Angels Watchin' Over Me (Reflections on the Feast of St. Michael and All Angels, 2024)

 

Those who are wise shall shine like the brightness of the sky, and those who lead the many to righteousness, like the stars forever and ever. (Daniel 12:3)

Happy Michaelmas!

Yes, this Sunday is the feast of Saint Michael and All Angels, a festival celebrated annually on September 29^th by Lutherans as well as by our Roman Catholic and Anglican brothers and sisters.[i] It’s a tradition dating back to the fifth century when a basilica near Rome was dedicated to the Archangel Michael. In the Middle Ages Michaelmas signaled the start of Autumn, and was a time when tenant farmers, who were just bringing their crops to market, were called upon to settle accounts with their overlords and pay their rent.[ii] Later, in English schools the festival signaled the start of the fall term. For whatever reason our ancestors had, it was celebrated by feasting on a goose.

In recent years the festival has been enlarged from celebrating Michael to contemplating all the heavenly messengers and the messages they bring.

I confess I never thought much about angels. For me, an angel was a member of the American League baseball team I followed via my Westinghouse AM clock radio when I was a kid growing up in Southern California.[iii] I hadn’t given much mental energy to contemplating the presence of invisible (or maybe not-so-invisible) spiritual beings which might be surrounding us at this very minute. Nevertheless, the belief in angels goes back a long, long time. Our Jewish brothers and sisters and our Muslim brothers and sisters also believe in angels. Throughout the centuries some people have felt a divine presence which, if it were not exactly God, was at least someone on God’s payroll.

The Bible is full of references to these beings. If you look at Genesis, there’s the story of Hagar (the slave girl Abraham was fooling around with when he thought his wife couldn’t get pregnant) being rescued by an angel in the wilderness (Genesis 16:7-9). There’s the story of Jacob seeing angels on a ladder to Heaven (Genesis 28:12). Moses was promised that an angel would go before him and the children of Israel to help them whoop the locals and take over the Promised Land (Exodus 33:2). There are a bunch of other angel sightings in the Hebrew Scriptures, including visions to Elijah, Isaiah, and Daniel[iv].

As Christians, we usually think of angels in connection to the Christmas story: the announcement of the birth of John the Baptist, the announcement to Mary that she’ll be the mother of Jesus, the announcement to the perplexed Joseph telling him to chill and raise this baby as his own, and the stupendous appearance of the Heavenly Host to the shepherds on the night Jesus is born. The angels do what they’re supposed to do: bring messages from God—no matter how unexpected, wonderful, or weird those messages might be.

Michael is called an archangel, which means he’s pretty much the top angel. He is referenced in the First Lesson assigned for this feast Sunday (Daniel 10:10-14, 12:1-3) by an un-named angel who tells the hero Daniel that Michael is a protector of the Jewish people. In the New Testament epistle of Jude, we’re told that Michael contended with Satan for the body of Moses, and the book of Revelation (our Second Lesson for Michaelmas, Revelation 12:7-12) depicts Michael as a warrior angel who kicked Satan’s butt out of heaven[v]. In art, he’s almost always depicted wearing armor and brandishing a sword. Michael is pretty much a badass as angels go.

Jewish literature lists the names of some angels and a taxonomy and hierarchy of their different types and jobs. Basically, however, an angel is a messenger of God. The main duties of angels, as we find them in the Bible, are a) praising God, b) delivering messages from God, c) protecting and rescuing God’s faithful, and d) acting as agents of God’s divine judgment.

I don’t know about you, but I can’t say I’ve ever experienced the supernatural presence of one of God’s angels, but I have been inspired time and again by some flesh-and-blood folks who could very well qualify as angels given the above job description. In fact, in the gospel appointed for Michaelmas (Luke 10:17-20), Jesus commends the twelve disciples for their mission trip and tells them they’ve been warriors who have made Satan fall just as Michael did. Those who spread God’s Word and share God’s love are given authority over the power of the enemy. We are called to do the work of the angels—praising, proclaiming, protecting and nurturing, and standing up for the righteousness of God in a culture which is violent, wasteful, selfish, and uncaring.

I believe in angels—seen and unseen. As I said, there have been a few times in my life when I’ve experienced unexpected, but greatly needed, acts of kindness. When I’ve been down or discouraged some individual has appeared who has been a comfort or has shared a word of wisdom. When I interview the families of the deceased in preparation for a funeral service, I always close the conversation with prayer, and I always pray that God would send a messenger—a person who can come into the life of the bereaved as a bearer of patience and understanding amidst the loss and grief.

We all like to think our departed loved ones have become angels. Maybe they have. Who’s to say? But all the messengers and the protectors, and the friends we have are gifts from God. We are in the presence of the angels now, just as the old spiritual (which I learned at the now-defunct St. Michael’s Lutheran in Germantown) says:

“All night, all day: angels watching over me, my Lord. All night, all day, I got angels watching over me.”

May the angels bless you this week, my friend. May they keep you safe and bring you God’s peace.

 

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[i] The Easter Orthodox Communion also celebrates Michaelmas, but they do it on November 8^th. They like to be different.

[ii] Fun fact: The person elected to collect rents and settle accounts was called a “reeve.” The term for a reeve of a shire or “shire’s reeve,” gave rise to the tern sheriff. Hence, St. Michael is also the patron saint of law enforcement professionals.

[iii] My parents got me the clock radio when I was about eleven years old, and it lasted me all the way through graduate school. It was obtained by redeeming the now-outlawed coupons which were once attached to packs of cigarettes. When you collected enough coupons, you could turn them in for cool stuff. I got the clock radio. My mom got emphysema.

[iv] Excuse me if I don’t list all the textual citations. You can look them up yourself or take my word for it, okay?

[v] There are also some references to Michael in the Apocryphal books of Tobit and Enoch.

I'm Thinking About the Kids (Reflections on Pentecost 18, Year B 2024)

 

“Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.” (Mark 9:37)

I love Raelyn. She’s the great-granddaughter of one of our faithful members at Faith Lutheran of Philadelphia. She’s just started preschool, and she loves to come to church. She gets to sit with great-grandma in the Praise Team chairs, and she sometimes accompanies our singing with percussion instruments—under great-grandma’s strict supervision, of course. But, as four-year-old little girls are wont, she often likes to scamper around the worship space to sit with her auntie or to retreat to the adjacent nursery room when Pastor is giving his boring sermon.

I don’t mind. There was a time, you’ll recall, when children were to be seen and not heard. A certain large, Evangelical denomination was known for insisting children under twelve years of age be sent to “Children’s Church” and not permitted in the main worship space while services were being conducted. Remember when a crying baby or a fussing toddler in church would provoke blood-freezing stares of indignation from the sedate elders of the congregation? An inappropriate squeal was tantamount to a crime against humanity. I sure hope we’ve gotten past that. Ever since COVID-19 decimated our church Sunday School, I am grateful when anyone young enough to still have their own gall bladder comes through our doors. Of the many crimes Christians—with all good intentions, I’m sure—commit is sending the unspoken message that children are not welcome in church.

When I was younger, I never really had time for little kids. I spent a number of years in the Los Angeles Unified School District teaching adolescents, but I never had the gift my sister Lorraine has for reaching the real little ones. But now that I’m in my sixties, a very curious thing has happened to me. I’ve started to find little children charming. Perhaps because I’ve never had any of my own. I never had to change diapers or lose sleep with a cranky baby or ferry a kid to ballet or Lettle League. I never had to do the dirty work of parenting, and yet, I find myself thinking about kids more and more.

Did you know that, according to the Children’s Defense Fund, over eleven million children in the United States are living at or below the poverty line? What’s going to happen to them? What effect will global climate change have on our kids? Do you realize that children now engage in “Active Shooter” drills in public school? And what kind of economy are we leaving them? How can we make future generations our priority?

In the world of our gospel lesson for Pentecost 18, Year B ((Mark 9:30-37), it’s pretty clear kids weren’t a priority. Jesus uses a little child as an object lesson, an illustration of the weakest and least important in the society. The Greek word used (piadion[i]) does not identify the gender of the child, but I always imagine this is a little girl. Girls were valued even less than boys and considered to be the property of their fathers until they were of age to become the property of their husbands.

Jesus challenges us in this passage—as Jesus always does—to think beyond ourselves. His numbskull disciples are busy arguing about their status, but Jesus wants them—and us—to deny ourselves and start thinking about our brothers and sisters who are in need. I wonder if young people have deserted the Christian Church in America because they’ve seen or heard only an emphasis on individual salvation or self-actualization. I wonder if the Millennials and Gen-Z’s aren’t starving for a relationship with the Savior whose primary concern is for the weakest members of society. Do they look into the future and see a freight train of disaster or injustice coming at them and ask what we’re doing to derail it?

If young people want a church at all, I suspect they want a church in mission. Granted, there’s not a whole heck of a lot a little chapel like Faith Lutheran[ii] can do to change the world, but we can still change part of it. We lost a lot when the COVID pandemic changed the model of ministry which allowed us to shelter the temporarily unhoused in our basement during the summer. Recently, however, we’ve received an overture from our Lutheran food bank and advocacy ministry Feast of Justice. They’re asking us to put together a team to greet and supply some of the 2,000 neighbors who come to their door each week because of food insecurity. Yes, nice church folks can always write a check to help the needy, but it’s a whole different thing to look them in the eye. Jesus warns us that his mission isn’t always going to be smooth and convenient. It might even be a little uncomfortable[iii], but I’m praying this ministry will be meaningful and impactful for all who participate.

And I don’t think anyone would mind if we brought little Raelyn along.

I’m glad you dropped by this week. Take a chance and get a little more involved, won’t you?

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[i] In fact, even the personal pronoun (auto) is neutral. Our Bible translates the pronoun as “it” as our Greek Bible authors had no distinct pronouns for “he” or “she.” Still, I hate to think of a child as an “it.”

[ii] We’re down to about 30 in-person worshipers per Sunday, and half of them are over the age of 70. Sound like your church?

[iii] Like the cross was.

Jesus Who? (Reflections on Pentecost 17, Year B 2024)

 

He asked them, “But who do you say that I am?” Peter answered him, “You are the Messiah.” And he sternly ordered them not to tell anyone about him. (Mark 8:29)

I’m pretty excited and more than a little intimidated as I begin writing this post. In a few hours I’ll be teaching my first Confirmation class of the fall season. I’ve got five brand new students, ranging in age from eleven to seventeen, who will join me over Zoom. None of them fall into the classification of “regular churchgoers,” so I’ll bet they’d rather eat a bucket of dead worms than spend thirty minutes with a 65-year-old pastor talking about religion. Nevertheless, I will endeavor to pound a little spiritual information into their Gen-Z skulls. That’s about all I can do. I can’t give them faith, but I can give them information. I can try to tell them who Jesus is.

Who we say Jesus is happens to be the subject of the gospel text appointed in the Revised Common Lectionary for Pentecost 17, Year B (Mark 8:27-38, and wasn’t that a slick way I introduced the topic?). If I were to ask the average Lutheran Joe or Josephine Pew Sitter the question Jesus put to the disciples, what do you think the answer might be? It might go like this:

ME: Who do you say Jesus is?

THEM: He’s my Savior.

ME: But what does that mean?

THEM: He died for my sins.

ME: But what does that mean?

What do you think the next response would be? What would your response be? Do you ever get the urge to go beyond the churchy language and really wrestle with what your faith in Jesus means and why it’s important to you? Certainly, some will say they call upon Jesus in time of need and find him a comforter and a helper. Others might say they look to Jesus as the model of the Godly life. I like that last part, but our gospel lesson shows us he’s a pretty weird model to follow—a model who tells us he’s going to be rejected and killed and then urges us to deny ourselves and take up our cross in order to be his followers.

What is it, exactly, that Jesus models? What tells us about who he is? He’s certainly rather modest. He doesn’t want his identity to be made known. He lowers himself to wash the feet of his disciples like a slave would do. He looks silly riding into Jerusalem on a baby donkey. He clearly has empathy for others. He breaks society’s rules and hangs out with the “wrong” crowd and accepts unacceptable people. He tells people they’re forgiven. He preaches non-violence and love for the poor and for enemies. He reminds us that everyone is our neighbor. And he talks back to authority. Maybe that’s something my Confirmation students could get into. You think?

In the gospel reading Peter identifies Jesus as the Messiah. Jesus doesn’t deny this, but he doesn’t want this bit of news to be spread around. I always figured—and I think the story bears this out—that Jesus knows people will misinterpret that title. For Peter, the anointed one of God would be a political leader and a real badass warrior who would vanquish the enemies of the nation. It seems that for a lot of folks living in America today, that is exactly how they see Jesus[i]. As Christianity slips out of the mainstream of American life a breed of Christian jihadists has sprung up to fight what they perceive are the forces of Satan. They will rescue unborn babies, revoke LGBTQ+ rights, ban books, dictate curriculum to teachers, put the Ten Commandments in public school classrooms, eliminate inclusive language, and champion a whole truckload of their other cultural priorities—and do it with a screaming zeal that would seem excessive from the Taliban.

Who are they saying Jesus is?

Who does the American Church say Jesus is? Or do we say it at all? Are we locked into our institutional vocabulary and figure that’s enough? What do our actions say about the one we worship? If you’d never heard of Jesus, what message would you take away from the Church? What should I tell my new Confirmation students? I need to ponder this because I want them to confirm a living faith, not just conform to an institutional church.

Who do you say Jesus is? What do your actions, your words, and the way you live your life say about you and Jesus? What are we telling our kids about who Jesus is?

Think about it, won’t you? Maybe have a little talk with Jesus this week. I’m always glad you stopped by.

                                                            

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[i] You may want to google the names Lance Wallnau or Greg Locke or the term Christian Nationalism.

Are You Open to This? (Reflections on Pentecost 16,Year B2024)

 

Pietro del Po (Italian, 17th Cent.)

Now the woman was a gentile, of Syrophoenician origin. She begged him to cast the demon out of her daughter. He said to her, “Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” But she answered him, “Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.” (Mark 7:26-28)

I love Starbucks. Seriously. Sometimes I just like to sit in my favorite Starbucks, savor a grande dark roast, pair it with some pastry, and read a chapter or two of an Agatha Christie novel. It’s pure heaven. I’m not at home. I’m not at work. I’m at my own little table where nobody can bother me.

Except somebody always does.

One of the baristas or somebody who drops in who knows I’m a pastor will come up to me and ask me to pray for their cousin or something. I can’t just say, “Sorry. I’m taking a break now. Could you ask me later?” You see, I never stop being a pastor because I never stop being a Christian. Anybody else might be able to say, “Call my office tomorrow and make an appointment.” I can’t. Belief in Christ and what Our Lord stands for never takes a rest. At least it shouldn’t.

In the gospel lesson for Pentecost 16, Year B (Mark 7: 24-37) Jesus is actually trying to put a little distance between himself and a hurting humanity. The Church has always taught that Jesus was fully God, but we sometimes forget he was fully human, too. Here he is up around Tyre, which was the stomping ground of the old Philistines[i]. Nobody up there was supposed to know about him since they were all a different religion and nationality. It would be like Taylor Swift going to some tiny island in the Indian Ocean to get away from her fans.[ii] But—wouldn’t you know it?—along comes this foreign chick who has actually heard of Jesus and she’s got a demonically possessed daughter. What’s the Savior to do?

(By the way, it’s not that uncommon to have a demonically possessed child, is it? She could be hooked on meth or she spends like a Kardashian or she binge eats and then barfs or she’s just brought home a loser boyfriend with a neck tattoo whom she says she loves. There are lots of demons that can attack our children and if one ever gets your child, you’ll do anything to rescue her. I’m just saying.)

What’s really troubling about this particular Bible tale is Jesus’ reaction. He actually tries to send this worried and hurting mom away. It seems he’s telling her that, since she’s not Jewish, she and her wacky kid aren’t entitled to any compassion. Exorcising the demon from this girl, he says, is like throwing children’s food to dogs—and “dogs,” in the world of this text, was not a compliment. He’s basically said, “Go away, bitch. You’re not deserving of compassion.”

So, what are we to make of this? It doesn’t sound like the Jesus we know and love, does it? You’ve got to ask why Mark included this remark in his gospel. Was Jesus trying to test the woman? If so, that’s almost as cruel as dismissing her. What if she took him at his word and went away? Her daughter would still be sick and hopeless. Or, what if Jesus, being fully human, was echoing the party line of his place and time and intentionally keeping apart from gentiles? I like that explanation better. That would mean the woman’s plea for compassion—noting that compassion is even shown to dogs—had moved Jesus and changed his thinking. He was deeply touched by what she had to say. It opened his thinking and caused him to open his ministry to Jews and gentiles alike.

But let’s not move away too fast from Jesus’ shocking insult to this poor mother. Calling her a “dog” was to call her less than human.[iii] We should take time to consider how often we dehumanize others whom we find “not like us” or “undeserving.” We can so easily relegate immigrants, refugees, the homeless, or welfare recipients to the status of “those people.” Former President Trump has openly referred to those seeking refuge at the southern border of the United States as “animals.”[iv]It is the nature of all human conflict to see other people as subhuman. This way we need not consider they are children made in the image of God just as we. We can kill them or starve them as we please without troubling our conscience—and it all begins with the words we use to describe them.

As I stated above, I believe this moment in Mark’s narrative is another turning point in Jesus’ ministry. It’s similar to his baptism, the call of the twelve disciples, and the journey to and entry into Jerusalem which begins the last chapter of his earthly life. This is the moment when he shows us that we all are God’s Chosen People. The miraculous healing of the deaf mute which follows reinforces this new ministry focus. If Jesus left Tyre by way of Sidon (v. 31), he would still be in gentile territory. His encounter with this unfortunate foreign fellow is even more poignant than the exorcism he’s just performed. He only phoned in the healing of the possessed daughter. Now he actually touches the unclean gentile who needs his help. There’s a moment of personal intimacy when he tells the man to “be opened.”

Maybe that’s what Jesus is also telling us. We are to open our ears and really listen to one another. And we are to let our tongues speak truly and not carelessly, remembering God’s love and desire for healing and wholeness are for everyone.

Let’s all try to be a little more open this week, okay? Thank you for taking these moments with me. Feel free to leave me a comment, and please come again.

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[i] You remember them? They were the bad guys in much of the Old Testament.

[ii] Assuming, of course, that there exists such a place that’s never heard of Taylor Swift.

[iii] That is, in the world of the text. I sometimes think my dog is slightly more than human. But that’s just me.

[iv] See this link: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2018/05/16/trump-immigrants-animals-mexico-democrats-sanctuary-cities/617252002/