What If We Were Angels?

Transcribed from the sermon preached October 30, 2011

The Reverend Max Lynn, Pastor

Scripture Readings: Revelation 7:9-17, Matthew 5:1-12

So we are getting ready to make a right at a light and a couple of tough, cool looking young men come strutting across the cross walk. We crunch down on another hot cheeto and think, “that guy is looking at me strange.” We find ourselves feeling out of place and exposed. He must be challenging me, thinks he is better than me, stronger, cooler, younger. How do we answer this perceived challenge? Do we jump into comparison mode? But wait, we already have; do we fall further down the dark hole of comparison, judgment or competition? “Oh yeh, well I am driving the car and my clothes cost more than yours, and I am cleaner than you, and in my circles you would feel out of place and exposed. Maybe I should yell something out the window. But I will just fiddle with my cell phone and pretend I am so important that everyone wants to contact me. Darn it! I got red cheeto powder on my phone.

What if God had assigned you to be an angel? What if God has assigned us to be an angel and we spend our time licking Hot Cheetos powder off our fingers and cussing out the dude in the crosswalk? What if God has assigned us to be angels, but we spend our time sulking over the fact that Lisa and Debbie have assigned us to be the one they gossip about? What if God has assigned us to be angels, but our work has assigned us to be downsized and the bank has assigned us to be foreclosed upon? What if God has assigned us to be an angel, but we are so focused on our own weaknesses that we convince ourselves angels are just make believe, and only our depression is real? What if God has assigned us to be angles, but the world has assigned us to the untouchables, the unclean, the soiled, the other class, the other race, the other other? What if God has assigned you to be an angel?

One of my favorite church moments was a piece of the children’s Christmas pageant five years ago. Madi had walked in the Chinese New Year parade on stilts, so the kids thought it would be a good idea if she played a really tall angel on stilts while the other little angels danced really tight circle around her. They were all extremely cute and beautiful, full of innocence and hope, and we were all terrified that Madi would step on one of the others girls long white dress and tumble over the girls and the manger scene. You might say we were afraid of the fallen angel.

Walter Breugaman said of the psalms that they are not descriptive but evocative. I think this is true of John’s Revelation too. These images are not intended to be descriptions of reality, even the reality of heaven, like some documentary of the future, but instead give narrative to feeling and describe the spiritual struggle within our soul and History. Revelation is an expression of the hope that no matter what comes our way, no matter how difficult life gets, no matter how much it looks like the mean and evil people win in this world, no matter how dark and threatening death appears as we draw ever closer to it, the life and resurrection of Christ Jesus is testimony that the ultimate power in the universe is on the side of love and justice.

John’s audience is going through an apocalyptic time, a time when one world ends and another begins, but the outcome looks far from decided. Any hope that Israel would rise up and throw off the Roman oppressor was sacked with the Temple in 70 AD. But a volcanic eruption, which destroyed Pompeii, and a fire in Rome suggest all is not said and done. And a new narcissistic dictator in a long line of despotic emperors has decided Christians are heretics and should be tortured until they worship him. Groupthink and fear turn people to look for scapegoats, and the thought police find Christians an easy target.

Christians suffer from discrimination; not only are most of them poor and oppressed already, but as Christians they are no longer welcome as Jews and yet, like Jews, they refuse to worship the emperor and Roman gods, so they are accused of not being patriotic and even seditious rebels.

But mostly Christians have just discovered that the love and grace of God through Christ cleanses them from sin and uncleanness, and empowers them to live righteous and powerful lives, to live as if they we angels, as if they had a cosmic perspective that enabled them to rise above petty concerns of everyday life and the violence and oppression so prevalent in their world, and act as if goodness and righteousness will prevail.

Now just because Revelation is more evocative than descriptive doesn’t mean there is no eternal life. But the eternal life described in Revelation is at least as descriptive of life today as of the life to come, and John’s view of heaven is likely to be most accurate in the feelings evoked, in the love and joy and peace we experience when we find ourselves before the God of the universe, the Spirit of all life.

Now it is interesting that those in white robes before the throne are from all over the world, from all different cultures. The dividing walls of hostility have broken down; the issue of clean and unclean has been washed away by the unconditional love and forgiveness of Christ Jesus who shed his blood rather than compromise love.

So no matter what our sense of inadequacy, whether we are poor in spirit, in mourning, or meek or hungry, or thirsty or under the siege of war, or reviled or persecuted, God is calling for you to stand with the angels, to act as if the outcome of the universe depends on your faith, on even your little actions right know today. Task number 1 is to know we are loved eternally. Two, act as if God has given you the job of informing others that they too are loved eternally. We are to bless those guys in the cross walk, and the gossiping girls. What if being kind to the outcast at work, the one who no one invites out after work…what if saying hello and asking about their week is to strike a blow at the devil? Stepping up to train unskilled laborers in a trade, helping to mentor a teenager when mom and dad are so perplexed they can’t tell which way is up. Helping to provide a nurse for the sick, advocating justice, the end of war. What if God has assigned you to be an angel? How wonderful and joyous, how empowering. And when I look at you, and watch you acting like angels, I start to have faith and hope.

³“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. ⁴“Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. ⁵“Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. ⁶“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. ⁷“Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy. ⁸“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God. ⁹“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God. ¹⁰

“Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever! Amen.”