God is with us
A sermon preached by the Revd Dr Jennifer Smith at St Michael's Church to celebrate its Patronal Festival.
It is good that we are gathered on this evening, at the end of this particular Monday. All through the town today people came and went, nodded to and ignored each other – Pushing babies and shopping carts, walking frames or sticks, calling down the street, holding doors and walking through them. Rushing past in cars at lights, bursts of music. We were among these busy people: and we come tonight with all the different priorities and places of our days.
Though today our attention was elsewhere, this house of prayer has held vigil for us, kept a space for us to remember the heart of God. This Monday as it does each day.
And now the memory of Holy Michael has drawn us to worship the God who has been with us all through the town and its tasks today. It is good that we are here, at the end of this Monday, to greet the house and feast its Patron. We are here to rededicate ourselves to the parish and this place – to remember the patronage of the archangel Michael and take strength from it in our busy going and comings on a September Monday in Kettering.
As with so many saints’ days and festivals, Michaelmas has been layered with folk tradition far more durable than formal theology about angels and their place in catholic and reformed thinking. The Archangel Michael is God’s champion, the protector of Israel. The one who fought evil without fear of death, in the strength of the blood of the lamb. The one who stood against evil and triumphed over it; cast the serpent from heaven. It is not my purpose tonight to lay to rest formal questions about what we think of angels, let alone what we think of the picture language in the Revelation of St. John. I think this is the point at which politicians say something is ‘above their pay grade’. That always annoys me, perhaps because it seems a handy get out to avoid constructive conflict!
So I will say this: I am convinced that the world of heaven and earth around us is not empty, but full: we are accompanied in our days by many of God’s messengers, angels. Sometimes we recognise them, sometimes not. I am equally convinced that God’s strength still stands against evil. With something more than liberal theology.
Going into the season of short days and weak sun, the season of thin food and cold, of hospital beds and frozen ground, I pray for Michael at my back. I pray for the strength of Michael and the angels in this place.
There are many traditions about Michaelmas – like that we should never harvest blackberries after today – the legend has it that when the serpent fell, he fell into a patch of blackberries – and as one would, falling into blackberries, cursed them.
Loudly, I should imagine. I hear that no less an authority than Bob Flowerdew of Gardeners’ question time on radio 4 says that there is some truth in the rule – no comment on its origins - that blackberries make some chemical change and become unpalatable. I’ll leave it to your testing.
Another tradition from Skye has it that on Michaelmas Eve men may go out to steal horses – ostensibly for the pilgrimage on the feast day itself. Sadly no one showed any interest in my car last night when I was preaching in Cottingham, however – And I’d allowed myself some hopes!
And while the men were out doing the things men do with horses and their preservation from thieves, the women were meant to be cooking protective cakes – made from all the different kinds of cereal grown on the farm and stirred with the prayer for,
Progeny and prosperity of family,
Mystery of Michael,
Protection of the Trinity
They invoked the name of Michael and the Trinity to protect and heal the one who ate the cake during the long months of winter.
We may do less with horses and cereal cakes these days, and I hope we understand prayer to be something more mysterious than a magic charm, but we still fear the long night.
When we come in from the bustle of our Mondays, those busy streets, and even behind our very secure doors with all the hope that faith brings, not to mention the paraphernalia of modern life – flat screen televisions and repeat prescriptions, I still fear the long night. It creeps into me with fingers of anxiety. A lion prowling in the darkness.
I pray for protection and that God will use me, and us, to protect others. Michaelmas is still a feast invoking the strength of God against the evils we know, and against those we can only guess at.
Michael stands as your patron, your protector and intercessor, to encourage us and take us again for the work of justice. First for the battles we all fight in our own hearts – for healing, and peace, when we struggle with losing a job or breaking a relationship – the grace to love the ones dear to us.
Then for the stand we make in community for wholesome life in so many ways – against the trade in humans that lurks just out of sight in the shadows of our busy streets, this Monday. Against the difficulties of debt and hardship for money. The struggle for succour for the most vulnerable around us. For those without homes or bound by addiction, all of us who seek comfort in ways that do not last.
Friends, I look around you and I see messengers, angels among us.
If Michael and his angels would fight for us tonight, I hope they would fight the anxiety and pain that can accompany illness. I hope they would fight alongside every tired nurse and doctor, every teacher at work tonight. Every nameless care assistant in our nursing homes. I hope they would stand alongside parents, and those broken in love, with those who come close to death. Standing without fear, in the strength of Jesus, the blood of the lamb.
And as Jesus promised Nathaniel, we too ‘will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the son of man.’ (John 1.51)
Tomorrow the streets will fill again, and we will go about our busy ways. Nodding to each other, ignoring each other, buying and selling, pushing babies and walking sticks. And the world of heaven and earth will still be full of saints and angels. And this house will stand day by day, to give us space to remember the heart of God – in Michael’s name it will remind us of God’s struggle against poverty of all kinds, and for abundance of life.
Progeny and prosperity of family,
Mystery of Michael,
Protection of the Trinity
In the dark of night as in the morning, fear not: God is with us.
