Saturday, September 28 & Sunday, September 29, 2024
St. Luke Lutheran Church; Albuquerque, NM
Revelation 12.7-12
7 Καὶ ἐγένετο πόλεμος ἐν τῷ οὐρανῷ, ὁ Μιχαὴλ καὶ οἱ ἄγγελοι αὐτοῦ τοῦ πολεμῆσαι μετὰ τοῦ δράκοντος. καὶ ὁ δράκων ἐπολέμησεν καὶ οἱ ἄγγελοι αὐτοῦ,8 καὶ οὐκ ἴσχυσεν, οὐδὲ τόπος εὑρέθη αὐτῶν ἔτι ἐν τῷ οὐρανῷ.9 καὶ ἐβλήθη ὁ δράκων ὁ μέγας, ὁ ὄφις ὁ ἀρχαῖος, ὁ καλούμενος Διάβολος καὶ ὁ Σατανᾶς, ὁ πλανῶν τὴν οἰκουμένην ὅλην ἐβλήθη εἰς τὴν γῆν, καὶ οἱ ἄγγελοι αὐτοῦ μετ’ αὐτοῦ ἐβλήθησαν.10 καὶ ἤκουσα φωνὴν μεγάλην ἐν τῷ οὐρανῷ λέγουσαν, Ἄρτι ἐγένετο ἡ σωτηρία καὶ ἡ δύναμις καὶ ἡ βασιλεία τοῦ θεοῦ ἡμῶν καὶ ἡ ἐξουσία τοῦ Χριστοῦ αὐτοῦ, ὅτι ἐβλήθη ὁ κατήγωρ τῶν ἀδελφῶν ἡμῶν, ὁ κατηγορῶν αὐτοὺς ἐνώπιον τοῦ θεοῦ ἡμῶν ἡμέρας καὶ νυκτός.11 καὶ αὐτοὶ ἐνίκησαν αὐτὸν διὰ τὸ αἷμα τοῦ ἀρνίου καὶ διὰ τὸν λόγον τῆς μαρτυρίας αὐτῶν, καὶ οὐκ ἠγάπησαν τὴν ψυχὴν αὐτῶν ἄχρι θανάτου.12 διὰ τοῦτο εὐφραίνεσθε, [οἱ] οὐρανοὶ καὶ οἱ ἐν αὐτοῖς σκηνοῦντες· οὐαὶ τὴν γῆν καὶ τὴν θάλασσαν, ὅτι κατέβη ὁ διάβολος πρὸς ὑμᾶς ἔχων θυμὸν μέγαν, εἰδὼς ὅτι ὀλίγον καιρὸν ἔχει.
7 War broke out in heaven; Michael and his angels fought against the dragon. The dragon and his angels fought back, 8 but they were defeated, and there was no longer any place for them in heaven. 9 The great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the Devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world—he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him. 10 Then I heard a loud voice in heaven, proclaiming,
“Now have come the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Messiah, for the accuser of our comrades has been thrown down, who accuses them day and night before our God.11 But they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they did not cling to life even in the face of death. 12 Rejoice then, you heavens and those who dwell in them! But woe to the earth and the sea, for the devil has come down to you with great wrath, because he knows that his time is short!”
+ In nomine Domini. Amen.
The Feast of Saint Michael & All Angels, or the old title for today: Michaelmas (short for “Michael’s Mass”). This Festival of the Church dates from the 5th Century when a basilica near Rome was dedicated in honour of Saint Michael the Archangel; and on the Church Calendar it is celebrated every September 29th .
I think for Lutherans mostly this Feast Day is passed over. Yes, you will find it if you look inside your ELW (the maroon hymnal which is in your pew racks). In the very front of the hymnal beginning on page 14 where it says CALENDAR the Sundays and Festivals of the Church are noted and if you look carefully there you will notice (on page 16) under the month of September that it reads: 29 MICHAEL AND ALL ANGELS — all CAPITAL LETTERS because it is a Saint’s Day (like OCTOBER 18 you will read LUKE, EVANGELIST — which is important for you to know because LUKE is the (if you will) patron Saint of this Congregation — back in 1952 I think it was, when this congregation began, the name of SAINT LUKE was chosen to identify who we are as a community of faith. So, on Friday, October 18th this year, why not take a moment and say a prayer of thanksgiving for this congregation, for The Rev. Don Simonton, of blessed memory, and the people who gathered together in the northeast heights of Albuquerque and declared themselves to be a church!
You see what things you can learn in Church‽ The problem with what we do these days in printing everything in a bulletin (which is a magnificent thing, don’t get me wrong) is that there is a cost; and it’s not just the cost of putting the bulletin together (as we say) the other cost is that we don’t use the hymnal! And inside the hymnal, inside that book, is a wealth of knowledge.
When I was a child growing up in the church I learned that if the Sermon did not “grab” me, no one would think I was being disrespectful if I sat there in the pew and perused the hymnal fascinated as I was by things like the indexes of Hymn Tunes and Sources of Hymns and other parts of the liturgy — which you will find in the back of the hymnal if you are interested — along with Martin Luther’s Small Catechism. Imagine that!
[I know, this is what happens when you have a Pastor cursed (or maybe blessed) with OCD and ADD. Easily distracted I am, which is why I always when preaching have something written down in front of me — or we would be here all morning listening to me tell you all the magnificent stories I know about the Church.]
Back to Saint Michael and All Angels. If you have taken the time this morning to open the hymnal and look on page 16 as I said and found in CAPITAL LETTERS: MICHAEL AND ALL ANGELS you will see also the letter “W” following it.
Why? Because the color for this day is White. The long green season of Sundays after Pentecost is interrupted by the liturgical colour WHITE. That means this day is important, WHITE, like Christmas or Easter.
So let’s find out why. Let’s talk a bit about Archangels and Angels.
There are three Archangels (Arch = Chief) in the Bible:
Michael (the word is Hebrew to begin with מִיכָאֵל (Mikha’el — “Who is like God?”). Then there’s Gabriel גַבְרִיאֵל (when you read or hear “el” in a Hebrew word, it means “God” — Gabriel — “God is my strength”).
Raphael רְפָאֵל (“God has healed”Hebrew root רפא means “to heal”).
When Gabriel comes to old Zechariah to tell him about the birth of John the Baptist, he says, “I am Gabriel. I stand in the presence of God, and I have been sent to speak to you and to bring you this good news.” That’s what angels do. They are messengers.
In the Greek of the Christian Scriptures, the word is αγγελος plural αγγελοι (angelos, angeloi — “messenger”) — our English word “angel” comes from that.
During the Middle Ages this Feast day of Michaelmas marked the end of the harvest season, and a time when accounts would be settled.
In Ireland the folklore states that clear weather on Michaelmas will mean a long winter: “Michaelmas Day be bright and clear there will be two Winters in the year.”
A traditional meal for the day is goose. “If you eat goose on Michaelmas Day you will never lack money all year.”
In the north of Ireland in County Cavan, traditionally the goose is covered in local blue clay and placed int the centre of the fire until the clay broke, meaning that the goose was cooked.
In the British Isles folklore states that Michaelmas day is the last day when blackberries can be picked; because when St. Michael expelled Lucifer from heaven he fell to the earth and landed in a prickly blackberry bush. He cursed the fruit, scorched it with his fiery breath, stamped, spat and (in the polite manner in which we learned to say this as a child) he ‘made water upon the blackberries.’
In Mifflin County, Pennsylvania, Michaelmas has been observed since 1786 and is called Goose Day. Today many local restaurants and civic groups offer goose dinners. Think of that for the next fundraiser for St. Luke! In fact, painted fiberglass goose statues can be found all around the County.
Here are some facts about angels: (I’m indebted here by a Sermon preached by Pastor Thomas Weitzel for this Feast Day.)1
Five things to remember about angels:
1. Yes, there are guardian angels, thus says the Bible.
2. No, cherubs are not little baby angels. Cherubs have four feet and look like a sphinx with wings (and they can be pretty fierce as Divine protectors).
3. No, we don’t become angels when we die. Angels are a whole different order of creator.
4. No, angels do not have to earn their wings (like the movie “It’s a Wonderful Life” that we watch each December).
5. Not all angels have wings, but some have as many as six.
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The congregation into which I was born, baptized, confirmed and married was in Dublin, Pennsylvania. This little town about 30 miles north of Philadelphia was not named after the Capital of the Republic of Ireland, but so called because there were two taverns in that village that were side-by-side. And in the dialect of the region (Pennsylvania Dutch, or Pennsilfaanisch) the nick-name for the town became the Double-Inn (or Dooublin, auf Pennsilfaanisch) and in time — “Dublin.”
The name of the congregation was: Saint Luke’s Lutheran Church. My Grandparents were members of Saint Luke’s, as were my parents, as were my sister and myself — along with a huge amount of other people young and old, ancestors and babies, workers and farmers, teachers and physicians, and on and on — a great “cloud of witnesses” (as we say) of Lutherans and people who became Lutherans; all working together to be the Church in that town, singing, praying, playing — being faithful and learning each week what it is to belong to a community of love.
By the way, this congregation of my origin built a new building in the early 1960s and moved into it. The architecture of Saint Luke’s in Dublin, Pennsylvania, was identical to the architecture of the building in which you and I are worshiping this weekend. The first time I saw this church building on Menaul Blvd was during the Rocky Mt. Synod Convention in 1971. One night during the gathering the entire convention moved from St. Timothy’s, where we had been meeting, here to St. Luke’s because a young son of this congregation was to be ordained — my dear friend and colleague Pastor Chuck Exley!
When I walked into the building, I stopped and said (almost aloud) “I know where everything is! This is identical to the church in which I grew up!”
Growing up, life was both beautiful and frightening. Farm life was wonderful, I loved it and my family my Grandparents, parents, sister — all lived within loving distance of one another. We found comfort amid the “changes and chances of life” in each other, in our land, in the wealth of things that came from the land, and in our church.
But the world was often a scary place. Farm life for all its beauty could be very dangerous. (I can show you where the hay wagon nearly ran over my little body when I was 6 years old.) Left over stories of The War (WWII) were told sometimes in hushed voices by parents not wanting to scare too much their children.
And then there was Polio. The Epidemic of the 1950s reached into lives everywhere. Fear and panic reigned. Swimming pools were closed, also churches and schools, movie theatres and more. More than one night I went to sleep having seen images of Iron Lungs where polio victims were kept alive — for a while.
As I received my next booster of Pfizer Covid Vaccine this past Thursday, I was remembering the Polio vaccine: first a shot in the arm, and then later a liquid poured onto a sugar cube which we faithfully ate.
In the wings of that dramatic stage there always lurked the threat of death and dying at worse, paralysis at best.
Where did hope come from? Where was there solace and comfort? Where did one find courage and the sustenance of living?
There were angels. We heard it in Church every Sunday during the liturgy as the Pastor led us into Holy Communion.
But — Angels and Archangels, and with all the company of heaven — there it was for me — angels, messengers of God, who surround God and bring to us comfort, peace, healing and hope — and not just at Christmastime “glad tidings” and all that — but all the time.
“Speak of angels, and you hear their wings flap,” my Grandfather would remind me.
We have angels, messengers, announcers of good news. Are they real? Yes, so I believe. What if they just exist in literature and imagination? So what, makes no difference. If Saint Michael, Gabriel, Raphael and all the other angels exist only in my mind, and bring the presence of God and the gifts of Healing, Peace, Hope, Comfort, Protection — how can that be unholy?
It is what we call the “good news” (Gospel); the whole reason we are gathered here this weekend. It is Good News that we are not along, not abandoned, not left out in the freezing cold of despair — but surrounded with “Angels and Archangels and the whole company of Heaven”. Think of that when you come to the Table this weekend. Think of that when you come each weekend. Think of that when you walk through the days of this week. Think of that when you fall asleep in the nighttime and wake in the morning. You are not alone. You are not forgotten. You are precious and you are loved. Watching over you and walking alongside you are the messengers of God, sometimes you can see them, sometimes not, but you are never alone, never forgotten.
And let us all say: Amen.
1https://www.liturgybytlw.com/Sermons/SermonOnAngels.html ON ANGELS AND MORTALS.
Nota(ble) Be(n)e 