Calling All Angels

Scripture: 1 Timothy 2:1-7


It was a sunny Saturday morning and my parents were looking forward to getting the weekly grocery shopping out of the way. As they walked up the steep parking lot toward the supermarket, they approached a woman who was steering a cart down the slope toward her station wagon. Her cart hit a bump and an apple bounced out and began rolling away.
Without thinking, my father snatched the apple up and gently tossed it to the woman. She caught the apple in her hands, smiled, and thanked him warmly. He beamed with self-satisfaction.

Unfortunately, when the woman let go of the cart it took off down the hill. She and my father ran after it. Other people tried to grab it as it raced by. One of those well-intentioned individuals let go of their own cart in an effort to intercept hers. That cart took off, too.

The carts careened down the parking lot. Like a couple of All-American running backs, they faked out all of those in pursuit, wildly shifting direction back and forth as the flimsy wheels hit cracks and ridges in the pavement. The customers chasing after them did their best to keep up, but they had to dodge the crazy litter of groceries that the carts were leaving in their wake. As you might imagine, this episode did not end well, despite the fact that it began with a kind and gracious gesture.

It has always seemed to me that the events of that bright weekend morning say something interesting about human nature. After all, the incident unfolded as it did precisely because my father tossed the apple without thinking and because the other customer grabbed for the woman’s cart without considering what might happen next. Both of them acted out of an immediate, spontaneous, almost instinctual impulse to come to someone’s aid.

This happens all the time, and often on a much grander and more spectacular scale. Perhaps some of you know a regular feature of Reader’s Digest called “Everyday Heroes” that catalogues such events. The magazine recently told the story of a Minnesota man who dove in front of a moving train to save a woman who had fallen onto the tracks after fainting. In another issue, it described how three female college students rushed into the perilous waters of a Florida bay to save a drowning fisherman.

Some of these stories actually involve multiple layers of spontaneous, self-sacrificing heroism. For example, the magazine profiled a Kentucky truck driver who crashed his rig in order to keep from crushing the family in the minivan that had stopped in front of him. And then it went on to spotlight the husband and wife who were driving by, saw the wreckage, rushed to the overturned rig, and at the last possible second hauled the trucker from his burning vehicle.

We human beings are a baffling, complicated lot. The daily news brings us abundant evidence of our weakness and willfulness and selfishness and sinfulness. As the grand old hymn puts it, we are “prone to wander” and “prone to leave the God [we] love.” The light came to earth, the Gospel of John declares, but something persists inside us all that loves the darkness.

Yet there is abundant evidence that a spark of divine goodness burns inside of us as well. The many acts of kindness, generosity, and self-sacrifice that we witness seem to confirm the assurance, found in Second Timothy, that God endowed us with “a spirit of power and love and self-discipline.” In a passage we all know well, Jesus invited us to find that indwelling light, to bring it out into the world, and to let it shine before others so that they might see the good works that it inspires.

Still, we cannot content ourselves with saying that we will listen for the voice within that urges us to do good things and follow it. There is, after all, nothing uniquely Christian about helping other people—we hold no monopoly on good deeds. The question therefore arises of what, if anything, distinguishes a Christian who serves food to the homeless from an agnostic shelter volunteer who does the same thing. If, as the hymn suggests, “They will know we are Christians by our love,” then we might fairly ask how our love differs from that of anyone else. And the answer, I want to suggest to you, lies not in what we do but in why we do it.

Certainly, we do good things for some of the same reasons non-Christians do. We are moved by compassion. We find such service gratifying. We want to do our part to promote social and economic justice. We seek the blessing of an income tax deduction. But the scriptures invite us to engage in good works for reasons that are much more important and fundamental to our identities as followers of Jesus Christ.

One of those reasons relates directly to our belief in the doctrine of grace. We believe in a God who loves us, reaches out to us, and cares for us no matter who we are, what we have done, or where we have wandered. It is a gift we cannot earn or repay—but we can act as if we wanted to try. So we go forth into this world loving and caring for people just as we find them because this is what God has done for us.

Furthermore, the gospels assure us that when we do these things we do not just show our love for God’s children. We show our love for God himself. I was reminded of this just last weekend, when I had the privilege of helping members of this congregation serve food to those in need at the Jackson Interfaith Shelter.

I always have the same experience when I do this sort of thing. I look at the people and wonder about their stories. Where did they come from? What brought them here? Were they chased to this place by poverty or domestic violence or substance abuse or mental illness—or simple misfortune? Do they still dream—or do their nightmares leave no room for that? Will a day come when I will be on the other side of the counter, standing in line with them?

Without fail, as I am pondering these things a passage from the twenty-fifth chapter of the Gospel of Matthew comes into my mind. I hear Jesus reminding us that when we give food to the hungry and drink to the thirsty it is just as though we are doing it for Him. And, then, my eyes are opened and I see—in each and every one of their faces—the presence of the living God.
This perspective does not just inform the action; it defines the action. You see, in our faith, putting a piece of chicken on a homeless child’s plate is not just conducive to theology. It is theology.

Such actions are also expressions of our thankfulness. As in all of life, what we do speaks louder than what we say. Saying we are grateful shows we are polite. Living like we are grateful shows we are indebted. It shows we are committed. It shows we are transformed—or, at least, that we are working on being so.

I’ve been reading a book by N.T. Wright, a Bishop in the Church of England and a leading contemporary Bible scholar, called After You Believe: Why Christian Character Matters. The book is filled with nuance and I cannot do it justice here. But I want to offer a summary of one of Wright’s central points because I think it is so intriguing and inspiring—and maybe a little daunting.

Christians, Wright observes, live in a state of anticipation. As an article of faith, we believe that God’s plan plays out through a great, unfolding drama that will culminate in the ushering in of a new kingdom. And we believe that God invites us to have a part in that kingdom.

In this life, we therefore have—in Wright’s words—an “astonishing vocation.” We are called to be “genuine, image-bearing, God-reflecting human beings” who seek to learn “the language of God’s new world.” Wright is a scholarly, sophisticated, and subtle thinker so he would not put it this way, but since I am none of these things, I will: my friends, we are angels in training.

And this holds true for all of us because, as Paul’s letter to Timothy declares, our God “desires everyone to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.” All of us have value. All of us have something to contribute. All of us are summoned to come into the light and into the life that God calls us to live.

Think of it this way. What God wants and what the world wants are often at odds. But what God wants and what the world needs never are. And what God wants—and what the world needs—is for all angels to report for duty: right here; right now.

So dust off some wings. Try them on. And do what you can to be messengers and instruments of God’s peace, and love, and grace.

The alarm is sounding.

And God is calling all angels.

Even those in training.

Even me.

Even you.

Amen.