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Sermon for the Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost – September 25, 2011
Theologians call it a form of “casual mysticism” - the belief, apparently held by more than half of the adult population of this country according to a recent survey, that guardian angels play an active role in our lives, watching out for us, protecting us. While most scoff at the idea that chubby cherubim complete with wings, halos and harps are circling unseen above our heads, still a majority of people of varying religious faiths - and even those who claim no religious faith at all – are convinced that, at one time or another, an angel has interceded for them.
A religion professor at Baylor University, a Baptist institution in Texas, offered this opinion, “My guess would be that something has happened. People were in an auto wreck and there was some event that saved their lives and they interpret it as a guardian angel,” he said, adding that he was surprised by the prevalence of the belief. Actually there is a biblical basis for this notion. Psalm 91 says of those “who live in the shelter of the most high, who abide in the shadow of the Almighty,” that “he will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways.”
For those who frequent online message boards about angels, these guardians are not viewed as anonymous social workers in a heavenly human services department who happen to be assigned to our case, like Clarence in “It’s a Wonderful Life.” No, for most people their unseen protectors have a personal connection with them, a vested interest in them, like a celestial family. Indeed, many claim that their guardian angels are the spirits of their mothers, fathers, grandparents and so on who have gone to their reward and now watch out for their loved ones on earth.
We certainly did not invent this idea. In ancient Rome, each person was thought to be overseen by the spirits of his or her ancestors who lived in the underworld. For the women, these spirits were called juno, also the name of the queen of the gods. For the men, these demigods were known as geniuses, and they guided and protected a man throughout his life. It was believed that a genius would bestow success and intellectual powers on its devotees.
Actually, when you look at the numbers, it seems that there are not too many of these spirits floating around these days. To be considered a genius you need an IQ of at least 145 on the Stanford-Binet, a score reached by only a small percentage of the U.S. population. To learn the secret handshake of Mensa - the self-proclaimed society for intellectuals - you need to hit 132, which the society says represents 2% of the population. Apparently, some people’s IQ scores measure in the 200s, which is kind of frightening, considering that Albert Einstein was considered to have an IQ of “only” 160. According to standard IQ tests, which primarily determine how well a person will do in school, geniuses are few and far between.
Still, if we cannot all test out as geniuses, we can learn to think like them, at least partially; we can learn to look at life as they do. Leonardo da Vinci, for example – artist, Renaissance man and genius if there ever was one - believed that the best way to address a problem is to go at it from a perspective that no one else has tried; to approach it from another angle. Not so much thinking outside the box as it is turning the box upside down and then figuring out how to open it.
And the Nobel Prize winning physicist Niels Bohr was big on combining seemingly opposite concepts, believing that if we did so we suspend thought, and our minds then move to a higher level. For example, his ability to imagine light as being both particle and wave at the same time led to the development of quantum mechanics, revolutionizing our view of the universe.
The ability to form relationships, to make connections between seemingly dissimilar subjects, figures prominently in the genius mind. Da Vinci was able to connect the sound of a bell with the sight of a stone hitting a pool of water, thereby theorizing that sound traveled in waves. And Samuel Morse, inventor of the code that I never could quite master as a Boy Scout, observed relay stations for horses and figured that the same principle could work for telegraph signals, refreshing the message down the line.
One more example, and when you walk out of church today, Mensa will be beating down your door begging you to join. Aristotle, one of the greatest philosophers of all time, believed that the ability to think metaphorically was a mark of genius. Anyone, he said, who had the capacity to perceive resemblances between two separate areas of existence and link them together was a person of special gifts.
Where have we come across a mindset like this before? It’s right in our scriptures.
Try a new perspective; combine opposites; move your mind to new levels: “For the last will be first and the first will be last.” “For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will save it.”
Make a new connection; combine everyday objects and mundane events; think metaphorically: “What woman having ten silver coins, if she loses one of them, does not light a lamp, sweep the house, and search carefully until she finds it? When she has found it, she calls together her friends and neighbors, saying, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin that I had lost.’ Just so, I tell you, there is joy in the presence of angels over one sinner who repents.”
And we’re back to angels. Notice something here; in Jesus’ metaphor comparing the discovery of the kingdom with the finding of a lost coin, angels only enter into the equation after the woman has lit the lamp, swept the house and searched the floor carefully. She first has to do the work in her home – probably with much anxiety over the thought of losing a valuable coin - and they get to do the rejoicing afterwards in heaven over her salvation.
“Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling,” Paul tells the early followers of Jesus in Philippi, a military colony in Greece, where the citizens are loyal to Caesar, proud of their Roman citizenship, governed by Roman law. Given those less than hospitable circumstances, Paul writes, from prison, no less, that it is necessary to stand “firm in one spirit, striving side by side with one mind for the faith of the gospel, and are in no way (be) intimidated by your opponents.” Doing this, he says, is “evidence of your salvation.”
In the face of opposition, it’s not enough to think things through idly, Paul says. When there are problems to be solved, it’s not enough passively to wait for rescue – which, in Greek, has the same root as the word “salvation.” You can’t sit back and wait for a juno or a genie or an angel. Something must be done, even if it means doing things a little differently. Sometimes we must change our minds - alter our point of view, turn our world upside down and see what it looks like - all the while keeping in mind that there is a treasure to be found, that the vineyard is out there waiting; keeping in mind that the coin will not tell us that it is under the couch and those vines and grapes are not going to harvest themselves.
True, not every idea that pops into our heads will bear fruit. I read somewhere that Thomas Edison held 1,093 patents, still the record; they weren’t all for the phonograph or the light bulb or the movie camera, either. In 1899 he formed the Edison Portland Cement Company which made everything from cabinets, to pianos, to houses, all from concrete. While the idea never took off (I can’t imagine why!) the undertaking wasn’t a complete failure. Edison’s company was hired to build the first Yankee Stadium, basically a concrete bowl, in the Bronx.
Sometimes when you work things out to their conclusion, not everything works out the way you initially planned. Geniuses are not afraid to take risks; they are not afraid to try new things; they are not afraid to change direction; to abandon one approach if it does not work out and follow another one that will, thereby ending up with a ballpark instead of a cabinet.
No, we don’t need to be geniuses to work out our salvation or to construct a firm foundation for our faith. Paul told the Ephesians that all of us have been given different gifts – apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, teachers – all to equip us for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until all of us come, he said, not to a higher IQ, but “to maturity, to the measure of the full stature of Christ.” “We must no longer be children,” he cautioned. “But…we must grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ.”
While aging may not require much effort; it does take some work to grow up. While we are indeed saved by grace through faith, as Paul emphasizes repeatedly, he is equally emphatic that, as Christians, we are to assume the responsibility for working out just what our faith requires of us in thought, word and deed. And for him that means that we look not to our own interests but to the interests of others; it means that we have the same mind that was in Christ Jesus, who came not to be served but to serve.
Yes there is some trepidation involved here, knowing that we are ultimately answerable to God. As the Letter to the Hebrews puts it so well, “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.” And perhaps that explains the appeal of personal, semi-divine protectors. One theologian has written that “People can be fascinated by angels…because angels are less threatening than God. The idea of a God who is holy and can hold people accountable can be a little scary.”
A little scary, true; but only enough, I think, to keep us faithful, to keep us standing firm, always inclining our ears to the word of the Lord. It may be frightening to fall but I’ll tell you something: since, like Paul, I am convinced that there is nothing that can separate us from the love of God; I am equally convinced that no matter how far we may fall, God’s hand is there to catch us.
That assurance grows in me each day that I grow, if not in height or, I hope, not in weight, but in spirit. As I have now reached a certain level of maturity – I know this because a woman at McDonald’s recently asked me if I was interested in receiving the senior’s discount on my coffee – I don’t have much room in my mind for angels. I spend most of my day, like you, approaching problems, working things out, trying to live in a manner worthy of the gospel; in short, being a creative, caring adult. It can get quite tiring at times, can’t it?
So as the hours wind down and the duties of the day have been accomplished to the best of my ability, it’s time to rest, to be a bit more casual. I think of my family, my children. I think of them as I lay me down to sleep and I pray to God their souls to keep. As I do so, I find my mind turning towards those who, while gone from me, are still very much in my life, and at times I can hear a soft voice faintly singing this favorite lullaby – to my children and, yes, sometimes even to me; and my mind quiets: “Sleep my child and peace attend thee, all through the night. Guardian angels God will send thee, all through the night. Soft the drowsy hours are creeping, hill and vale in slumber sleeping, I my loving vigil keeping, all through the night.”