Angels

Westminster Abbey, London

I’ve been thinking about angels recently. Which is weird because as a rule, Presbyterians don’t think much about angels. I believe I know why. We prefer the world of ideas. We prefer doctrines and propositions that can be carefully debated and thoroughly parsed. And angels refuse to be so measured out and boxed in. They don’t fit well into our neat systems. They make us uncomfortable.

Likewise, on the tangible side, Presbyterian trust tends more towards earthly assemblies, what T.S. Eliot termed the “sable presbyters.” We prefer our helpers to be flesh and blood, people we can see and control and put on committees. Angels, famously, do not follow Robert’s Rules of Order. In fact, we are not quite sure what it is they do but they rarely make it into our minutes. What’s the point of thinking about beings we can’t take to coffee or put on the sound team?

This is not true in other Christian traditions. You enter their sanctuaries and it is like you enter a different world. Angels fill the rafters. They’re on the walls, up on the ceiling, and decorate the baptismal font, all staring back at us. Some denominations name their churches after them - “St. Gabriel’s” or “St. Michael’s and All Angels.” I’ve always wondered if that made Michael feel awkward about such top billing but from what little I know about angels I don’t think he has enough of an ego to care one way or the other. It’s no matter to him whether he is an archangel or relegated to middle management. Angels are too busy and too holy for such fusses.

But what these sorts of church names and sanctuaries accomplish is to remind us that we live in a spiritual world peopled by heavenly beings we cannot see. We cannot see them, so we paint them, or at the very least portray them with flannelgraph at Vacation Bible School. The problem with that of course is we are unlikely to get it right. We make cherubs into plump little babies sitting on clouds, inspiring no one, while seraphs are tall, Nordic looking crusaders with heraldic shields. We Presbyterians don’t do much better with our Christmas pageants. We dress up the littlest ones in fluffy bathrobes and tinsel halos and push them out onto the stage to proclaim Good News. We have no idea what we are doing.

In any case, we should think about angels more than once a year. This was certainly true in the early church and not only because angels showed up now and then to rescue them from prison. St. Paul does not talk at length about angels anywhere in his letters - he just assumes them. He talks as if angels are witnesses to all we do and throws in unexplained phrases like, “because of the angels” as if we should know just what that means. We don’t of course, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t true.

No, for us, angels get dismissed and forgotten while we go about our earthly tasks. After all, angels aren’t going to help me find the correct toilet repair kit at Ace Hardware, are they? Surely, they are too busy worshiping God or smiting armies somewhere to bother themselves with such mundane tasks like that. Right?

I suspect I’ve been thinking more about angels lately precisely because my earthly tasks are so limited due to disability. We recently traveled to our daughter’s wedding, a family affair in which everyone pitched in. But there was little I could do to help. I could not even drive - the one thing I always insisted on doing - due to my chronic pain. I sat in the back, my eyes closed while I prayed, feeling every pothole and shift of the wheel. There was nothing I could do. So, I prayed - and thought about angels.

I thought about the angels that might have literally surrounded our car, helping us to arrive safely. I thought about the angels assisting others to get there or perhaps preparing the happy couple to take their vows. I wondered where the angels were on the other side of the highway when we passed by an overturned tractor-trailer surrounded by emergency vehicles. Some things are beyond us. That is why we pray.

I thought about angels who may comfort my own soul, so prone to anxiety. After all, if angels comforted the Son of God in the garden, can they not comfort us, his lesser sisters and brothers in the flesh? Is the work of angels purely metaphysical or can they also provide psychological soothing, actually affecting the synapses and chemicals in our brains? I don’t see why not and if I am mistaken, I don’t see the harm in wondering. I am going to pray to God either way; how he answers is up to him.

We don’t think about angels enough. I’ve been talking to the ones around me recently. Now don’t be alarmed. I am still Presbyterian, after all - I talk to them in moderation. I talk to them the same way I talk to other drivers on the road, but usually with fewer hand gestures. Or perhaps the way folks speak to a loved one at their grave. We’re not sure they can hear us but it still does us good. It’s not prayer and it’s not adoration. It’s simply talking to angels as if they actually exist. It’s recognizing that we live in a spiritual world, that there are things beyond what our eyes can see - for now.

Of course, I don’t talk to angels about my sin and my doubts. I’m not sure they would know what to do with such talk. I think they would look on blankly as if I had the wrong department. For these things, of course, I have a savior, at once greater and lower than the angels. Greater, because he is God’s only begotten Son, very God of very God. Lower, because like us, he has a body. He is able to sympathize and plead for me in a way that angels cannot. They were not created for such things.

But these angels around me I talk to? They are not the Son of God, but somehow, they feel local. They feel relevant. But in the end, what do I know? Maybe they dart here and there from universe to universe. Maybe they worship at the throne of God one moment and the very next are wiping the brow of some poor prisoner across the seas. What I do know is that angels beyond human count are here among us, up to good.

If we are not going to paint angels upon our walls and ceilings, we ought to do something. These are holy beings with no greater purpose than to worship God in heaven and to serve his children here on earth. We are made a little lower than the angels, but somehow, as brothers of the Son of Man, more honored than they. Thankfully, there is no competition between angels and men, no fear of manipulation or ulterior motives, no fear that their service is merely transactional. They have no egos to soothe and no backs to scratch. What they are to us are examples - examples of unceasing worship and of tireless service, service that needs no earthly recognition.

Oh, and in case you are wondering, the wedding was a big success. How about that?