God. Their mere existence is a message that God matters, is worthy of respect and worship. Even those who never cross the threshold of a church understand that message.

We, the people of God are messengers of God when we dispense love, mercy and forgiveness, kindness, patience and self-control.

We can be the angel that people encounter unawares.

In the talk on Angels at the literary festival the claim was made that belief in Angels rivals belief in God nowadays. Even 7% of atheists apparently believe in Angels. One reason offered for that is that Angels come bearing nothing but grace and love and protection and make no demands.

Well, It is a fact that when one facet of the Christian faith is neglected it pops up somewhere else in a more pronounced form. When the word of God was neglected, for example, that spawned the reformation and later, the evangelical movement within mainstream denominations.

When the Holy Spirit was neglected, that spawned the Pentecostal churches and the charismatic movement.

You could say that when the churches concentrate too much on moral rules and judgement, the response is an increased belief in totally grace filled, protective angelic beings. One remembers Robbie Williams major hit “Angels”

One sermon I made near the start of my ministry here is that fully Christian ministry has to integrate all those parts of the faith that have become almost semi-detached from and within mainstream churches.

We need emphasis on the Bible. We need emphasis on the Spirit. We need emphasis on forgiveness and repentance and morality.   And we also need emphasis on the qualities embodied by the belief in angels. The Grace, unconditional love, and care of angels, but attribute that Grace love and protection to its proper place – God, who is Father, Son and the Holy Spirit.

In the midst of wolves

Sunday 22^nd September – Trinity 14 – Proper 20

Amos 8: 4-7. My favourite prophet. He is direct and brutally frank about how God views people who treat others to whom they feel superior with contempt. He assures them that God sees all and in Christian terms we want them to see the error of their ways and repent. Swearing by the “pride of Jacob” is an unusual phrase but it is probably used to describe the land of Israel.  

1 Timothy 2: 1-7. We should pray for everyone because God desires everyone to be saved and come to a knowledge of the truth. Here we also have a rationale for all civic services, prayers for the Queen etc. that can rankle with both catholic and protestant alike. But as social enfleshed beings we have to live in the societies in which we find ourselves and whatever we feel about the social order of the day or what we might want to defend or change, God requires that we pray for all people, and to live in peace as far as it is anything to do with us.

Luke 16: 1-13. A difficult parable to unpack but one firstly must assume that dishonesty is not being praised, but rather shrewdness or prudence. Jesus noting that in a crisis, worldly people are much shrewder that the children of light. In the “crisis” situation of the inbreaking of the Kingdom of God Christians need to be much shrewder and decisive in making positive decisions and using worldly wealth to further the aims of the Kingdom.

“Behold I am sending you out as sheep in the midst of wolves, therefore be as wise as serpents and as innocent as doves” (Matthew 10:16)

A wonderfully shrewd statement made by Jesus there in Matthew.

And it is Prudence or shrewdness that is being encouraged by Jesus in our gospel reading today and Jesus notes, I think accurately, that the worldly wise are much shrewder than the people who generally follow God. Our judgement can be clouded by being too starry eyed and idealistic.

A common statement about some people is that they are so heavenly focussed that they are no earthly good. They also can have their goodness presumed upon as well and get walked all over. Part of the Christian response is not to become either gullible or a doormat. At the same time, we must guard against becoming overly cynical and suspicious. Somewhere in the middle lies wisdom.

It is always hard to pin down where that wise response lies because every decision we make is dependent on specific circumstances.

Honesty and straight dealing and dealing with others charitably are the bedrock of the Christian way.

This has always been a main part of the Judeo-Christian tradition of course and Amos, writing 750 years before Christ, the very first of the Old Testament prophets, warns all people that treat their fellow men with contempt and cheat them and rob them are being judged by God and their deeds won’t be forgotten.

Christian wisdom must be based in revealed truth of course, and one of the most basic truths that it can sometimes be hard to accept is that God desires the salvation of all people. God came to save the whole world, not little bits of it, or those bits that respond in a certain way.

We heard in a magnificent presentation yesterday at the literary festival that this is one of the main reasons that Christianity spread so quickly. It was universal. Everyone was included. Christianity successfully overturned the general societal assumptions that “might is right” and that some people are intrinsically worth more that other people, laying down the principle that would eventually lead to the notion of universal human rights. King and slave, Jew and gentile, man and woman were all on the same level in God’s eyes.

Repentance, (Greek – Metanoia), is the central demand of the gospel for those that accept the gospel in this life. Consciously turning your life around to face God. Part of that repentance is having the difficult job of praying for those people we don’t like, or don’t like us, and those who do contemptable things in the hope that they see the light and change their ways.

Why? Because Jesus died for them as much as He died for you, that’s why.

In the same way, we pray for the existing social order, no matter what we think about the system or what we’d like to either defend or change.

In practical terms that would mean that even if you were an ardent republican and anti-monarchist, as a Christian you would still be required to pray for the Queen, because she is an individual, for whom Jesus also died, and she holds an important position in the social hierarchy. As I wrote this week, this is also the rationale for civic services where we pray for all local councillors etc.

We have to be wise in how we use our money, gifts and talents in a crisis and the underlying reason behind all this is that the ultimate crisis Jesus is referring to  is the upcoming crucifixion of himself, and the birth of the church, and the Kingdom of God.

“God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself” Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5:19. Notice it is the whole world again God was reconciling himself to, not just good people or believers, and by extension we are ministers of that reconciliation.

As ministers of that reconciliation, we pray for the good of all people and situations, that God’s will is done – not our will – because;

“think no man unworthy for whom Christ was content to die”.

The free gift of Grace.

Exodus 32: 7-14. Moses haggling with God, imploring him not to destroy the Jewish people for building and worshipping an idol might lead some people to say that this was God before He became a Christian! Joking aside, at a deeper level, it is a warning against a religion that demands that the divine is always immediate, visible and accessible and one that sets store on a patient waiting on God

1 Timothy 1: 12-17. You can sense the intense gratitude Paul feels, that a sinner as great as himself could be so freely forgiven his past, so his life is set free to do the work God commissions him to do. It is this central fact of forgiveness that is available to all Christians when they fall and fail. To get up, dust yourself off and start all over again on a different path.

Luke 15: 1-10. Paul’s experience is pre-figured here in a couple of parables that tell of the joy God feels in finding something (someone) who is lost. For us as God’s agents on earth, finding such people, you have given them the gift of Life itself and we can share in that joy.

We have a gift for everyone we meet.

A complaint you sometimes hear from people is that the church is always making demands on people whether that be their time or their money.

But actually, we come bearing the greatest gift that anyone could possibly receive – the gift of forgiveness and life in all its fullness.

Paul, who we hear today fair bubbling over with excitement and joy described being joined to Jesus Christ as Freedom to rest in God’s Grace in Galatians 5:1.

If I were to describe what “Life in all its fullness” consisted of I’d boil it down to these essentials;

Firstly, your life has intrinsic worth, because you are created and loved by God. This means that your worth isn’t dependent on what other people or society itself thinks about you. For tech-savvy people it doesn’t depend on how many “likes” your social media post gets. We have an innate dignity, an innate worth that is independent of how other people rate us.

Secondly, you are a child of God. People have a tendency to think in terms of identity politics nowadays, defining ourselves by race, gender, sexuality, disability, class or social status. But as Christians we have an identity that supersedes and subsumes all those small subdivisions. We are a child of God. That is our identity. We pray to God as our Father, with Jesus as our brother, saviour and friend.

Thirdly, you have the basis of Paul’s gratitude in this extract today. Forgiveness and the ability to make a fresh start in a new direction after we foul up, fall, fail, make bad decisions, do things we are ashamed of. We are forgiven because of what Jesus did for us on the cross.

Lastly, we have the assurance of eternal life, because of the resurrection of Jesus. Death and suffering were borne but overcome. Eternal life, in John’s gospel also translates as a quality of life to be enjoyed now but is synonymous with and based on the vision of a new heaven and a new earth, where all pain, suffering and death are no more.

Innate worth, a child of God, Forgiveness and eternal life. These are the gifts that the Christian faith gives freely to all who accept that Jesus is the true Son of God.

These are the gifts that allow us to flourish in our lives.

These are the gifts that enable you to live life without fear and sets you free to fulfil your potential.

These are the gifts that propelled Paul on his missionary journeys and saw him through thick and thin. These are the gifts that propel every modern-day missionary and evangelist. They form the basis for every loving action and loving word of every Christian.

So you see, we come bearing Gifts. Free gifts.

We need to remember what we offer people as well as the demands we sometimes make. Sacrifices of time and money, and any other sacrifice we have to make are made in gratitude for what we have received, so that the church can continue to tell people what God has done for them in Jesus Christ.

Amen.