When Fierce Angels Visit Sunday, December 2, 2018

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1 When Fierce Angels Visit Sunday, December 2, 2018 Angels have gotten a bad rap in recent years. With shows like Touched by an Angel and Sophie Burnham s books on angelology, angels have been domesticated, diminished to sweet and safe guardian who look out for human beings and steer them to gifts they are said to deserve but might have missed. That is nothing like the angels in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Those angels are fierce, uppity even, and though they bring gifts, their gifts are always the prelude to journeys inward or outward. Think of Jacob wrestling with the angel; his blessing comes with a permanent limp and the realization that he must humble himself and apologize to his brother Esau for stealing his birthright blessing many years before; or Balaam confronted by an angel with a flaming sword who tells him he is on the wrong path; or the three angels who announce to Abraham and Sarah that they, in their old age, will have a child. Each brings a message of a journey to a new life, a new understanding of the self and the world. One of the most famous angels, who appears in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, is the angel Gabriel that s how Christians speak his name. In Judaism, he is Gavriel which translates to the power of God and in Islam he is Jibrael. But in all three traditions, he is the primary messenger of God, Adonai, or Allah, and never comes with a cozy message. In the book of the prophet Daniel, Gabriel brings the prophet an interpretation of his visions and asks him to speak unpopular truths to the people of Jerusalem and tell them to fast and pray and turn from ways of selfishness and greed. Not as you may imagine a popular message, but Daniel accepts the mission. In Islam it s the angel Gabriel who brings to the Prophet Mohammed the revelation which became the Quran. Here s how my friend Najiba Akbar told me the story. Najiba taught me about Islam when she was the Muslim Chaplain at Wellesley College and I was the UU Chaplain: The angel Gabriel appeared while Mohammad was meditating in a cave and he grabbed him and hugged him so hard that the prophet couldn t breathe and he kept asking him to read and The Prophet didn t know what he wanted him to read and then finally he said read in the name of your Lord who has created all that exists. And that was the first (portion of a) verse that was revealed. The Prophet left that meeting shaking and ran home to his wife and she covered him with a blanket and had to reassure him that he wasn t crazy. So it was a very jarring experience. One that literally shook his entire being.

2 One that literally shook his entire being. And though the most famous to our ears story of Gabriel, his appearance to Mary, doesn t specify that it shook her entire being, it s hard not to imagine that as part of her story too. As Luke imagined the story in his message of good news: God sent the angel Gabriel to the town of Nazareth in Galilee with a message for a young woman named Mary. She was engaged to Joseph from the family of King David. The angel greeted Mary and said, You are truly blessed! The Lord is with you. Mary was confused by the angel s words and wondered what they meant. Then the angel told Mary, Don t be afraid! God is pleased with you, and you will have a son. His name will be Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of God Most High. The Lord God will make him king, as his ancestor David was. He will rule the people of Israel forever, and his kingdom will never end. Mary asked the angel, How can this happen? I am not married! The angel answered, The Holy Spirit will come down to you, and God s power will come over you. So your child will be called the holy Son of God. Nothing is impossible for God! Mary said, I am the Lord s servant! Let it happen as you have said. And the angel left her. It seems so simple the way Luke tells it, but of course it wasn t so simple. Mary could have said no. She had a choice, as did Daniel, and Mohammed, and every other person visited by one of these messengers she could say yes and step forward into growth or say no and stay in safety. And though surely Mary couldn t picture all that accepting the angel s mission would demand of her risking ostracism as an unmarried mother, fleeing into Egypt as a refugee with her husband and child, and finally watching her son condemned to death as an enemy of the state but she had to have paused to imagine all that saying yes might mean. It was an act of courage that led her to say that yes, just as every visit from a fierce angel requires from us an act of courage. But angelic appearances aren t limited to the heroes and heroines of scriptures; nor do angels always appear with wings. The word angel means messenger a particular kind of messenger one who conveys a challenge to step into greater life. This is the holy news angels bring. Our worship during this season of Advent looks at how these messages may come to us and how we too may

3 share them in our world which needs good news, a world too often led by its fears. For the other thing about angelic messengers is that they always begin their words with, Do not be afraid. At one level, they re telling us not to be afraid of them, but more importantly, they re telling us not to respond to their news with the closed ears and hearts of fear, but to put fear aside and listen to the challenge the angels offer with ears and hearts open to possibility. My encounter with an angel was much less dramatic than Daniel, Mohammed, or Mary s, and since there were no wings or flaming swords involved, you may decide it wasn t an angel. But it definitely brought a challenge and holy news. I was 19, a sophomore in college, and it was Easter Sunday. I had always loved Easter in the Unitarian church I grew up in going to church with my family, singing the familiar soaring hymns, and at the end of the service along with all the other children receiving a flower or a plant, a sign of new life rising. But I was away from home, family, and church that year, so I decided to go to church on my own. I don t remember why I picked King s Chapel to attend, but I took the bus into Cambridge from my college, and then the T to Park Street, and arrived at the church a little before the service began at 11. I didn t realize that churches get crowded on Easter, and by the time I got there, the downstairs was full and I could only get a seat in the balcony. At another time, I might have enjoyed that bird s-eye view of the service, but that day it just emphasized for me the isolation and loneliness I felt. There was beautiful music, the scent of lilies, and an inspiring sermon, but none of that made me feel more connected. At the end of the service the children were invited forward to receive a flower and I wanted so much to be one of those children, there with my family and no worries. So I left the service not feeling Easter at all. I took the T back to Harvard Square to catch my bus back to campus. Just as I came up out of the station, a little girl appeared in front of me, thrust into my hand a daisy from a bouquet she held, exclaimed Happy Easter, and disappeared into the crowd. And I at that moment Eastered. The girl or angel? brought me the message that I was not alone that was comforting. But she also brought me the challenge to step forward into the independence of adulthood, not to try to return to the safety of childhood as I d been wishing. She told me without words, Do not be afraid. You are not alone. Go on secure in that knowledge. I heard the comfort first it was only later that I absorbed the challenge. But it was there as much as if the girl had raised a flaming sword instead of a flower. What angels have spoken to you in your life? How have you absorbed and acted on their message? Are there angels you have missed? In the story of Balaam and the angel with the fiery sword, it s actually the donkey Balaam is riding on who helps him to see the angel. Balaam, who is a prophet in Israel, decides to ignore

4 what the Lord is telling him to say, and heads off to collude against the Israelites with the King of Moab. Three times his donkey sees that an angel with a flaming sword is blocking their path and swerves or stops. Balaam, enraged, beats him each time, until finally the donkey is given the power of speech and complains to Balaam, Why are you treating me this way? Haven t you learned during all our years together that I am your trustworthy companion? Can t you see that I am only trying to save you from that angel? And then Balaam sees the angel who is there to tell him not to cooperate with the king of Moab. What angels are we not seeing and hearing? What words of hope might you be missing? How might you step forward into a larger future? This is the season of waiting. Not of waiting in fear as we seem to do so often these days - what does the new climate report mean for our lives? What will Robert Mueller discover and how will our country cope? Can our country ever come together again? But this season invites us to wait in hope hope that there are messages of good news which will invite us to step forward into a future we can t yet imagine but can hope for. In this season we are invited to fly in the face of fear and entertain angels. What angels await you? How will you respond to their message? What new life will you bring to our world? - Pamela M. Barz

5 Reading An Angel Named Thelma Jan Richardson She hangs on my wall: a heat-painted bronze angel, hands clasped in prayer as she hovers over a crescent moon. The day I moved here, I placed her at the doorway to the family room, the action my unspoken house blessing. She watches the threshold. When I found her in Atlanta and brought her to my home there, I showed her to some friends who d stopped in. She needs a name, I said. Thelma! Sandra immediately offered, then instantly regretted it. No, I said. That s perfect! Thelma. I thought of the Thelmas I had known (both of them). Thelmas were solid, immovable, stalwart, a little wild. They could tell stories to raise the hair on the back of your neck. They weren t afraid of aging; the years rooted them, grounded them, widened their vision as well as their girth. They could spit. An angel named Thelma is not your average angel. She most definitely is not among the current rage of angels depicted as ephemeral, fragile, benign beings who look like they wouldn t hurt a flea. She hangs out with the sorts of angels we find in the Bible. Hardly benign, these angels were messengers of harsh news and bearers of surprising invitations. They might come with comfort, but they always came with a cost. An angel named Thelma is what I need in this season: an uppity angel at my shoulder. Someone who can breathe fire. Who will remind me that being nice won t sustain me through the labor. Who will cry out with me in the birth pangs. Who will dispatch the dragon who waits to devour what is struggling to be born.