In the Name of God:  Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  Amen.

So . . . angels.  I’ve been thinking about angels for several days now, trying to figure out what I might say to you about them today.  And, man oh man, have I tied myself into knots.  I’ve done all the usual things I do . . . I’ve contemplated the lessons for today; I’ve examined commentaries about the readings; I’ve tried to absorb scholarly articles about angels; I’ve looked at paintings and drawings and read poems . . . I’ve been quite busy . . . but none of this has gotten me very far.

As I mentioned, I started with today’s lessons.  WHY, I wanted to know were THESE lessons chosen for today?  Okay, the reading from Revelation is clear . . . St. Michael fighting Satan.  But the other two?!?  The story from Genesis does have angels in it . . . but it also has Jacob . . . and Jacob’s such an unsavory character.  Why not something else? . . . maybe something from the Book of Daniel?  Daniel’s a good guy and Michael the archangel actually makes an appearance in the text.  Well, of course, I don’t know the answer to why the reading from Genesis was chosen . . . but this wasn’t even the real problem for me . . . the real problem was the Gospel . . . the story of Nathaniel coming to Jesus.  Yes, Jesus promises Nathaniel that he’ll see angels ascending and descending on the Son of Man . . . but, what’s THAT mean . . . “ON the Son of Man”?  And the story itself is not primarily about angels . . . in fact, it’s difficult to figure out what those few verses really ARE about.  Surely, there’s a better Gospel story for today.  So . . . having wrestled with these texts for a while, I finally simply gave up on them.

And I started thinking about angels . . . forgetting about the texts . . . I started asking myself a different set of questions . . . one question leading to the next.  What are angels like?  What are they for?  Why did God make them?  Do they have free will?   If they do, does that mean that some angels are untrustworthy?  If they are, what’s THAT mean for us?  And what about people who don’t believe in angels AT ALL . . . what about that?  Oh my oh my . . . see what I mean?  Knots . . . I tied myself into knots. 

So I’m gonna share the problem with you. . . .

To begin . . . what are angels like; what do they LOOK like?  Well, those sorts of details about angels are just about non-existent . . . despite a long tradition of depicting angels in art – both high and low – we actually have no idea what angels might look like . . . if they look like anything.  I know, I know, we ALL “know” that they look like human beings . . . except that they wear long white dresses and have wings and halos . . . oh, and they seem to be beyond gender . . . but there’s nothing in the Bible to support ANY of this.  Fortunately, this only worried me for a little while.  I decided pretty quickly that I don’t care what angels look like . . . and that their appearance is just about never described because angels are always pointing away from themselves.  Angels are always directing our human attention to God and to God’s message . . . NOT to themselves.

And this leads to the next question, what are angels for?  Ah, happily that’s a fairly easy question.  The word for ‘angel’ in both Greek and Hebrew means messenger.  Which is what angels exist to do . . . oh sure, they do other things as well, but primarily they deliver messages from God.  Of course, God sometimes delivers the message directly . . . but the Bible is clear that there are also entities – angels – used by God to deliver God’s news.  So, we don’t really know what angels look like, ‘cuz they deliver these really important messages that grab all of our attention.  The important thing is the MESSAGE, which angels exist to deliver.

Okay.  But, still, why did God create ‘em in the first place?  As I just said, God’s perfectly capable of delivering messages without any help . . . and, in fact, God does exactly this from time to time . . . so why angels?  I got stuck on this question for a while.  Until I asked myself, “Well, why NOT?  Why did God bother creating US?  Or anything else for that matter?  Who knows?”  Oh, I know, I know . . . there are accepted theological answers to these questions . . . but in the end, do we really know for certain?  I believe that it had to do with God’s infinite quality of love . . . love seems to be innately creative . . . it’s almost like God can’t help it.  God is so filled with love that it just explodes out . . . and we have creation.

And when you consider the stupendous variety of creation . . . plant species beyond number, the colors of the rainbow, universe after universe of planets and suns . . . why NOT angels?  And why not all kinds of DIFFERENT angels?  I’m not gonna go on – like theologians a few hundred years ago did  – about cherubim and seraphim, principalities and powers, choirs and ranks of angels . . . but why shouldn’t creation have lots of angels . . . and lots of different KINDS of angels?  Sounds kinda fun to me.

Okay!  So far, so good.  But the next questions really did have me worried for a while.  Do angels have free will, and if they DO, does that mean that some of them are untrustworthy?  I mean, we all know that we can get ourselves into alls SORTS of trouble, even when we have the very best intentions . . . angels, too?  Hmmmm.  Well, we all know that at the very beginning of time some of the angels rebelled against God . . . so clearly they DID have free will at that point.  Some theologians argue, however, that after Lucifer was thrown out of heaven the fates of the angels were sealed and they lost their free will . . . those who had followed Lucifer were condemned to hell forever, and those who had remained loyal to God were secure in heaven for eternity.  Other theologians, however, argue that OF COURSE angels have free will . . . that’s how God seems to work . . . and that, yes, we DO need to be cautious when angels appear.

Well . . . after fretting over this question for a while, I finally thought, “Wait a minute!  Whether or not angels have free will, we DO need to be cautious with any divine apparition . . . because evil DOES exist.”  Remember Lucifer and all those other wicked angels.  They’re still around.  And the reason why evil can be so tempting is that it can be so ATTRACTIVE.  So, yes, we do always need to test the spirits.  In fact, the Bible tells us so.  So it doesn’t matter so much to us whether or not angels have free will . . . the important thing is the message they deliver  Whew!

So . . . then . . . this is more or less how I dealt with my questions.  Pretty good so far, huh?  And here we are . . . more than half way through the sermon . . . readings dismissed . . . troubling questions put aside . . . . and . . . well . . . so what?  Oh dear . . . .

I truly was stymied at this point for quite a while.  After wrestling with the texts and fretting over my questions . . . so what?  What about all of this might be helpful to you?  Finally, I realized that there is an important theme running through everything I just shared with you . . . have you already noticed it?  The theme is the importance of God’s message.  Ah, but what IS this message?  The message that the angels exist to deliver?  The message that comes to us eternally in an infinity of ways?  I believe that in the end God’s message to us is always the same . . . it is LOVE.

Angels were created to help God express God’s love.  God’s love . . . which is the cause and the sustainer of all creation.  Creation is saturated with love.  And God yearns to remind us of this . . . most especially when evil threatens.  Our worthiness or unworthiness has nothing to do with it . . . remember Jacob, that unsavory character in our first reading today.  He was a liar and a thief.  And yet God chose him.  Nor do we have to make special preparations or go to special places . . . again, remember Jacob.  He was in the middle of nowhere fleeing for his life.  It was an arid empty place, where there was only a rock for him to use as a pillow.  And God sent a vision of angels to him there.  The dream was so important that Jacob decided that the place must be especially holy.  But the truth is that everyplace is holy because everyplace is God’s . . . and everyplace – no matter how desolate or ugly – is saturated with God’s love.

This is the message that I think God is trying especially hard to deliver to us just now.  The world is indeed an uncertain place.  Evil is certainly at work.  At yet God’s love is everywhere.  Angels surround us, singing God’s love to us.  May we have eyes to see and ears to hear.  May we have hearts open to the Truth.

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