SERMON 26 September 2004   St Michael and All Angels 

 Readings:      Daniel 7: 9-10, 13-14        Psalm 138        Revelation 12: 7-12a        John 1: 45-51

 May our hearts and minds be open to the mystery of your being, O God. Amen.

Today we celebrate the feast of St Michael and all angels. The more I thought about this, the odder it seemed. Why the angels? Most of our feasts honour human saints, such as Luke or Mary, or celebrate pivotal points in the life of our Lord, such as Christmas and Easter. When the Anglican reformers ‘tidied up’ the old Roman Catholic lists of feasts, how is it that Michael and the angels survived? And, indeed, why Michael, rather than, say, Gabriel who featured so importantly in the events surrounding the birth of Jesus?  

Angels are not necessarily divine, spiritual beings. The English word ‘angel’ comes from the Greek word aggeloV - a messenger. In the Old Testament, with 2 exceptions, the Hebrew word for ‘angel’ is malak, also meaning ‘messenger’. And in both the Old and the New Testaments, the word can occasionally apply to human messengers. The prophet Malachi, who took his name from the word ‘malak’ said that a priest was a messenger of the Lord, for example, and in the Book of Revelation the elders of the seven churches of Asia are referred to as ‘angels’.  

However, the Biblical references to angels are overwhelmingly references to an order of divine, spiritual beings who are intermediate between God and humanity. As in the case of Gabriel in the birth narratives, they generally appear in the role of God’s messengers. In Jacob’s vision described in Genesis 28:12, and again in today’s Gospel reading, the angels are portrayed ascending and descending between heaven and earth: a very concrete image of the way the Biblical writers understand the angels making the connection between God and humanity.  

Do they exist? As one commentator has remarked, ‘It is easy for sceptical minds to see in the angelic hosts the mere play of Hebrew fancy and the rank growth of superstition’. And it is clear that the concept of angels was part of the Semitic thought-world. They appear in texts from throughout that part of the world and the influence of surrounding nations and of other religions can be seen in the Biblical account of the angels.  

Theologically, you could argue that angels are a bit of a nuisance, especially for Protestants. Why, after all, do we need messengers? The immediate connection between God and humanity has been sealed for all time through the incarnation, the crucifixion and the resurrection and we need no one to intercede for us. Saints are useful to us, not as intercessors, but as shining examples of human beings who have lived godly lives. Surely angels are utterly surplus to requirements and, possibly, simply the products of fevered imaginations.  

Well, that’s a possible approach, but the Biblical witness is pretty clear here: there are angels all over the place in the New Testament. So too, is the anecdotal witness of generation after generation of Christians. The human experience of angels is extraordinarily powerful. Punch ‘angels’ into any search engine and just see how many entries come up! On Google the other day I got 11,500,000. They feature in art, in popular religion – all those angel brooches! We make statues of them.  

Indeed, as most of you know, I went to a St Michael’s school and we were surrounded by images of St Michael. On a trip to the mainland, as we Tasmanians quaintly refer to most of the continent on which we find ourselves, the Principal, Sister Elizabeth May, was given yet another statue of St Michael to bring back to Hobart.  A wonderful gift but… almost life size (assuming St Michael to be vaguely human in dimension) and fragile. After some sweet-talking by Sr Elizabeth May, St Michael travelled to Hobart buckled into the seat beside her. Now, if you had been on that flight and had seen a nun with her very own angel, how would you have felt? 

Enough frivolity. Many have sought to make angels the subject of analytical study, identifying the various orders of angels described in the Bible and attempting to rank them and describe them. For interest’s sake, they are, in order of seniority:  Seraphim, Cherubim, Thrones, Dominations, Virtues, Powers, Principalities, Archangels and Angels.  

Which brings me to Michael, variously described as ‘the prince of angels’ and the head seraphim. The Jews regarded Michael as the special protector of Israel, and in Christian usage he became the protector of the church. He is also the patron saint of grocers, mariners, paratroopers, police and sickness. 

Michael is not your regular angel. I don’t know what your mental picture of an angel is but I am terminally lost in all those images of golden, ethereal beings clothed in long gowns, bedecked with gloriously feathery wings, just hanging around, perhaps with a harp or two.  

With Michael, however, we have the image of a military leader, organising the hosts of heaven to defeat evil. He is usually portrayed in battle dress and in the act of killing the dragon, just as he is in the central panel of the Sheffield window.  Somehow the image has become fossilised and the battledress is always a suit of armour. I can’t help but think that a bullet proof vest would be more comfortable with those wings, but perhaps I am being a bit too literal here.  

And indeed, it is a risk that we will take all these images too literally and populate our devotional worlds with all sorts of beings who are projections of our own desires and experiences. St Paul warns against cults of angels, presumably in response to a particular situation. In the letter to the Colossians he urges the fledgling church at Colossae to stay true to their understanding of the significance of Jesus and not to be daunted by people who try to dismiss them. He says,  ‘Do not let anyone disqualify you, insisting on self-abasement and worship of angels, dwelling on visions, puffed up without cause by a human way of thinking…’ (Col 2:18) 

The saints and the angels are not objects of worship in their own right – they point to the glory of God. The very name, Michael - ‘who is like God’ - says it all. They, like us, stand in worship of God: God, who is beyond description, ineffable, transcendant and yet intimately concerned with each one of us. God, whose passionate love for us, led to taking on our human flesh that we might more fully know the divine reality. As we celebrate this feast today, may our hearts and minds join with those of the saints and the angels in worship of the one true God.  Amen.

Sarah Macneil