Fear Not

Rev. Molly F. James, PhD

DFMS Noonday Prayer via Zoom

St. Michael and All Angels, September 29, 2020

May God’s Word be spoken. May God’s Word be heard. May that point us to the living Word who is Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. 

Today is the feast of St. Michael and All Angels, and so of course we get readings about angels. I am particularly intrigued by our reading from Job. I must say this reading comes from my favorite part of Job.  I love God’s answer to Job out of the whirlwind.  Of course, it does leave one feeling rather small since God basically says “Who do YOU think you are? Where were WE when God created the world?” Ultimately I find it comforting because it is a passage that reminds us that we are NOT in charge - God is.  But I digress . . . today is about angels.  And although this is one of my favorite passages, I have not paid much attention to the angels in the passage.  Yet of course they should be there - the heavenly chorus on the sidelines shouting for joy and singing God’s praises. And that is certainly a part of the job description of being an angel - when we celebrate the Eucharist we join with Angels and Archangels in praising God - yet it is important for us to remember that being an angel is about more than singing God’s praises. They are not background figures.  In fact it is somewhat surprising that on this feast day we don’t get readings that have angels as the central characters - doing what they do best - being messengers for God. 

Our Gospel text is not as cheery as Job - we have a prophecy of the end times, and things are, literally, quite dark.  We are reminded that in fact angels can actually be quite scary figures. We often hear talk about angels as though they are so nice - always joyful like in our passage from Job - and Hollywood usually portrays them as the polar opposite of the devil. But we should remember that in Scripture passages where an angel is a messenger, the first words out of the angel’s mouth are usually “Fear not.”  The fact that they have to say that is probably a pretty good indication of how terrified the people’s faces were.

For those of you have experience being a hospital chaplain, you can probably commiserate with the angels.  So often in the hospital when someone realizes you are the chaplain, their faces get that look - the look of sheer terror.  They assume you are there to deliver bad news and that you most certainly know something they don’t.  When I worked as a chaplain, I found I often couldn’t get the words out fast enough to explain that no, I was not the angel of death, no, I did not know something they didn’t and really I was just there to be helpful and supportive.  

Actually I think all of us can relate to the angels in a way.  We are all, by virtue of our baptism, called to praise God and to share God’s message with the world. And I think in this particular time we need the message of the angels, and the message of our Scriptures today. Job reminds us that it is not all up to us. In fact, very little is up to us. We are not in charge. There is far more to the world than we can see or know. So in those moments when we feel overwhelmed trying to do all the things, then we can pause, we can think of Job. We can think of God’s admonition, “Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?” Not as a critique, not as more admonition of our shortcomings, but as a statement of fact meant to reassure us that this whole thing is a lot bigger than whatever we are fretting about in the current moment. If God can lay the foundations of the earth, then it is probably pretty likely that God could help us solve our current difficulty too, if only we would get off our high horse and stop thinking we had to do it all ourselves. 

We also need that message of the angels. We need to be reminded to “Fear not.” Oh my friends, it would be so easy to get caught in a cycle of fear right now. There are so many news headlines that would help us do that. But nothing will be served by filling our hearts and our heads with fear and anxiety. Like we are taught as hospital chaplains, it is our job to be the non anxious presence in the room. The fear and anxiety is all around us. No doubt we have people around us or with whom we are in regular contact who could use that message: “Fear not.” The world needs that message right now. 

So let us ground ourselves in that Truth. Let us do whatever it is that we need to do to hold on to that truth in the midst of the challenges we face. Whatever we need to be able to carry that truth and share it with others. Perhaps we need a picture of St. Michael or Gabriel or another favorite angel. Perhaps we need to keep God’s question to Job on a sticky note near our computer to be reminded that we are not responsible for the entirety of creation. Or perhaps today is the day we need to hear the message anew, so we just need to call our own angels, those people in our lives who incarnate God’s love for us and whose voices can always speak the truth so we hear it. We call them. so they can say to us, “Fear not.”

Whatever practices or tools we might need, let us hold fast to the assurance of the angels. God is here. God is with us. We need not be afraid. Not today. Not ever. 

AMEN. 

Saying Yes to God

                                                        Mosaic from Hagia Sophia

Rev. Molly F. James, PhD

DFMS Noonday Prayer via Zoom

Nativity of Mary, September 8, 2020

May God’s Word be spoken. May God’s Word be heard. May that point us to the living Word, who is Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.

So today we celebrate the nativity of Mary. We honor the birth of Jesus’ mother. It is of course a great and glorious thing to honor Mary. A remarkable woman who rightfully has a profound and prominent place in our tradition. From our Scriptures, it could be easy to just think of today as a celebration of unexpected pregnancies and miraculous children. But I think that ultimately, both the story of Hannah and the story of the Angel Gabriel’s visit to Mary point to us even wider ideas and understandings. 

We are in good company when things are not going as we had hoped. That is exactly how Hannah spends much of our reading from Samuel today. In a place we have all been, and might be right now - a place of wishing things were different than they are. If we are feeling as though life is mixed up or out of order or things are not at all going the way we planned, we are not alone. Hannah had a very different life in mind for herself, but that was not how it went. Do you think Mary was planning on having a baby that year? Considering she and Joseph weren’t even married yet, it is not likely. She had not expected an Angel to appear to her and inform her that she was going to have a baby, and not just any baby, God’s Son. And she certainly wasn’t planning on giving birth in a stable miles and miles from her family.

And there is an invitation here, today, in our stories of Hannah and of Mary and the Angel Gabriel. It is an invitation to be faithful and to be open. It is an invitation to be alert to the ways God shows up unexpectedly in our lives, and to pay attention when that happens. An invitation to trust that there is more at work than we can know. An invitation to believe the Angels who show up in our lives and invite us to follow God on paths that seem far different from what we had planned. Perhaps we will be like Hannah and find a longer and more circuitous path to the realization of a long held dream and desire. Perhaps we will find ourselves like Mary to be invited to take a direction we never expected or even believed was possible, but which is more beautiful, challenging, and meaningful than we ever could have imagined. Through our Scriptures we are invited to be faithful like Hannah, and to be open like Mary. We are being offered an invitation to take a deep breath and to be present in the moment. An invitation to pay attention and to say yes when God shows up.  

We may all have our own ways of slowing down and paying more attention. And I would guess there are some similarities. I know I can’t pay attention well if my physical body doesn’t feel well. Enough sleep. Enough exercise. Enough water. Eating well (and in my case often - those who know me well will attest that if you don’t feed me regularly I get cranky.) That basket of snacks on my office table at 815 is absolutely for sharing, and I am glad it is enjoyed by others. It is also there, because I can’t usually go a whole day without snacks. So, taking care of our bodies matters. We also need to care for our minds and our souls. We need things that challenge our intellect and expand our mental horizons. We need time for reflection and prayer. We need to read things that are uplifting and inspiring. We need conversations that bring us joy. This may seem like a tall order. How are we supposed to do all those things and get our work done, our children educated, pay our bills, do all the chores around the house and so on and so on? Here’s the thing though. It is all about the order of operations. Remember middle school math? You only get the “right answer,” the whole problem only works if you do things in the right order. If you do the subtraction before the exponents the answer will be an order of magnitude off. If we do all the things to take care of ourselves first, we will be more productive at work, we will be more patient with our children, we will find more energy and creativity to deal with whatever tasks come our way. Start with the important stuff. That is how we can thrive, and it is how we can foster the kind of heart space needed to be open to God’s invitations in our lives - even the unexpected ones.

This day reminds us that  things will not always happen the way we would like. Sometimes it may feel as though things are moving far too fast or far too slow. Sometimes it will seem as though things are all mixed up. But that is okay. We are not alone. Some of the best stories started out in confusing and unexpected ways. Today’s readings are a prime example of that. And so we are invited to be like Hannah, to be like Mary, and to trust in the workings of the Holy Spirit. Even when we feel scared or uncertain. God is present. God is at work. We need to remain faithful and to be open to the Angels that show up in our lives. The ones who manifest God’s presence to us. The ones who invite us into new possibilities, to stretch beyond our comfort zone. The ones who remind us that the path will not always look the way we expect, but we can and we should trust that God is leading us. We are being led into a brighter future, one of light and life, always. It may not come on the timeline we had planned. It may not be exactly as we had imagined it. And yet it will be glorious and wonderful, because it is God’s future. 

AMEN.