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We are weak and angels are wild. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy

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Spirit. Amen. Well, please forgive my slightly irreverent

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opening line, but today we are observing the feast of

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St. Michael and all angels.

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And I don't know about you, but I don't typically spend a lot of time thinking

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about angels. It's kind of a very strange, weird concept for me.

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And in preparing this sermon, and as occasionally I think about the other spiritual

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realms and realities, I realize there are really two

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errors, and for every mile of road, there's two miles of ditch.

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I am kind of a naturally skeptical person.

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If you tell me that you heard from and saw an angel, I would have a really hard

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time believing you, and that doesn't reflect well on me, I know.

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But what we hear today in the scriptures, and what Christian tradition gives us,

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is that we are forced to admit that the Christian faith describes a world that is

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larger than the one we can imagine.

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Two ditches. The first is like myself, where we forget the

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unseen.

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John Henry Newman, one of the great figureheads of the Oxford movement, would say,

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"The sin of ours is that is what is called the sin of an educated age, such as

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our own, to account slightly of them, spiritual beings, or not at

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all. The danger, that is, of resting in things seen and forgetting unseen things

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and our ignorance about them." We trust what can be seen, studied,

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quantified, and tested, and if something cannot be put under a microscope, we

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quietly demote it to a metaphor, to our great detriment.

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The second ditch is maybe of those who are fascinated with things unseen,

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spiritual things, but detach it from the person of Christ.

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We are seeing in our generation a renewed hunger for spirituality.

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You may have heard about the quiet revival going on, which is not so much a

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revival, but definitely a renewed interest in spiritual matters

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of the younger generations. But this often takes the shape of tarot cards,

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crystals, manifesting, witchcraft, vague language about angels and energies.

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One of the great ad agencies of the world, Wunderman Thompson, that actually coined

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the term marketing in the 1960s, recently published a report called "The Age of

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Re-enchantment." It highlighted that while the younger generation has lost the

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language of faith, they retain a strong intuition that there is

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something more. "If there is a spirit of the age," the report says, "it would look

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a lot like fear. As younger generations come of age in an uncertain world, they are

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seeking meaning and control in practices like tarot, crystals, and manifesting." In

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fact, among Gen Z, 51% report an interest in non-traditional

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spirituality. Compare that to the 34% of the total population.

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We're definitely seeing something taking place that is piquing our interest

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again in unseen things. But one ditch says only the material world is

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real. The other says the spiritual world is real, and perhaps it can be managed,

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harnessed, or used. Our faith says something even harder and stranger.

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The unseen world is real, it is not ours to control, and it

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belongs to God.

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We are not as strong as we imagine, and we are not as alone as

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we fear. Creation is larger than we can see.

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I don't know about you, but I'm a very outdoorsy kind of person.

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I come from a family of hunters, and I've spent a-- Doing hiking, climbing all over

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different places. And there have been a few times being out in the wilderness that

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I've experienced the presence of a creature that is more superior to myself.

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My father's been hunting a few times in Africa, and hearing him describe the

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sensation of when an apex predator turns and looks at you as an afternoon

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snack. When you suddenly realize that you're not at the top of the food

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chain. We are really just fleshy meat sacks, weak beings.

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And that feeling of being confronted with absolute superiority can be terrifying.

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Maybe you've experienced it on the trail, where you hear the rumble of a bear or a

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mountain lion and realize there is real danger out there.

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But our weakness is not only physical.

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We have an astonishing susceptibility to being deceived.

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Revelation 12, which we heard in our epistle this morning, "The dragon is that

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ancient serpent, the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world and the

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accuser of the brethren." There are forces at work that are larger than an

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individual human will. Evil, we know, is not merely bad

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choices. Scripture describes a conflict that exceeds us, that is

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beyond us, that is outside of the realm that we can easily see and measure.

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And this feast of St. Michael and all angels becomes good news in that

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reality. God has not left us to our own capabilities.

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The collect today, if you would look at it, and if you remember, "O everlasting

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God, who hast ordained and constituted the service of angels and men in a wonderful

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order." The collect tells us two things, beautifully.

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Two things about the basic work of angels.

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One, they serve God in Heaven, and two, at God's command, they help and

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defend us on Earth. Their first work is that of the worship of God.

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Isaiah 6 says, "In the year King Uzziah died," you may remember this, and he's

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caught up in this wonderful vision of the heavenly realms, and he sees the seraphim

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as they veil their faces before the throne of God, crying, "Holy, holy, holy is the

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Lord of Hosts. The whole earth is full of His glory." And then again, in Revelation

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4, "Day and night without ceasing, the angels say: Holy, holy, holy, the

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Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come." And in

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Luke 2, the multitude of heavenly hosts at the announcing of the coming of Jesus,

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"Glory to God in the highest." Do you recognize these words? I hope so.

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We do this every week at the table. Therefore, with angels and

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archangels, and with all the company of Heaven.

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When we say that, here this is a description of reality which is already

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underway. The church does not begin our worship of God on Sunday morning.

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We enter a worship that is going on from the foundations of the Earth and

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already underway. The Sanctus is the song of Heaven,

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given to the church on Earth. And just as we pray on Earth as it is in Heaven,

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at that moment, we join with the angels in coming before the throne of God.

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How is it that we reclaim awe and worship?

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I don't know any other way than to be cognizant of the reality that is just

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slightly outside our field of view, and we participate in that worship in

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a very real way every time we come before this table, and we

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participate in the reception of Christ's body and blood.

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We must reclaim awe and worship, not because the church ought to feel impressive,

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but because the one before whom even the seraphim veil their faces is

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who we come before every week. John Henry Newman, again, would say, "The very

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seraphim hide their faces before His glory while they praise Him.

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And how shamefaced then should we sinners be when we come into His presence."

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Number two, the second work of the angels is their work on behalf of God's people.

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Hebrews 1:14 says, "Are not all angels spirits in the divine service,

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sent to serve for the sake of those who are to inherit salvation?" And again,

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in our collect, "By your appointment, they may help and defend us here

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on earth." What we see in scripture, a few angels that are named specifically.

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Michael serves by fighting, as we heard in our epistle, Gabriel by announcing, the

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angels at Bethlehem by praising, at the tomb they serve by witnessing, at the

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ascension they serve by redirecting the apostles and the disciples to where they

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will find Jesus. The glory of the angels is their obedience,

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not their power. It's their proximity to Jesus and their obedience to him.

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That is the glory of angels.

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Revelation 12 shows that angels also are in

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the midst of a very real conflict with evil.

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"Our struggle," Ephesians says, "is not against enemies of blood and flesh, but

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against spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places."

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But Christian warfare is this:

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worship, prayer, truth, holiness, repentance, resistance to

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deception, and witness,

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not fascination with spiritual powers.

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Because the angels point beyond themselves.

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The angels point beyond themselves in all their work to the person of Christ.

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And just as we can feel that sense of smallness in front of a great apex predator,

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when a great being points you to something bigger than itself,

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pay attention.

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There's something almost comical in the Bible about interactions of angels with

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humans.

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I think of it sometimes, they're like big brothers.

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Do you have kids or were you a big sibling?

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And you get a little annoyed with the little sibling occasionally, right?

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Sometimes the angels sound very annoyed at our inability to see what's around us.

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Luke 1, he says to Zechariah, "I'm Gabriel," he says, a little frustrated at

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Zechariah, "And I have been sent to speak to you and bring you this good news.

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But now, because you didn't believe my words," hear big brother or big sister here

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getting a little frustrated, "you will become mute."

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And in Matthew 28, the angel said to the women, "See? I told you.

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He's risen." Off to something a little bit more interesting.

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Luke 24, "Why

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do you look for the living among the dead?" Well, a guy just died and now he rose

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again. Of course, why are we going to be confused?

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And the angels are just like, "Whatever. Why can't you figure this out?

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Why can't you see this?" Acts 1, they said, "Men of Galilee, why do you stand

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looking up towards heaven?" A guy just ascended into the heavens.

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Of course, I'm going to be a little curious about what's going on.

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Again and again, the angels say, "Don't look at us.

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Look where we're pointing. Look what we're telling you to do.

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Look who we're telling you to pay attention to.

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Look who we're telling you to listen to."

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Jacob saw a ladder reaching from earth to heaven with angels ascending and

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descending, and he woke and said, "Surely this is the gate of heaven,

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and I wasn't aware of it." And then in our gospel, Jesus takes this image and

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centers it on himself. "You will see heaven open and the angels of God ascending

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and descending upon the Son of Man," serving him, proclaiming him.

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Jesus is the gate of heaven. He is the meeting place of heaven and earth where

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God and humanity meet, right at this table.

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Every time we come to it, we're stepping into that reality.

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Do we realize this? Have we forgotten this?

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Do we choose to limit the perception that we are open

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to and listen for? 1 Peter 1:2 says that the things announced in the

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gospel are things into which angels long to look.

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The prophets long for it, the access that we have now to the person of Christ, to

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God the Father. The angels long to look into it, and we have been given

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participation. Participation. We participate in the life of Christ.

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The accuser's weapon, however, is accusation.

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Christ's answer is not that there is nothing to accuse us of.

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His answer is himself and his blood, by which the saints conquer

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by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony.

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We are weak, we are unbelievably vulnerable to deception,

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and we're surrounded by realities we cannot see, all of which remain under the

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sovereignty of God.

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We're not as strong as we imagine, but we're not as

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alone as we fear. God's creation is more crowded with glory than we can

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see, and the life of the church is caught up in it.

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So this morning, let us consciously join the angels in their worship and their

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warfare. Resist the deceit of the flesh, the world, and the devil.

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Repent, pray, pursue holiness, and look only to Christ

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to complete this work in us and for us. Amen.