Sermon for St.
Michael and All Angels
St. Philip’s In The Hills Parish,
Tucson, AZ
The Rev. Vicki K. Hesse,
September 29, 2013
Lectionary readings for the day,
click here.
Open our lips, O Lord,
that our mouths might proclaim
your praise. Amen.
Today we
commemorate
the
Feast Day of St. Michael and All Angels.
Since
the Middle Ages, this day has
1) honored
St. Michael,
who
defeated Lucifer in the war in heaven,
and
2) recognized
the ministry of angels and archangels
who
“help to
defend us here on earth,” as today’s collect offers.
Scripture
reveals that angels serve two main functions.
First,
as messengers who serve and praise God and
second,
as non-material spiritual beings,
signs of
God’s power and will.
See, angels
reveal God’s grace in unexpected times and places.
And
since today is our annual Open House event,
we hope
you recognize all the angels in our midst
who have
prepared grand hospitality
to evoke
in you Jacob’s response,
“Surely
God is in this place!”
Angels
are quite popular in our culture.
From Chubby-cheeked
cherubim in greeting cards,
to TV
shows such as the 9-year hit "Touched by an Angel"
to movies
such as "It's a Wonderful Life" or
“Michael,”
staring John Travolta as the imperfect winged one
with the big belly laugh, who
loves to eat sugar and
smells
like homemade cookies…
Travolta
plays the famed Archangel with the tagline,
“He’s an
angel, not a saint.”
Michael
comes to earth to serve God in a specific task.
He is on
a mission to mend broken hearts.
Once he gets
Frank and Dorothy back in love,
he returns
to heaven.[1]
Or maybe he ascends to heaven,
like the
angels from our readings today.
Today’s gospel
is from the “call” story of the disciples
Philip,
Andrew, Peter and Nathanael – we hear the 2nd half;
presumably
1)to highlight angels (since this is their feast day).
and 2)
to draw us into the mystery at the heart of Christianity –
how could
Jesus, this ordinary human,
who until
then had
performed
no miracle, shown no sign, engaged in no teaching,
how
could Jesus really be Divine?
In this
text up till now, in this call story of the disciples
from
chapter 1 in John’s Gospel
Jesus
has proclaimed nothing about the reign of God
that
could excite the imagination of Philip or anyone else.
And when
Philip says to Nathanael that he has found
“the one
of whom it is written in the book of Moses and prophets,
Jesus son of Joseph
from Nazareth,”
Nathanael
is scoffs.
“Can
anything good come out of Nazareth?”
That’s a
familiar sensation; and it made me wonder
…if
there is a little bit of Nathanael in all of us, right?
I wonder
if our mistrust or skepticism get the better of us.
Can
anything good come out of … Congress?
Can anything
good come out of … that mega-store
who shall not be named moving into the
neighborhood nearby?
Can
anything good come out of …a Vestry meeting?
Are we
tired?
Are we
jumping to conclusions
about
how the future will unfold, like Nathanael?
*pause*
So
Philip replies to Nathanael, simply, “Come and see!”
Today,
Jesus says to us, “Come and See!”
When Jesus
sees Nathanael across the way,
under
his breath, Jesus remarks,
“here is
truly an Israelite in whom there is no deceit.”
Or, in many
translations, no “guile” –
no
cunning, no craftiness, no slyness.
Nathanael
wears his mistrust, doubt and wariness,
like a protective vest; “Where did you
get to know me?”
Jesus
replies,
“I saw
you under the fig tree.”
Jesus
“saw” him even before Philip called him.
Jesus
“saw” him.
This
“seeing” reminded me of the SciFi movie Avatar.
Human explorer
Jake Sully takes on the digitized body form
of the
Navi race to befriend the tribe, ultimately
to gain access to precious metals
to save humanity.
In avatar
form, Jake meets Neytiri,
a full
blooded Navi, and they develop a love interest.
There is
that scene where these two get to know each other.
Jake
learns the tribal greeting, from Neytiri, “I See You.” [2]
Neytiri
explains: when Navi persons “see” each other,
they
allow this greeting to deeply affect them,
and it
affirms that they are One tribe.
While
that is sci-fi, it seems this is what happened between Jesus and Nathanael.
Jesus “saw” him –
from the
depths of his soul, to the last hairs on his head
looking
right through his outerwear of doubt
– Jesus saw
him.
And,
Jesus sees us – profoundly, deeply.
*pause*
Trappist
monk and writer Thomas Merton
calls this
*seeing* “Le Point Vierge,” “The Virgin
Point.”
At this
mysterious center of our being,
Le Point
Vierge is that point,
“…which
is untouched by sin and by illusion,
a point
of pure truth, a point or spark
which
belongs entirely to God, …
from
which God disposes of our lives,
which is
inaccessible to the fantasies
of our
own mind or the brutalities of our own will.”[3]
Le Point
Vierge – is where
Jesus
sees us, loves us and calls us,
even
before our friends invite us here.
Well,
Jesus’ remark surprises even Nathanael.
and elicits
a response appropriate to the Divine –
that
wild profusion of messianic titles,
“You are
the Son of God! You are the King of
Israel!”
echoing Jacob’s comment, “Surely God is in this place!”
Pause
Nathanael’s
believing response
was not
based on empirical evidence, not on facts,
but on the mystery and sureness of
love -on being
seen (and known).
Jesus then
invites Nathanael
to go
deeper – to go beyond his “belief.”
Jesus
invites us, too,
to go
deeper – to go beyond our “belief.”
Today, in
our Open House event,
in the
mystery of the liturgy,
in the
song notes floating above the musicians,
in the
smiles of children who yearn for love,
in the
presence of Jesus in the breaking of the bread,
today, we
are invited to go beyond our “belief.”
“Do you
believe just because I saw you under the fig tree?” Jesus asks.
“Well,”
he continues,
“…you
ain’t seen nothing yet! –
you will
see greater things that these!”
Here, something
interesting happens in the Greek text,
Jesus
switches pronouns to plural “you” as in “y’all”.
Jesus
says, (in a southern vernacular)
“Truly I
tell y’all, y’all will see heaven opened
and the
angels of God ascending and descending
up on
the Son of Man.”
He
addresses not just Nathanael,
but all
the disciples who were there gathered –
Philip,
Andrew, Peter…
And he
is addressing us, as his disciples.
We can’t
help but make a connection
between
this image of angels ascending and descending
and Jacob’s
vision of the ladder of angels at Bethel
from our
first reading.
In that
connection to Jacob, and in Jesus’ remarks,
we
realize this text is not just about Jesus;
it is
about Nathanael
Nathanael
is “seen” by Jesus as one awesome Israelite
“in whom
there is no deceit” – no “guile.”
See, although
*Jacob*
was divinely given the name Israel
after he wrestled with the angel all night,
*Jacob*
was known as one who saw God face to face
and was utterly transformed by the encounter,
*Jacob* was
a man who had guile,
having deceived his brother Esau
out of his father’s blessing.
When Nathanael
is “seen” by Jesus
as an
“Israelite without guile”
Nathanael
becomes a new Jacob…
Nathanael,
beholding Jesus, is seeing the very face of God
and is utterly transformed…
Nathanael,
as the guileless Jacob,
is the prototype of a new humanity reborn in Christ.
And in
that seeing, Jesus reveals himself as the ultimate ladder
stretching between heaven and earth,
with angels ascending and descending.
Jesus connects
the finite and infinite, time and eternity.
The good
news today is that this text is about us, too.
We are
transformed in the presence of this Holy One.
*pause*
When we love
God and each other with our “whole heart,”
when we
love our neighbors as ourselves,
when we share
the sign of peace,
we are
beholding the face of God.
And we
are all utterly transformed by the encounter.
Can
anything good come out of Nazareth?
Can
anything good come out of an Open House event?
*pause*
Realistically, I think Lutheran Pastor Nadia
Bolz-Weber
is right
when she reminds us that
while
church is founded on God’s love for all people,
it is a
human project and of that I don’t want to be idealistic.
Realistically, it’s a human project
with
human mistakes and human foibles.
Realistically when you come and “see” us
today,
it is
possible that at some point,
I or
someone in the church will let you down.
Please
decide on this side of that happening
that you
will still stick around; that you will revisit.
Because
if you leave, you will miss the way the heavens open,
the angels ascend and
descend and the way that
God's
grace unexpectedly fills in the cracks
of our
brokenness.
“And *that*
is something too beautiful to miss.Don't miss it.”[4]
Come and
see, take a tour, enjoy the hospitality,
tell
your story, come and “see” us.
Jesus
invites us to co-create God’s kingdom here on earth:
a new
humanity, a new reality, a new body of Christ –
and, you
will see more than that!
You will
see angels revealing God’s grace
in
unexpected times and places.
For
that, we praise God,
joining
our voices with angels and archangels,
and all
the company of heaven!
Amen
[1] Summarized from http://bit.ly/1eCTesV
cited on September 23, 2013
[2] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jay-michaelson/the-meaning-of-avatar-eve_b_400912.html
cited on September 26, 2013
[3] As
described by Kathleen Deignan in Thomas
Merton, A Book of Hours, note 25, page 30. Originally included in his Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander,
(Image Publishing, 1968)
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