Calling All Angels

Sermon by Pr. Craig Mueller on the Feast of Michael and All Angels + Sunday, September 29, 2024

It was minutes before the recent debate and an online meeting was ending. One of the participants said, I’m calling all angels, all the spirits, all the ancestors. She had high hopes for her candidate. And she asked if I knew the song by k.d. lang about calling all angels. I didn’t. But it’s perfect for today.

How many times, oh, before it's too late?

Calling all angels

Walk me through this world

Don't leave me alone

Calling all angels

We're tryin'

We're hopin'

But we're not sure how.

And then this story. Christine’s heart sank when she stepped into her mother’s hospital room. The skin on her mom’s face was sunken and bruised. Serious pneumonia had entered her bloodstream. She was on a respirator. She had just spent twelve weeks recovering from a bone infection and was eager to get home. But she was back in the hospital. Christine prayed feverishly as death drew near, calling all angels. As she rubbed lotion on her mom’s arms and legs, she kept hearing her mother’s earlier words, “I just want to be home.” Home meant something different now. After her mother died, deep grief set in. But it seemed to Christine like winged creatures arrived in the form of butterflies, birds, and angels. She felt the presence of her mother, but also a guardian spirit, a guardian angel maybe, an angel of grief who would accompany her through the long season of loss.1

Christine tells this story in a book with a title that itself is fascinating: The Love of Thousands: How Angels, Saints, and Ancestors Walk Us Toward Holiness.

Today we are calling on all angels. To start with, it’s the feast of Michael and All Angels. Angels are found in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. And they seem to be everywhere. In scripture. In hymns. In liturgy. In poems. In paintings. In manger scenes. In gift shops. Chachkis and tattoos! And more importantly, in our imagination. Maybe angels invite us to move beyond the scientific, literal, rational. And enter the realm of story, myth, ritual. Dreams and visions. Emotion and intuition.

One writer says that “angels remind us that our material world is influenced by the world of the spirit, and that we are intrinsically capable of inhabiting both worlds with equal ease. . . Look closely, and you will see that angels reveal God’s secrets, guard and protect the vulnerable, are witness to miracles, call us to to unending praise.”2

Calling all angels. And a little angelology, to remind, refresh, or perhaps learn for the first time. In the Bible there are angels, angels, angels everywhere. And they aren’t cute, that’s for sure! Angels stand on guard in the garden of Eden. Jacob’s ladder is a stream of angels descending and ascending. The angel of death passes over the Israelites before they are led to freedom. Angels show up to do God’s bidding—like Gabriel who announces to Mary that she will bear a divine son. There are fallen angels, such as Lucifer. And the fallen angels are demons. Ready for a battle between good and evil!

In Revelation, the smoke of incense, with the prayers of the saints, rises before God from the hand of an angel! Can you name the four archangels with names? Gabriel, Michael—and less famous, Raphael and Uriel. And there’s the children’s song: All night, all day, angels watching me, my Lord.

And of course, there’s Michael. And today is his feast today. This day is known in some places as Michaelmas. The feast takes place near the autumnal equinox when there seems to be a war going on between day and night. And night is winning as the days keep getting shorter. I love the way one writer puts it: “Autumn is poignant, so it belongs to the angel who carries a point—the Archangel Michael, who wields sword and spear for the people of God against the powers of darkness. The point of Michael’s spear is the poignancy of autumn that pierces our heart and wakes us from drowsy summer, calling us away with a sharp longing for something else.”3

Michael has been a bit of a rock star for many Christians through the ages. Churches are named for Michael. He was originally known for healing, but eventually Michael the warrior won out in iconography. See the bulletin cover and note the cool angel leggings that Beau, our former administrator, really liked. Michael is usually pictured slaying the dragon, the devil. It’s from Revelation. There is war in heaven! It’s part of the cosmic battle between good and evil.

And battle means war. And the wars and threats of wars and escalating violence around the world today cause us to tremble. Calling all angels, takes on a whole new meaning!

So who or what is the enemy, then? What would you say? Sin inhibits us from realizing our full human potential. And one prime example is how we dehumanize—demonize—others. We talk about dismantling the structures of racism, classism, homophobia. Think of Michael’s spear as a dismantling sword. Power systems need to be dismantled as we seek the common good, not only for the human family, but for our very planetary home.

It may be angel day at church today. But it’s high time to bring in Jesus, who is at the center of every liturgy, every gathering, every proclamation of good news. In Revelation, Jesus is the nonviolent Lamb whose victory is marked by suffering love. The Satanic power of violence is cast out of heaven in the cosmic war. Everything points to the cross of Christ and the victory of Easter.

When life is hard. Calling all angels. When our hearts are breaking. Calling all angels. When we fear for the country, for the world, for the planet. Calling all angels. When the future is uncertain. Calling all angels. And they come. As another song by Caedmon’s Call puts is:

Ten thousand angels will light your pathway

Until the day breaks fully in the east

And they will surround you and make your way straight

Cause love has come, love has come for you.

Ten thousand angels surround us as we gather at the table. Ten thousand angels, the hosts of heaven, join us in singing “holy, holy, holy, heaven and earth are full of your glory.” Ten thousand angels sing for us when no words come out.

Christ comes among us this day, in bread and wine. We sing of the One who has won the victory. Even when the sky seems to be falling. Even when the battle lines in and around us fill us with fear and terror. Even when justice seems a distant dream. Even when our hearts are breaking. Calling all angels. And we sing with them. What else can we do? We sing.

1 Christine Walter Painter, The Love of Thousands: How Angels, Saints, and Ancestors Walk with Us Toward Holiness, 15-20.

2 Miriam Therese Winter, SCMM, in Homilies for the Christian People, 567.

3 Christopher Hill, Holidays and Holy Nights: Celebrating the Twelve Seasonal Festivals of the Christian Year, 34.