Pew Sheet, Sunday, September 29th, 2024. Feast of St Michael and All Angels
On the 20th of May 1916, Ernest Shackleton and two others stumbled half-dead into the small Norwegian whaling station of Stromness on South Georgia after a fifteen-day, 800-mile journey in a fragile open lifeboat seeking help for the crew of their ship, Endurance, which had been stranded on Elephant Island after drifting towards it on an ice floe for two months after the Endurance had been crushed and sunk by pack ice many hundreds of miles further south during the ill-fated ‘Imperial Trans-Antarctic Polar Expedition’.
After their daring voyage in horrendous conditions to South Georgia’s uninhabited southern shore, three of the five men made a gruelling, 36-hour trek across the island’s mountainous interior to reach the whaling station with just one rope, one axe, and little hope of success, leaving two behind to protect the lifeboat.
None of the three men arriving in Stromness said so at the time, but afterwards, all three independently said that they had seen or sensed a fourth ‘person’ during that trek, always on the periphery of their vision, who remained silent throughout, and could not be seen once they reached safety. Shackleton said that there was something “too mystical” about it to be spoken of; but the figure had felt like a guiding angel amidst all that they endured in their desperate last attempt to get help for themselves, and their colleagues left behind on Elephant Island.
Today we celebrate the feast of St Michael and All Angels, a feast which seems incongruous to modern minds, though research shows that more Americans believe in angels than believe in God, saying that they have met an angelic being at least once in their lives, whereas in the Church, we seem to have given up on the idea of angels completely. They are simply not rational, or are perhaps, “too mystical” for most of us to comprehend, and yet, as all three readings confirm today, angels were not only considered to be a reality in the scriptures, but human interaction with them occurred relatively frequently in both the New and Old Testaments. Stories continue to abound about people being rescued from danger by human-like beings who appear for a moment then disappear, though there is often great scepticism about such claims, or an embarrassment perhaps, just as we are increasingly embarrassed to discuss sin or temptation, rejecting binary notions of good and evil, or any profound metaphysical or spiritual experience. Yet how many of us have had the sense that we are not alone sometimes; or perceive the shadow or a glimpse of something or someone close to us in moments of threat, challenge, loneliness, or despair?
Once, when delivering aid to Romania shortly after the Ceaușescu regime had fallen, the driver of the van which I was also travelling in swerved to avoid a dog which suddenly appeared in the carriageway of the motorway we were driving along in Belgium. I distinctly remember crying out “Jesus” as the van tipped over, and I will never forget seeing the tarmac just inches away from the wing mirror – now beneath me – which I expected to be crushed in just milliseconds as we rolled over. And yet the van did not do so, and as suddenly as we had veered one way, it suddenly flipped back in the other direction onto all four wheels and righted itself, much to our relief.
The people in another van following behind us as part of the same convoy from my church in South London could not believe their eyes, and all of them, including the aunt and uncle of my driver, a non-Christian himself, said that it was as if an invisible hand had intervened to right the vehicle which, according to all known laws of gravity should have continued in only one direction but didn’t. Now I cannot say for sure if our survival was due to angelic hands or the intervention of God himself; but what I do know, from the experience, and everything which those in the van behind us confirmed later, when badly shaken but still very much alive, we pulled over at the next available rest stop to reassure them that we were ok, is that both of us should have died that day but didn’t, and even Steve, the driver, a pure cynic where faith was concerned said that what had happened in that moment was completely inexplicable.
Faith often demands that we suspend our preconceived ideas of what is, and is not possible in the world, and even though the rational scientist in me tends towards a healthy scepticism of the claims made by others, I cannot doubt my own personal experience. The mystery of faith is that we cannot hope to prove or disprove anything about God or God’s actions in the world, whether by angelic means or not, and yet we can experience them. An absence of evidence, as I frequently reminded my research students, is not an absence of causality or effect, and as the great anthropologist Bronislaw Malinowski once said, ‘an open mind is the essential prerequisite for a scientific thinker’!
Collect
Everlasting God,
You have ordained and constituted the ministries of angels and mortals in a wonderful order. Grant that as your holy angels always serve you in heaven, so, at your command, they may help and defend us on earth through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who is alive and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.
Genesis 28:10-17
Jacob left Beersheba and went toward Haran. He came to a certain place and stayed there for the night because the sun had set. Taking one of the stones of the place, he put it under his head and lay down in that place. And he dreamed that there was a ladder set up on the earth, the top of it reaching to heaven; and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it. And the Lord stood beside him and said, “I am the Lord, the God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac; the land on which you lie I will give to you and to your offspring; and your offspring shall be like the dust of the earth, and you shall spread abroad to the west and to the east and to the north and to the south; and all the families of the earth shall be blessed in you and in your offspring. Know that I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land; for I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.” Then Jacob woke from his sleep and said, “Surely the Lord is in this place—and I did not know it!” And he was afraid, and said, “How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.”
Revelation 12:7-12
And war broke out in heaven. Michael and his angels fought against the dragon. The dragon and his angels fought back, but they were defeated, and there was no longer any place for them in heaven. The great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world - he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him. Then I heard a loud voice in heaven proclaiming:
“Now have come the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God
and the authority of his Messiah, for the accuser of our brothers and sisters has been thrown down, who accuses them day and night before our God.
But they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they did not cling to life even in the face of death.
Rejoice then you heavens and those who dwell in them!
But woe to the earth and the sea, for the devil has come down to you
with great wrath because he knows that his time is short!”
John 1:47-51
When Jesus saw Nathanael coming toward him, he said of him, “Here is truly an Israelite in whom there is no deceit!” Nathanael asked him, “Where did you get to know me?” Jesus answered, “I saw you under the fig tree before Philip called you.” Nathanael replied, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!” Jesus answered, “Do you believe because I told you that I saw you under the fig tree? You will see greater things than these.” And he said to him, “Very truly, I tell you, you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.”
Please pray this week for:
All those deacons or priests being ordained and priested this ‘Michaelmas’. Pray especially for those being ordained as deacons and their families as they say farewell to their home churches to start their curacies, and pray too that those parishes in the Claydon Deanery currently without clergy will soon have their own ministers to serve them.
This Week’s Events
Monday
Bell ringing at 7.30pm in St Laurence. Contact Jan on 07835 461361.
Tuesday (Anthony Cooper, Earl of Shaftesbury, Social Reformer, 1885)
Zoom Morning Prayer at 9am ID: 748 9970 4493 Password: Trinity or contact Didier on [email protected]
Daytime Bible Group (2nd and 4th Tuesdays) contact Paula: 07722 808 988.
Evening Home Groups, contact Jo on 07803 942 687.
Wednesday
Morning Coffee from 10.00-11.45 in the St Laurence Rooms.
Midweek Holy Communion at 12.00 noon, St Laurence Church.
Thursday (George Bell, Bishop of Chichester, Ecumenist, Peacemaker, 1958)
Daytime Home Group, contact Jo on 07803 942 687.
Friday (Francis of Assisi, Friar, Deacon, Founder of the Friars Minor, 1226)
Junior Choir at 6.30 pm followed by full Choir Practice at 7.30pm. Contact Derry on [email protected] if you would like to know more.
Pastoral Care: Call 07305 271148 or email [email protected]
