St. Michael and All Angels

September 29, 20214

+ Well, a few weeks ago we stepped out of our regular Ordinary green on Sunday morning when we celebrated the feast of the Holy Cross.

Today, we’re doing it again.

As I said then, I repeat now: we’re not really supposed to do this, but I really think it’s important to celebrate some of these feasts that many of you don’t get to celebrate regularly.

But now we’re stepping into the .

And we are doing so to celebrate the feast of St. Michael and All Angels, or as it is commonly known, Michaelmas.

Why? You may ask.

Well, we are because let’s face it: we don’t really give angels a lot of thought.

We just don’t.

And, from what it seems, the angels themselves would be just fine with that.

They don’t seem like they want a lot of attention brought to themselves.

But whether they like it or not, we are going to commemorate them today.

But first, let’s talk about our scripture readings for today.

We have these three very familiar stories featuring angels this morning.

Our first is the really wonderful story of “Jacob’s ladder” (one of my favorites).

The second is the story Michael, leading the “good” angels, who battle and then  beat “the dragon” (we know dragon as “the Devil or Satan”) and his “bad” angels.

Finally, in our Gospel reading, which echoes our reading from the Hebrew scriptures, we find Jesus telling Nathanael that he will see something like Jacob’s ladder,  with angels “ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.”

Lots of angels.

But let’s ask ourselves: what are angels?

I mean honestly.

Angels, as we understand them, based on Scripture and tradition, are spiritual beings who interact with humans—sometimes as servant and sometimes as messengers of God.

The word “angel” comes from the word angelos, which means messenger or envoy.

In Hebrew, angels are referred to mal’ak elohim (“the messenger of God”), or  mal’ak YHWH (“messenger of the Lord”) or  bene elohim (or children of God”).

Stephanie Garcia and I have a shared interest in something biblically correct angels, a trend on social media in which angels are depicted as we encounter them in the Hebrew scriptures.

 These are not sweet, nice, chubby little cherubs, or stoic, blond, white men or women with wings.

 Biblically correct angels are frightening—wheels with wings and eyes and a frightening all-seeing eye at their center, which we find in the prophecies of Isaiah and Ezekiel.  

 Angels are not humans.

 And we don’t become angels when we die, despite what popular culture says.

 They are different than us.

 They are somewhat divine—somewhat above us and beyond us.

 But the problem for us, good, rational progressive Christians that we are, is that all this sems a bit fantastical, doesn’t it?

It’s like listening to someone talk about the Game of Thrones or Dungeons and Dragons.

It’s seems to mythical. Or mythological.

And most of us have a very hard relating angels to our own lives.

After all, WE’ve never encountered angels, right?

Well, we may have.

Sometimes, the right people come into our lives at just the right time.

And there was one time in my own life when I think I actually did in fact encounter an angel in human form.

Way back in April of 2002, I was recovering from cancer.

It was a dark time in my life.

I was sick.

And weak.

And about as down and out as a person can be, emotionally and spiritually.

Well, one day early in that month, I finally finished my round of radiation for cancer.

I was exhausted, but I was also relieved.

I decided, following that final treatment, to take a drive.

For some reason I don’t remember anymore, I was driving my father’s pickup.

Anyway, I had a fairly nice morning driving around in Minnesota in the cold spring weather.

I was looking forward to healing and getting beyond my cancer.

Well, as I was driving home on a highway between Halstad, Minnesota and Hillsboro, North Dakota, I hit a rock on the road that had been dragged there by some tillers, who were tilling the fields for planting.

It destroyed the tire.

And I pulled over alongside the road in the middle of nowhere.

And I mean nowhere.

Although it was April, it was still bitterly cold.

And to make matters worse, the cellphone I had the time, which was not a very good one, died on me.

I had no one to call.

So, I got out and was going to change to tire.

But I didn’t know where the spare tire was on my father’s pick up.

Besides, I was sick.

And weak.

And I wasn’t certain I would’ve even been able to physically manage it.

I panicked.

There was a farmstead a few miles away.

But I decided to stay put and see if anyone stopped.

And no one did.

No one.

Cars drove by, back and forth, but no one stopped, even when I got out and waved at them.

Finally, after some time, a car did pull over.

In it was a middle-aged woman.

She asked if I needed help.

I told her about the rock and the tire and that I didn’t know where the spare was because it was my dad’s pickup.

She offered to drive me to Hillsboro.

I was grateful and got in, but I did tell her that she should probably be careful giving rides to strangers.

“It’s all right, “ she said. “I have a gun under my seat.”

We made small-talk on the ride and it came out that I was studying to be an Episcopal priest and that she was Jewish.

I then confessed to her that even if I had found that tire I wasn’t certain I was going to be able to change it since I had just had my last radiation treatment that morning for cancer.

She said, “Oh, I have cancer too.”

She then offered me her cellphone and I called my mother to tell her what happened.

We then made it into Hillsboro and she dropped me off a Goodyear Tire store there.

Weirdly, the next time I was in Hillsboro after that, that tire store had closed.

I asked her name so I send her a thank you.

She said, no. that’s all right.

We bid each other farewell. I thanked her again.

And off she went into the snow.

I later found out that she called my mother, since the number was on her phone, to tell my mom that I was all right and that she should be proud of me for some reason.

This nameless Jewish woman, in the middle of nowhere between Halstad and Hillsboro.

What are the chances of that?

For me, this is what angels are.

For me, this is all the proof I need that angels exist.

For me, that’s exactly what angels would do.

I hope we have all experienced angels among us in some way in our lives.

These angels among us remind us that we are not alone, that we are, ultimately, taken care of.

They remind us that God does care for us—that we are important to God.

Even in the middle of nowhere between Halstad and Hillsboro.  

But, it doesn’t end there.

The message for me—and for all of this morning—is that sometimes, we too are called to be angels for others.

We too are, like angels, called to embody God’s goodness, God’s grace, God’s love in our service of others.

We are called to be angels in this world for those who need angels in this world.

So let us do just that.

Let us be those angels.

Let us embody the goodness and love of God in our service of each other.

Let us reach out in mercy and compassion for those around us.

By doing so, we become angels in our midst to those around us.

By doing so, we embody God’s goodness and love.

By doing so, we glimpse God’s reign, present here on earth as tiny glimpses.

By doing so, we truly will see angels ascending and descending among us.

Amen.

 

The Requiem Eucharist for Sharon Remmen

 

Gethsemane Episcopal Cathedral

September 24, 2024

 

+ As I stand here, I think the only word I can use to describe this moment is: surreal.

It’s surreal to be here, commemorating the life of Sharon Remmen.

It’s surreal to be saying goodbye to Sharon who was just with us, full of life, o recently.

It’s surreal to realize that Sharon is not here with us today as we always knew her always to be with us.

Sharon—who was always present.

Sharon—who was the one we all leaned on for support

Sharon—who kept everything together and moving forward.

Sharon—who left us so suddenly, so without warning.

It’s surreal.

I was actually thinking of Sharon on Monday, September 16, because it was on that day, in 2010, I stood right here with many of you and said goodbye to Sharon’s mother, Florence.

Florence was my beloved parishioner for many years.

And it was a truly surreal day that day as well.

I actually don’t remember a whole lot from that day.

I was still in shock over my father’s sudden death two days before.

I don’t know how I preached that sermon that day.

But I was thinking about it a week ago last Monday.

And I was thinking about how Sharon, even in her grief, comforted me and was present for me that day, when I should’ve been comforting her.

But that was the way Sharon was.

I am so grateful for Sharon and for her amazing presence in my life.

There weren’t a whole lot of people quite like Sharon Remmen.

She was always so kind and so good not just to me, but to so many other people.

And to most of you, as well.

She was a loyal wife, a loving mother and grandmother and sister and friend.

But beneath that nice, sweet exterior, behind those twinkling eyes, we all knew that you never wanted to cross Sharon Remmen.

She could be fiercely defensive of those she loved.

And I count myself lucky that I was on the side of those she loved and not on the side of one of those who crossed her.

I knew of a couple of those people.

God help them!

But I am grateful to have been on the receiving end of her love and care and support over these many years.

The last time I saw her was a few months at the celebration for the twentieth anniversary of my ordination to the Priesthood at my parish of St. Stephen’s in north Fargo. .

It was so good to see her and Dave that day.

We saw each regularly over the years.

Back in the summer of 2020, I officiated at Sharon and Dave’s renewal of wedding vows.

Sharon often reached out to me.

Or we just often saw each other around town, or at other events.  

And it was always a time of joy.

Now, I have to be careful in what I say today.

I know for a fact that Sharon would not want me to get up here and say sweet, nice things about her.

Still, despite the fact that it might sound sweet and nice, I do have to say this: Sharon was a genuinely good person.

That goodness exuded from her.

She just carried her goodness with her wherever she went.

Which makes all of this today so much harder.

I know priests are probably not really supposed to say things like this, but I will because I feel it:

It all seems to unfair.

This is the not way it should have been.

It shouldn’t have been this sudden.

It shouldn’t have happened without those final good-byes.

I don’t know exactly how it SHOULD have been.

But this doesn’t seem like it was it.

There should have been more time.

But, as Sharon would no doubt tell us, this is what have.

And so, we must bear what we must bear.

Still, this world is a so much more empty today without Sharon in it.

But for us who are left, we have our consolations today.

We know that we are all better off because of Sharon and all she was to us.

She made a difference in our lives.

It is also vital to remember that this goodbye we make today is only a temporary goodbye.

All that we knew and loved about Sharon is not gone for good.

It is not ashes.

Is not grief.

It is not loss.

Everything that Sharon was to all of us who knew her and loved her is now with the God she knew and loved and served.

All we loved, all that was good and gracious in Sharon—all that was gentle and loving and fierce and strong and amazing in her—all of that goes on.

It lives on with all of you who experienced the kindness and generosity and love in your lives.

And for those of us who have faith, faith in more than this world, we know that she is in a place of light and beauty and life unending.

And I do believe beyond a shadow of a doubt that we will see her again.

And on that day every tear will truly be wiped from our faces.

And there will be no more tears.

And it will be beautiful.

Later in this service, we will hear these powerful words,  

 All of us go down
to the dust; yet even at the grave we make our song: Alleluia,
alleluia, alleluia.

Sharon knew those words in her life.

She believed in those words.

She knew how powerful that word, Alleluia, was in her life.

And how even more powerful that word is when we stand at the grave, when we stand in the face of death, and defiantly proclaim, “Alleluia! Alleluia!”

She knew what it meant to be here today, numb with grief, and still sing praise to God, even despite the pain, even despite the loss.

Today, we sing hymns.

And we sing our praises to God.

This is where we find our strength today.

This is where find our comfort and courage to move forward.

So, let us do just that.

Today, let us sing our hymns, our Alleluias defiantly.

Let us face this day and the days to come with gratitude for Sharon, for this incredible person God let us know.

Let us be truly grateful for her and all she was to us.

Let us be sad, yes.

But let us also remind ourselves: death has not defeated her.

Or us.

Knowing that, let us sing loudly.

Let us live boldly.

Let us stand up defiantly.

Let us embody courage and strength.

That is what Sharon would want us to do today, and in the days to come.

I am so grateful I knew Sharon.

I am grateful for her presence in my life.

And I am very grateful that we will all one day see her again.

Into paradise may the angels lead you, Sharon.

At your coming may the martyrs receive you.

And may they bring you with joy and gladness into the holy city Jerusalem.

Amen.

 

18 Pentecost

 

September 22, 2024 

 

Jeremiah 11.18-20; Psalm 54; James 3.13-4,7-8a;

 

+So, I’m going to ask you a question.

 

When, I ask, take a moment, to really think about it.

 

OK.

 

Do you have anyone your life you consider an enemy?

 

Someone when you hear the word “enemy” you actually think of immediately.

 

Just take a moment and think about it.

 

I’m not going to ask you to name them.

 

But certainly feel free to privately name them before God.

 

[Name them before God]

 

Now, I have a few.

 

I have a few people who, for whatever reason, despise me for not being who they need me to be for them.

 

It’s hard.

 

It’s painful.

 

It’s extremely painful.

 

And sometimes, when those people are people you care for or who were close friends or family, it is even more painful.

 

But, let me tell you this: we don’t make it through this life without a few enemies, without a few people who just not going to like us.

 

Richard Nixon, someone you probably never thought you would hear referenced in one of my sermons, was notoriously known to have a list of enemies.

 

Well, I, like Richard Nixon, I actually write the names of my enemies down as well.

 

But unlike Nixon I do so not to keep up on them and persecute.

 

I keep a list of my “enemies” so I can pray for them on a regular basis.

 

I’m not saying that so I sound pious and holy (I’m not)

 

When I say “pray for them” I sometimes honestly can’t do more than that.

 

Sometimes those people have hurt me enough that I can’t say I pray for really great things to happen to them.

 

But, I also don’t pray for bad things to happen to those people who I view as my enemy.

 

Do I kind of secretly wish that bad things would happen to them?

 

Well…

 

…

 

…ok…

 

…maybe…

 

…secretly…

 

 

But…more than anything, I just wish they would see the error of their ways, as I perceive it.

 

Which is arrogant of me, I know.  

 

But it’s honest.

 

Ok, yes, for one or two, maybe I did kind of wish bad things for them.

 

You know, like a canker sore or a stubbed toe or something like that.

 

I don’t wish for illness or death or really bad things to happen to them.  

 

Enemies in the Bible were dealt with differently, as we no doubt have discovered.

 

And often times, some harsh language was directed at those people who were considered enemies.

 

On those occasions, we do sometimes come across language in the Bible that we might find a bit—how shall we say—uncomfortable.

 

The language is often violent.

 

It is not the language good Christian people normally use.

 

We get a peek at this language in our scriptures readings for today.

 

Our reading from the Prophet Jeremiah is a bit harsh, shall we say?

 

“Let us destroy the tree with its fruit,

let us cut him off from the land of the living,

so that his name will no longer be remembered.”

 

For many us, as we hear it, it might give us pause.

 

It SHOULD give us pause.

 

This is not the kind of behavior we have been taught as followers of Jesus.

 

After all, as followers of Jesus, we’re taught to love and love fully and completely.

 

We certainly weren’t taught to pray for God to destroy our enemies, to “cut them off from the land of the living.”

 

And not just destroy our enemies, but our enemy’s children (that whole reference to the fruit of the tree).

 

We have been taught to pray for our enemies, not pray against them.

 

None of us would ever even think of praying to God to destroy anyone. I hope!

 

But the fact is, although we find it hard to admit at times, we do actually think and feel this way.

 

Even if we might not actually say it, we sometimes secretly wish the worse for those people who have wronged us in whatever way.

 

I like to think that, rather than this being completely negative or wrong, that we should, in fact, be honest about it.

 

We sometimes get angry at people.

 

We sometimes don’t like people.

 

And sometimes WE are the enemy to other people.

 

And let’s truly be honest, there are sometimes when we might actually just hate people.

 

It’s a fact of life—not one we want to readily admit to, but it is there.

 

Sometimes it is very, very hard to love our enemies.

 

Sometimes it is probably the hardest thing in the world to pray for people who have hurt us or wronged us.

 

So, what do we do in those moments when we can’t pray for our enemies—when we can’t forgive?

 

Well, most of us just simply close up.

 

We turn that anger inward.

 

We put up a wall and we swallow that anger and we let it fester inside us.

 

Especially those of us who come from good Scandinavian stock.

 

We simply aren’t the kind of people who wail and complain about our anger or our losses.

 

We aren’t ones usually who say, like Jeremiah, “let us cut [that person] off from the land of the living!”

 

I think we may tend to deny it.

 

And I think we even avoid and deny where the cause of that anger comes from.

 

Certainly, St. James, in his letter this morning, tries to touch on this when talks about these violent “cravings” which are “at war within us.”

 

It’s not pleasant to think that there is warfare within us.

 

For me, as a somewhat reluctant pacifist sometimes, I do not like admitting that there is often warfare raging within me.

 

I want peace within and without!

 

But it is sometimes.

 

So, what about that anger in our relationship to God?

 

What about that anger when it comes to following Jesus?

 

Well, again, we probably don’t recognize our anger before God nor do we bring it before God.

 

We, I think, look at our anger as something outside our following of Jesus.

 

And that is where scriptures of this sort come in.

 

It is in those moments when we don’t bring our anger and our frustrations before God, that we need those verses like the ones we encounter in today’s readings.

 

When we look at those poets and writers who wrote these scriptures—when we recognize them as a Jew in a time of war or famine—we realize that for them, it was natural to bring everything before God.

 

Everything.

 

Not just the good stuff.

 

Not just the nice stuff.

 

But that bad stuff too.

 

And I think this is the best lesson we can learn from these readings than anything else.

 

We all have a “shadow side,” shall we say.

 

I preached about this a few weeks back.

 

We all have a dark side.

 

We have a war raging within us at times.

 

And we need to remember that we cannot hide that “shadow side” of ourselves from God.

 

Let me tell you, if you have war raging inside you, you definitely cannot hide that from God.

 

Sometimes this dark self, this war, is something no else has ever seen—not even our spouse or partner.

 

Maybe it is a side of ourselves we might have not even acknowledged to ourselves.

 

It is this part of ourselves that fosters anger and pride and lust and an unhealthy ego.

 

It is this side of ourselves that may be secretly violent or mean or unduly confrontational and  gossipy.

 

Sometimes it will never make an appearance.

 

It stays in the shadows and lingers there.

 

But sometimes it actually does make itself known.

 

Sometimes it comes plowing into our lives when we neither expect it nor want it.

 

And with it comes chaos

 

As much we try to deny it or ignore it or hide it, the fact is; we can’t hide this dark side from God.

 

It’s incredible really when you think about it: that God, who knows even that shadow side of us—that side of us we might not even fully know ourselves—God who knows us even that completely still loves us and is with us.

 

Few of us lay that shadow self before God.

 

But the authors and poets of our scriptures this morning do, in fact bring it ALL out before God.

 

These poets wail and complain to God and lay bare that shadow side of themselves.

 

The poet is blatantly honest before God.

 

Or as St. James advises,

 

“submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and [God] will draw near to you.”

 

When these ugly things crop up in our lives, bring them before God.

 

Let us deal with them in humility before God.

 

The fact is: sometimes we do secretly wish bad things on our enemies.

 

Sometimes we do wish God would render evil on those who are evil to us.

 

Sometimes we do hope that God will completely wipe away those people who hurt us from our lives.

 

It is in those moments, that it is all right to pray to God in such a way.

 

Because the fact is—as I hope we’ve all learned by now—just because we pray for it doesn’t mean God is going to grant it.

 

I say this over and over again: God answers all prayer, correct.

 

But there are three possible answers to prayer.

 

Yes.

 

No.

 

And not yet.

 

And if you pray for bad things to happen to your enemies, God is probably gonna answer with a big fat “NO.”

 

But that doesn’t invalidate the prayer.

 

God knows what to grant in prayer.

 

And why.

 

The important thing here is not what we are praying for.

 

What is important is that, even in our anger, even in our frustration and our pain, we have submitted to God.

 

We have come before God as this imperfect person.

 

We have come to God with a long dark shadow trailing us.

 

I have heard people say that we shouldn’t read these difficult on Sunday morning because they are “bad theology” or “bad psychology.”

 

They are neither.

 

They are actually very good and honest theology and very good and honest psychology.

 

Take what it is hurting you and bothering you and release it.

 

Let it out before God.

 

Be honest with God about these bad things.

 

Even if your anger is directed at God for whatever reason, be honest with God.

 

Rail and rant and rave at God in your anger if you have to.

 

Trust me, God can take it.

 

God is not going to smite you for being emotionally honest with God!

 

But, these scriptures teach us as well that once we have done that—once we have opened ourselves completely to God—once we have revealed our shadows to God—then we must turn to God and turn away from that shadow self.

 

We must, as St. James says, “resist the Devil.”

 

Hatred and anger and pain are things that, in the long run, hurt us and ultimately destroy us.

 

At some point, as we all know, we must grow beyond whatever anger we might have.

 

We must not get caught in that self-destructive cycle anger can cause.

 

We must not allow those negative feelings to make us bitter.

 

So, when we are faced with these difficult scriptures and we come across those verses that might take us by alarm, let us recognize in them what they truly are—honest prayers before God

 

Let these scriptures—these lamenting and angry, as well as the joyful, exultant scriptures—be our voice expressing itself before God.

 

And in the echo of those words, let us hear God speaking to us in turn.

 

When we do, we will find ourselves in a kind of holy conversation with God.

 

And, in that holy conversation, we will find that, even despite that shadow side of ourselves, God, who is Light, who is love, accepts us fully and completely for just who we are.