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Note:  Important disclaimer for those reading this sermon.  Sermons are meant to be spoken not read.  This is not an essay.  The sentence structure is meant for natural voice pauses, not grammatical correctness.  Imagine, as you read this, that someone is speaking it.  

SERMON 

Sunday, November 27 2011

                                                       Rev. Audrey Brown

God’s Got these angels….

A sermon about Angels for  the beginning of Advent

 

I think I could have called this sermon…everything I know about angels, I learned from movies or songs.  

 

Angels descending, bring from above,  Echoes of mercy, whispers of love.  (from Hymn This is my story~Fanny J. Crosby)

There  are Angels among us.
Sent down to us from somewhere up above.
They come to you and me in our darkest hours.
To show us how to live, to teach us how to give.
To guide us with the light of love.  (from Alabama – Angels among us)

 Why do they come to us ?

 To grace us with their mercy, in our time of need (again from Alabama)

The soul at its highest is found like God, but an angel gives a closer idea of Him.  That is all an angel is:  an idea of God.  ~Meister Eckhart

So they come to give us an idea of God, a closer understanding of who God is and what God wants us to do in the world.

 Caution.   They are Never what we expect.

 The wings of angels are often found on the backs of the least likely people.  ~Eric Honeycutt

They wear so many faces; show up in the strangest places. (Alabama)

 As George Baily says of Clarence: “You look about the kind of angel I’d get…sort of a  fallen angel.”

 The best by far is John Travolta in Michael  (movie clip) rude, dirty angel saying I’m not that kind of angel.

 

We are not to get caught up in what they look like, how they appear, but that they are there to help us.

 

When life held troubled times, and had me down on my knees.
There's always been someone there to come along and comfort me.
A kind word from a stranger, to lend a helping hand.
A phone call from a friend, just to say I understand.
 at the dark end of the road. Someone lights the way with just a single ray of hope.   (Alabama)


Do we need to know that they are there, see them recognize them, say to our friends over coffee I was talking to an angel today ( no )

The golden moments in the stream of life rush past us and we see nothing but sand; the angels come to visit us, and we only know them when they are gone.  ~George Elliot

So why do they come?

 I told you that everything I know about angels I learned from movies.

 In the movie The Preachers Wife… the preacher comes to a moment where he understands that life has not beaten him, that despite the crushing reality of his present moment,  he has hope.  This revelation, this message from God comes to him in the middle of a sermon and so he says.  God’s got these angels…waiting in a long line, for the chance to come down and help you and me…..

 Help us do what?

 Ahhh for that we go to an odder source than movies or songs…we go to the Bible, and what we find there is the craziest thing yet.

 It’s not about the angels its about the message.

 What is the message? 

 God is in you.   God will be made known through you.

 And that’s not a story about one angel and one woman… it s reminder of the essential message God has for us.

 “you are the place where the transforming love of Christ

you are a key place in the dominion of God,

in the full reign of holiness being nurtured

and nourished into this world?

you are the place where Christ’s deep and wide love

will be birthed, from whom God’s hope,

peace, joy, and love will emerge,

and where people will be invited to encounter the Holy?

 Do you want to write it off and say,

“Not me, I’m too young, old, weak,

fearful, distracted, stubborn, uncertain”? 

 “Not me, I don’t know enough, love enough,

have enough; I am not holy enough”?

 If you hear your name being called out

and the words “Blessed are you,

you will bear the Messiah,”

are there any preconceived notions about God

and how God works that you need to let go of?

Do you need to let go of any ideas you have about yourself?

What limitations from encountering

others as Mary's, sites of incarnation,

do you need to pass beyond so you can see

God being birthed into this world in your neighbour?

(adapted from)  Micol I. Cottrell, St. Paul’s U.C., Temiskaming Shores, Ont.

So let us hear the angel voices, however they sound to each of us, and as walk in faith

 

 So that Christ is birthed again and again

in our touch

in our words

in our thoughts

in our life

in community

Let go and fall into that embrace

give birth to your limitless possibilities

and transforming love.

In this Advent time

help us not only to hear and speak

the ancient story of Christ’s birth,

but to enter into it and be forever changed.

 

Amen.  May it be so.

(adapted from) Micol I. Cottrell, St. Paul’s U.C., Temiskaming Shores, Ont.