Touched by an Angel
by Griff Martin
A Sermon for the Beloveds of First Austin: a baptist community of faith
On Isaiah 61:10-62:3/ Luke 2:1-14
For The First Sunday after Christmas
December 27, 2020
*This document comes from an oral manuscript.
Incarnate and Coming God, we ask that you once again take the Word and transform it into a living and breathing reality we can all together experience. Make us attended to your presence here in this space and in these words God, for if we are aware of your being here then nothing else will matter, but if we are not aware of your being here then nothing else will matter. In the name of the Creator, the Christ and the Comforter.
To hear this story properly I need to remind you of my own spiritual journey, to remind you that I was deeply formed by a Christian private school in which faith was often placed above reason, that teaching Scripture was more important than Shakespeare and fundamentalist dogma were my ABCs. As evidence, I was taught in biology class that men had one more rib in their skeletal system than females did because of Genesis 1 (and not to burst any bubbles here this morning, but that is not true). And I say that without being condescending because although I deeply disagree with much of the faith I was taught in that place, I was taught that faith by some of the most loving and good people I have ever met. I look back now and question the majority of what I was taught but I don’t question that the people who taught me loved me, and there is something to be said for that.
So knowing that, you can see how it would make sense that one of the High School projects I remember best was a term paper on the existence of angels. Now, why I wrote this paper for my World Cultures class is still a mystery to me. What was not a mystery was the outcome of the paper; the outcome of that paper was predetermined. Arguing that angels did not exist or were just part of the imagination would have been like me arguing for a welcoming and affirming theology when it comes to matters of sexuality; it would not have been taken well. Actually I can tell you it has not been taken well, the fact that I pastor this church and our more progressive thinking has led to exactly that, as one of my teachers wrote on Facebook a few years ago, "it’s a shame that thoughtful young man who had such potential has been hijacked by the devil, we pray for him."
So for this term paper I went as scientific as one can get while writing a paper about the existence of angels and when one already knows what they are trying to prove. I did a survey. This was back in the days where you printed things out and then tore off the sides of the paper, where the holes were. I remember printing all these surveys, tearing off all the sides and then passing them out to my friends, my friends’ parents, family, and teachers. So beyond knowing the outcome before I studied, I also took a very certain sample pool.
The stories came back as expected… everyone had an encounter with angels or had a grandparent who had an encounter with angels. There were angels among us and Touched By An Angel was the truth; I might even have referenced that show in the paper.
And yet, there were two outliers that I still remember….
The first was me -- I had never had an encounter with an angel.
The second was a response that came from one of the coaches. Now, to be honest I had given it to him because I thought for sure he would not have had an experience with angels, he was questionable -- we knew he sometimes smelled like cigarettes and we had seen beer cans in the bed of his pickup, sometimes he would slip up in class and reference a movie or TV show that we knew was not okay (what Christian watches NYPD Blue?) And we knew that during practice he was very free with his language. Which means today he is my favorite type of Christian and would fit in very well with us, but back then, it was “Get behind me Satan.”
And the real problem was that his encounter with an angel was by far the truest and most real of any that I collected. What was I supposed to do with a God who was not giving me any angels (and trust me, I was praying for an encounter) but was giving angels to basketball coaches that smoked, drank, used colorful language and watched inappropriate TV shows? What kind of God is that?
Well, I know what kind of God that is….
The timeless God who once announced the birth of Love to a group of flea-bitten, poorly dressed shepherds who were out by a fire one night. The same God who announces the birth to astrologists who are reading the signs and stars like a bunch of new-age, well... astrologists. The same God who chose a strong-willed young teenage girl to be the vehicle of all this. And the same God who nudged the hearts of Anna and Simeon who were such religious fanatics and pious puritans that they lived in the church all the time.
Once again as this Christmas story has demonstrated over and over again, God has no standards when it comes to whom God loves and includes, which I guess is good news.
I mean, it’s certainly good news for those of us whose language is a bit more colorful and who are by no means pious puritans, those whose humor is dark and those who pride themselves on being a different kind of Jesus follower and whose rule book is way more gray than black and white and who are okay with question marks and not periods, which is to mean you and me.
I hope this is not news to you, but you and me, we are not the typical Texas Baptist evangelical Christ followers. If this is news to you, you must have joined our beloved community after we were expelled by the Texas Baptists because our circle of inclusion when we announced we welcomed and wanted queer individuals and thought that all people regardless of their sexual or gender identity were beloved children of God was too far, so we were first shunned and then told they did not want us or our funds. For most of them, we are the shepherds, we are the ones who are out in the field and don’t belong in the town.
But it would be no sort of sermon at all this morning if I just patted us on the back and applauded us for being those type of Jesus followers we are today, for being the radical Jesus followers that I think are real and true. Well, a sermon that just celebrates our existence and being is not a sermon, that is a greeting card.
A sermon has a calling.
So the question and story this morning might need to be flipped on us -- if we are the shepherds for a lot of evangelical churches, well then, are they our shepherds? A story is never as simple as just one reading of it, the story changes depending on where you stand in the story. So maybe those who view us as the outliers and see us as those that God should never include, well, when we flip the script, they serve the same role for us.
Those who come running to share the Good News with us might very well have a theology that is so black and white we don’t know what to do with it; they might use evangelical language that makes our stomachs ache; they might wear political hats that make us want to turn our back before they even say hello; they might talk about God with gendered patriarchal language that breaks our hearts.
You see, that is the problem with a God who has no standards, in terms of whom God loves and includes is that "everybody" means everybody. Everybody means the person you least want included.
Which means the reason that I have never seen an angel might actually be the same problem as my term paper, the sample pool was too small.
I don’t have an extensive theology of angels; sadly my fascination with divine beings stopped right at the end of that paper. But what I do believe about angels is that they are fundamentally unlike us. Now, I used to think that meant that angels were beings of light, wings and halos and harps, they came to us only in dreams or in states that are beyond our normal dimensions. And that very well may be true.
But the key is they are fundamentally unlike us.
And maybe that means someone whose theology is fundamentally unlike mine, someone whose God is fundamentally unlike mine, someone whose politics is fundamentally unlike mine, someone whose socioeconomic status is fundamentally unlike mine.
My angel might be the one with whose guiding lights and ideologies and thoughts are fundamentally unlike mine.
Which means there are angels walking among us, which means that your angel might be the same person to whom you are their angel. Or at the very least, the person most unlike you might be the person who is going to tell you about the songs of the angels that your heart has been looking for. And I have some evidence for that.
First, a little Christmas Eve exam: what is the first thing an angel always asks of us? Fear not. Angels often remind us to not be afraid, to not be scared, and you know what scares me most? Those who don’t think like I do.
And second, angels never ask us to believe anything -- look at the language of the angels in the sky speaking to the shepherd, behold. “Do not be afraid, behold….”
Now, this might be one of those church words that we use a lot and we have never actually understood fully, what does it mean to behold something? It’s an invitation to perceive something, to gaze upon. Angels are not showing up to tell us what to believe, they are inviting us to look at something, in particular to look at where they have seen and found God.
And the faith is that in your seeing that, gazing upon that, it will lead each of us to exactly what we now need to believe… and here is the crazy scary part, it might not be the exact same thing for every person.
Which means that just maybe my angelic encounter might happen when I am brave enough and open enough to sit at the table with someone whom I voted differently in the last election, with someone whose views of justice are different than mine, with someone whose views of God are more conservative than mine, and asking them, “tell me about the last time you experienced God, you felt God, you saw God…. Tell me about the last time you stood on holy, sacred ground.”
And trusting that in that encounter we might both leave a bit more open minded.
And I can testify to that… What I shared about the religious high school that I graduated from, well, I was that Christian. That fundamentalist who only spoke of God as "he," who believed in inerrancy of Scripture, who thought there was certainly a hell and could tell you the types of people that would go there, who believed God was a white male republican and that The Way was very straight and narrow… and then someone opened my eyes and my heart because they started telling me about their holy, sacred ground. They told me about falling in love with someone of the same gender and finally falling in love with themselves too and how God was there. They told me about a homeless friend and how their journey taught them the truth of being poor and how that changed their view of justice and their vote. They told me how they found God more by their questions than by their certainties.
And here was the key… they were each willing to sit with me and give me something to behold when they had no reason to do anything beyond be closed minded towards me. They gave me something to behold and it led me to where I stand today, this moment.
Good things, God things happen when we are brave enough to sit with others and see if they have anything for us to behold.
What I know is that being closed minded and big ego-ed about my views and my ways only has always been the detriment of the white church, both when we were on the wrong side of issues and when we have been on the right side of issues. What has always saved the church is big old messy open-armed embraces of love and care.
So maybe this Advent to practice seeing the angels, we don’t need to go out into a field in the middle of the night and stare up at the sky, maybe instead we need to practice this: who are the ones you want to exile to the field, to have them over there out of sight and out of mind and certainly out of power and control? Who is that? Because that is your avenue to your angel who just might give you something new to behold if only you are brave enough.
A few weeks ago I read a line from the contemplative monk Thomas Merton that has stuck with me -- I don’t know that I like it all or that I even want to fully agree with it, but I think it’s true. Towards the end of his life he wrote this reflecting on what he had learned: “You gradually struggle less and less for an idea, and more and more for specific people. In the end, it is the reality of personal relationships that save everything.” Hear that again: it is not ideas that change the world, but simple gestures of love.
First Austin, go find your shepherd and let them tell you about their angel and see what God has for you to behold these days.
Amen and Amen.
*artwork: Advent Triptych, by John Swanson
Behold
By: KB
Any God I ever felt in church I brought in with me.
- Alice Walker, The Color Purple
What a fool schooling makes of education. For instance, I am supposed to believe that who I am
is devoid of God, that I am meant to be a shepherd grazing in unlikeliness, wavering to what others
feel to be true. Truth depends on the vantage point of who tells it sometimes. If we skip where holes
appear, we cannot get to where truth exists. What does it say about me that I believe in cults
but also angels? What does it say about me that I believe in truth, even if I haven’t experienced
every truth that lives? If we can’t acknowledge the individual, we cannot get to where God exists.
At times, I am bad at faith, but I am always able to see my God-given angels. They say God
was there when I could only love who I love. They say God is not the white male republican that
we've been taught to think of Them. I find angels in moments when I am my most uncertain.
I find God after I speak with who I'm supposed to view as my unlikeable shepherds. What does it mean
if I believe in people, but also of prayers & truth -- which is also often destiny? What feels like hell
can be good for us sometimes. In my best prayers, I receive an uncomfortable intervention. There is no
hierarchy of people in a world filled with Them. The truth is not radical or obscure; it is a good thing;
it can only be a God thing. We die but our experience of all this is timeless. I am my most Godly
when I behold to those I’m supposed to view as shepherds. In the universe where love is all that we get
from those around us, and everyone belongs where obscurity does not, will you listen to what reveals
itself as true? In moments when your sample pool is too small, will you reach for your shepherds and
angels; will you make our flawed-and-possible universe a reality?
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