St Michael and All Angels
Genèse 28.10-17 – Psaume 103.19-22 – Apocalypse 12.7-12- Jean 1.47-51
The Very Rev’d Bertrand Oliver, Dean and Rector
‘How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven!’
Bishop Francis Fulford, the first Anglican Bishop of Montreal, loved angels. Consecrated at Westminster Abbey in 1850, he arrived in Montreal later that year and was enthroned in the previous incarnation of Christ Church Cathedral, in Old Montreal, which – like the first – was destroyed by fire.
In 1857, he laid the first stone of this Cathedral, which was completed in 1859. He preached at the opening service on the first Sunday of Advent that year.
Our Cathedral was modelled on the beautiful 14th century parish church of Snettisham, in Norfolk and it is amazing to see the original, splendidly situated in the middle of the English countryside.
However, Fulford managed to indulge one of his particular passion in the building of this Cathedral church – his love of angels. Look around you and you see angels in stone supporting all the arches of the church, and statues of both Gabriel and Michael figure in the sculpted reredos at the high altar. My office, in the Chapter House, is similarly encircled by angels helping to carry the dome, but also providing oversight and divine protection on our community and our work of presence and witness here in downtown Montreal.
In recent years, angels have become more prominent in our consciousness, perhaps in an superstitious way. One of the biggest selling souvenirs in church shops is often angel shaped pins that people can wear and thereby remind themselves of the protection of a guardian angel around them.
Angels often appear to be benign figures, and there are numerous stories of encounters with angels in the Bible – from Abraham entertaining angels who then promised him and his elderly wife Sarah a son, to the appearance of the Archangel Gabriel to Mary to ask her to bear the Son of God, and to Zecharias the priest before the conception of his son to be John the Baptist.
They usually bring good news and act positively on behalf of God in the life of those they touch.
In today’s reading from Genesis, Jacob in a dream sees angels going up and down a ladder, from Heaven to Earth, before God speaks to him with a promise of prosperity. The story gives us hope that there is indeed this angelic connection between our realm and the divine realm, between the natural and the supernatural and that our hopes and dreams are taken up to God and can be fulfilled.
Today’s story from Revelation is however a lot darker, depicting the heavenly battle between Michael and his angels, and the Dragon – sometimes also known as Lucifer – and his angelic followers, forces of darkness that rebelled against God. In this mighty battle, the Dragon and his diabolic horde are cast out of heaven and sent to earth. Not necessarily the outcome the human race was hoping for.
The battle between Good and Evil, between God and Satan has continued ever since. And while these concepts may make some smile, they are very much at the core of our faith as we are reminded every time we celebrate a baptism.
The promises baptised Christians make include renouncing Satan and all the spiritual forces of wickedness that rebel against God. Also to renounce the evil powers of this world which corrupt and destroy the creatures of God as well as the sinful desires that draw us from the love of God.
Powerful stuff, and not for the faint hearted.
Yet thankfully, we are also invited to turn to Christ our Saviour, and to put our trust in his grace and love.
We are not alone in this ongoing cosmic battle, and God and his angels are on side to help us. But God needs us to be active participants to counteract the other side hellbent on recruitment and destruction.
It does not take long for anyone who is following the news to see darkness at work in the world today. There are so many places where men and women are persuaded by forces of evil that they can be like God – in the way they use the planet, in the way they abuse the rights of people and keep them in poverty and under oppression, in the way they foment wars and violence, and care only for their ever-growing wealth and power without any thought for the common good, for others, for God beyond themselves.
Twenty eight years ago today, I stepped into Southwark Cathedral, in south London, England, to be ordained a deacon. This was one more step on a journey which started when I followed God’s call – a very vivid call which transformed my life and took me away from a shiny corporate career in Communications to a multiethnic parish with high level of multiple deprivations in South London.
There, the church was a place of hope, a place of community, a place where individual lives could be transformed despite all odds, a place where we could dream of and work for a better world. And this has been my experience of church ever since, in a wide variety of context.
Because belonging to a church community, as we do, is a very countercultural thing to do. Today’s world, fuelled by the whisperings of the evil one, finds it hard to believe that anything positive can come out of church communities. People who pray to a God in the sky? People who believe in the resurrection? Come on, be real. How can you prove any of this stuff using modern science? What is the evidence?
And of course, for those who do not want to see beyond their own desires, beyond the immediate materiality of the world around them and how they can further their lives by manipulating it for their own purposes, Christian practice is a challenge too far.
Because embracing life in the light means shining light wherever there is darkness, including within the dark corners of our own life. And who really wants to do that?
We were privileged to welcome Stephen Cottrell, the Archbishop of York, early this week who spoke to the clergy of the diocese and also preached at evensong here at the Cathedral on Monday evening.
The overall theme for the day was evangelism, the ways in which we can share our Christian values in a world where many are seeking values on which to base their lives.
Essentially, how can we be the angels that bring good news today to those around us who are hurting, who are yearning, who need direction.
For Cottrell, the first non-negotiable point was that we Christians need to be better at developing our discipline of contemplative prayer. This means finding ways which work for us to connect with God – in silence, in stillness, in walking, in pilgrimage, in community, pausing and pondering on the world around us with the eyes of God. And notice.
Notice the needs, the hurt, the loneliness, the isolation, the oppression, the violence.
Notice and listen. Listen to hear how you might be able to respond in faith into the situations you encounter. Not bringing any of our own agendas, but instead letting God mould the agenda in the interactions we have with God’s people.
In the way that Abraham invited strangers in, and thereby entertained angels. In the way that on the road to Emmaus, two travellers entered into discussion with a stranger and then recognised Jesus in the breaking of bread.
We are invited to let God and his Angels create the space for us to become the bearers and sharers of God’s love and heal the hearts broken by the forces of darkness of the world.
None of us are perfect, and when I look back and think of myself twenty eight years ago, I wonder how naively I was looking at the world then and how little I knew. And how over the space of all those years, I feel that the concerns of the church have not changed. And yet how much worse the world would be without the Church – without the many who hold fast to Good and light and work in the power of God against darkness.
This spiritual work is exhausting for all of us, and Stephen Cottrell also reminded us of the Radical Unavailability of Jesus. He worked hard, but he also disappeared to resource himself in prayer, spend time with God his creator and in contemplation of the world.
Today is my last Sunday here as I take leave this week for a three-month Sabbatical time – a time to be radically unavailable and to connect again deeply with God in places of spiritual significance for me – the Taizé community in France, and the Iona community in Scotland. A time to ponder on our Cathedral life and ministry, and to refresh body, mind and spirit. A time from which I will, God-willing, come back in the new year with renewed energy to continue to serve the people of God here in this place to the best of my ability.
So as I go, pray for me, but also ensure that you too find time to nurture your own prayer life, and practice the evermore difficult art of Jesus’ Radical Unavailability. That you may continue to shine long in the light of God.
Amen