Calling A Halt To The Angel Craze
Sermon
Sermons On The Second Readings
For Sundays In Advent, Christmas, And Epiphany
Some stout claims are made in today's lesson. God becomes one of us so we can become one of God's own. Hebrews says that Jesus stepped into our corrupt world to enable and empower you and me to do the extraordinary work of God on this earth. Rather than look for and tap into angelic resources, you and I are to recognize our own power to do something about this world as a response to our presence in the same family of God as is this Jesus, whom we call Lord.
The scripture is clear: Jesus was no angel! In fact, the lesson goes on to contrast the majestic and everlasting nature of Jesus with the subordinate and fleeting nature of angels. This is a message we need to hear. This scripture is not a letter or a lecture. It is a sermon for weary Christians. One can imagine the preacher spreading out a host of sermon notes on a pulpit1 and looking the congregation in the eyes before speaking. The preacher begins to evoke what God did not say about angels in the Hebrew Scriptures. The entire message is explicitly directed against angel worship. Obviously, the congregation being addressed sees no contradiction between the worship of God and the worship of angels. The crafty preacher to the Hebrews thinks it's time to call a halt to the angel craze. So he should! And so should you and I do the same.
As Fleming Rutledge has noted,2 this passage to the Hebrews could well "have been written this morning." Many of our congregations have much in common with the Hebrew congregation and its society. The congregation is in a state of arrested development as Christians. These Christians have grown weary in the Christian journey and are in danger of abandoning their Christian vocation. From such malaise and lack of commitment, angel worship is always an easy way out. Lawrence Cunningham of Notre Dame is correct: "To move angels center stage is to trivialize Christianity."3 Instead of expressing concern for the problems of the world, we can worship angels who are supposed to watch out for us. As Bob Ferguson contends, "We love angels because we can manipulate them to mean just about anything we desire -- which is what we have done with just about everything religious in this age."4
To posit that American society is in the throes of angel worship would be an understatement. From angel pens to angel dolls, from guardian angels to the self-help bestsellers which urge us to get in touch with our "inner angel," we are infatuated with the current mythology. It's like we have made angels household pets at best or magical talismans to help us avoid diseases at worst. In our biblically illiterate age, few realize that the biblical references to angels don't depict beings fluttering around carrying harps and songbooks. Halt! The Bible offers stern warnings against cults of angels.
Like the good preacher to the Hebrews, we have to assert what angels are not. Angels are basically of no interest in themselves. In scripture they have no separate existence apart from the presence of God. God is always present in any use of the word "angel." When angels appear, the divine world has broken through into this one. Such a breakthrough is never "cute." God's breakthroughs have always been concerned with feeding the poor, clothing the naked, caring for the sick, standing up for widows and the poor, and visiting the prisoners.
The great psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud handpicked a man named Carl Jung to succeed him in the psychoanalytic movement. Jung used to argue repeatedly that men and women have always needed demons and cannot live without gods. Indeed, we have made angels our own little personal "gods."
Jesus of Nazareth had a difficult time convincing people that God could work through the human process. Many people wanted Jesus to run for God. One day he actually had to get in a boat and cross a lake to escape a wild mob who tried to push the title of God on him. Yes, Jesus was very skeptical of those who needed great displays in order to function as sound individuals.
Jesus was so turned off by people's ambition for him that one day when he happened by a fig tree that had huge leaves on it, he cursed the tree, and it withered away. As an explanation he offered words similar to these: "It is not the season for figs." He knew that when the leaves of such a tree put on a grand display, fruit should be present. But on close inspection he found no fruit, only a great deal of foliage. The tree was cursed for its pretentiousness. It's as if Jesus just reached out and screamed, "Halt!"
Jesus pointed to his humanity as the place where God was working. He sought realization on the part of the people that there is something wonderful in being human and being loved by other humans. If we can accept the one God's working through fallible people, then we have no need of preserving pretentious little gods and no need to find demons to destroy.
John A. T. Robinson wrote a marvelous book titled The Human Face of God.5 In this work he viewed the man Jesus as the one who gave us God in human form and the tremendous implications that event has for us. Put simply, it means that salvation comes through the human process instead of through angels, gods, and demons.
Jesus' vocation, as he interpreted it, was to represent God and call on all who believed in this representative relationship to take on the task of also representing God.
This human aspect of the incarnation is extremely important for us.
Alfred North Whitehead said, "Moral education is impossible apart from the habitual vision of greatness." In other words, if you can't see yourself as a wonderful and incarnated part of God, it's virtually impossible to be moral no matter how many courses you take in values or ethics or religion or philosophy or whatever. If you can't see yourself as wonderful and good, how can you treat strangers as wonderful and good? We tend to grow like that to which we give our admiration. That essentially is what worship is about -- little people looking up; you and I looking up and seeing something great and good and wonderful in whose image we were created and redeemed through Christ.
The divine likeness is something all humans share. Reverence for God is shown in our reverence for other human beings. To be arrogant toward another man or woman is to be blasphemous toward God. To take sexual or physical advantage of another human being is to violate the wonder and goodness of God. And to violate the wonder and goodness of God is to violate the wonder and goodness of you. Jesus is right on both counts: "You will love your neighbor as you love yourself," and "The person who says he loves God but hates his brother and sister is a liar."
Jesus came to earth and taught people to see their wonder and goodness. No one had ever done that before. All other religious personalities had just focused on sins, on how far humans fall short. Jesus came to Matthew and he said, "Matthew, you're not just a tax collector. You are wonderful and you are good." Jesus focused on Mary Magdalene and said, "Mary, you're not an ordinary woman; you are wonderful and you are good." Jesus spoke to Peter: "You're not just a temperamental, volatile, redneck fisherman. You are wonderful and you are good." To the abuser Saul, Jesus through the Holy Spirit said, "You're not just an educated, conservative thug. You are wonderful and you are good."
To all of us Jesus said, "You are so wonderful and so good, that God has sent me to remind you of that and lay down my life for the forgiveness of anything in your past that might cause anyone to think otherwise."
It is only when we view ourselves as wonderful and good that we are truly free to affirm the wonder and goodness of similarly created children of God -- regardless of their beliefs, intellectual capacities, sexual orientation, or race.
The sermon to the Hebrews is clear: "Both the one who makes humans holy and those who are made holy are of the same family" (2:11). Jesus is not ashamed to call us brothers and sisters. We, dear friends, are called to be the guardian angels of the poor and the needy. Without our response to that call, we will subjectivize every religious experience. We may, in such malaise, have decorative angels throughout our homes. We may be full of light and energy to the degree that we can know what Zen masters mean by "the sound of one hand clapping."
But, in such times, one hopes some preacher like the one to the Hebrews will shout, "Halt!" Only then can we rearticulate the significance of Jesus Christ and stretch our limited response to his expansive call to us to get involved in our world.
____________
1. Thanks to Thomas E. Long, Hebrews: Interpretation, A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching (Louisville: John Knox Press, 1997), p. 4, for the image of the writer as a preacher spreading out notes.
2. Fleming Rugledge, The Bible and The New York Times (Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1998), p. 8. For an analysis of the congregation for which Hebrews was written, see Frances Taylor Gench, Hebrews and James (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1996), pp. 1-10.
3. As quoted by William H. Willimon, Pulpit Resource, Vol. 24, No. 4, p. 48.
4. Bob Ferguson, "Have You Seen An Angel Lately?" preached in Trinity Baptist Church, Seneca, South Carolina.
5. John A. T. Robinson, The Human Face of God (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1973). See especially pp. 212ff.
The scripture is clear: Jesus was no angel! In fact, the lesson goes on to contrast the majestic and everlasting nature of Jesus with the subordinate and fleeting nature of angels. This is a message we need to hear. This scripture is not a letter or a lecture. It is a sermon for weary Christians. One can imagine the preacher spreading out a host of sermon notes on a pulpit1 and looking the congregation in the eyes before speaking. The preacher begins to evoke what God did not say about angels in the Hebrew Scriptures. The entire message is explicitly directed against angel worship. Obviously, the congregation being addressed sees no contradiction between the worship of God and the worship of angels. The crafty preacher to the Hebrews thinks it's time to call a halt to the angel craze. So he should! And so should you and I do the same.
As Fleming Rutledge has noted,2 this passage to the Hebrews could well "have been written this morning." Many of our congregations have much in common with the Hebrew congregation and its society. The congregation is in a state of arrested development as Christians. These Christians have grown weary in the Christian journey and are in danger of abandoning their Christian vocation. From such malaise and lack of commitment, angel worship is always an easy way out. Lawrence Cunningham of Notre Dame is correct: "To move angels center stage is to trivialize Christianity."3 Instead of expressing concern for the problems of the world, we can worship angels who are supposed to watch out for us. As Bob Ferguson contends, "We love angels because we can manipulate them to mean just about anything we desire -- which is what we have done with just about everything religious in this age."4
To posit that American society is in the throes of angel worship would be an understatement. From angel pens to angel dolls, from guardian angels to the self-help bestsellers which urge us to get in touch with our "inner angel," we are infatuated with the current mythology. It's like we have made angels household pets at best or magical talismans to help us avoid diseases at worst. In our biblically illiterate age, few realize that the biblical references to angels don't depict beings fluttering around carrying harps and songbooks. Halt! The Bible offers stern warnings against cults of angels.
Like the good preacher to the Hebrews, we have to assert what angels are not. Angels are basically of no interest in themselves. In scripture they have no separate existence apart from the presence of God. God is always present in any use of the word "angel." When angels appear, the divine world has broken through into this one. Such a breakthrough is never "cute." God's breakthroughs have always been concerned with feeding the poor, clothing the naked, caring for the sick, standing up for widows and the poor, and visiting the prisoners.
The great psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud handpicked a man named Carl Jung to succeed him in the psychoanalytic movement. Jung used to argue repeatedly that men and women have always needed demons and cannot live without gods. Indeed, we have made angels our own little personal "gods."
Jesus of Nazareth had a difficult time convincing people that God could work through the human process. Many people wanted Jesus to run for God. One day he actually had to get in a boat and cross a lake to escape a wild mob who tried to push the title of God on him. Yes, Jesus was very skeptical of those who needed great displays in order to function as sound individuals.
Jesus was so turned off by people's ambition for him that one day when he happened by a fig tree that had huge leaves on it, he cursed the tree, and it withered away. As an explanation he offered words similar to these: "It is not the season for figs." He knew that when the leaves of such a tree put on a grand display, fruit should be present. But on close inspection he found no fruit, only a great deal of foliage. The tree was cursed for its pretentiousness. It's as if Jesus just reached out and screamed, "Halt!"
Jesus pointed to his humanity as the place where God was working. He sought realization on the part of the people that there is something wonderful in being human and being loved by other humans. If we can accept the one God's working through fallible people, then we have no need of preserving pretentious little gods and no need to find demons to destroy.
John A. T. Robinson wrote a marvelous book titled The Human Face of God.5 In this work he viewed the man Jesus as the one who gave us God in human form and the tremendous implications that event has for us. Put simply, it means that salvation comes through the human process instead of through angels, gods, and demons.
Jesus' vocation, as he interpreted it, was to represent God and call on all who believed in this representative relationship to take on the task of also representing God.
This human aspect of the incarnation is extremely important for us.
Alfred North Whitehead said, "Moral education is impossible apart from the habitual vision of greatness." In other words, if you can't see yourself as a wonderful and incarnated part of God, it's virtually impossible to be moral no matter how many courses you take in values or ethics or religion or philosophy or whatever. If you can't see yourself as wonderful and good, how can you treat strangers as wonderful and good? We tend to grow like that to which we give our admiration. That essentially is what worship is about -- little people looking up; you and I looking up and seeing something great and good and wonderful in whose image we were created and redeemed through Christ.
The divine likeness is something all humans share. Reverence for God is shown in our reverence for other human beings. To be arrogant toward another man or woman is to be blasphemous toward God. To take sexual or physical advantage of another human being is to violate the wonder and goodness of God. And to violate the wonder and goodness of God is to violate the wonder and goodness of you. Jesus is right on both counts: "You will love your neighbor as you love yourself," and "The person who says he loves God but hates his brother and sister is a liar."
Jesus came to earth and taught people to see their wonder and goodness. No one had ever done that before. All other religious personalities had just focused on sins, on how far humans fall short. Jesus came to Matthew and he said, "Matthew, you're not just a tax collector. You are wonderful and you are good." Jesus focused on Mary Magdalene and said, "Mary, you're not an ordinary woman; you are wonderful and you are good." Jesus spoke to Peter: "You're not just a temperamental, volatile, redneck fisherman. You are wonderful and you are good." To the abuser Saul, Jesus through the Holy Spirit said, "You're not just an educated, conservative thug. You are wonderful and you are good."
To all of us Jesus said, "You are so wonderful and so good, that God has sent me to remind you of that and lay down my life for the forgiveness of anything in your past that might cause anyone to think otherwise."
It is only when we view ourselves as wonderful and good that we are truly free to affirm the wonder and goodness of similarly created children of God -- regardless of their beliefs, intellectual capacities, sexual orientation, or race.
The sermon to the Hebrews is clear: "Both the one who makes humans holy and those who are made holy are of the same family" (2:11). Jesus is not ashamed to call us brothers and sisters. We, dear friends, are called to be the guardian angels of the poor and the needy. Without our response to that call, we will subjectivize every religious experience. We may, in such malaise, have decorative angels throughout our homes. We may be full of light and energy to the degree that we can know what Zen masters mean by "the sound of one hand clapping."
But, in such times, one hopes some preacher like the one to the Hebrews will shout, "Halt!" Only then can we rearticulate the significance of Jesus Christ and stretch our limited response to his expansive call to us to get involved in our world.
____________
1. Thanks to Thomas E. Long, Hebrews: Interpretation, A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching (Louisville: John Knox Press, 1997), p. 4, for the image of the writer as a preacher spreading out notes.
2. Fleming Rugledge, The Bible and The New York Times (Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1998), p. 8. For an analysis of the congregation for which Hebrews was written, see Frances Taylor Gench, Hebrews and James (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1996), pp. 1-10.
3. As quoted by William H. Willimon, Pulpit Resource, Vol. 24, No. 4, p. 48.
4. Bob Ferguson, "Have You Seen An Angel Lately?" preached in Trinity Baptist Church, Seneca, South Carolina.
5. John A. T. Robinson, The Human Face of God (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1973). See especially pp. 212ff.
