We Are Each Other’s Angels
Rev. Tony Lorenzen
Pathways Unitarian Universalist Church
Southlake, Texas
Sunday, June 8, 2008
My brown dog is big. Texas sized. I gave up on a white bearded man playing video games with the universe a long time ago, but not the brown dog. I really like the brown dog. I make no claims in having the brown dog all figured out other than the brown is about light and love and loyalty and justice. How do I know so much about this brown dog? I have come to know this brown dog through the people, places and experiences of my life. The people most of all. I consider the people in my life the dog’s messengers.
My mom is a big believer in angels. She is convinced angels exist because she’s heard them singing. She went to a prayer meeting and healing service with friends one time and during the healing she swears she saw and heard angles. I have no reason to doubt her. She’s my mom after all. My mom’s experience with angels was what some people would call supernatural. I don’t believe in the supernatural. I believe in only one reality. There may be parts to this wondrous and beautiful creation we haven’t figured out yet, but it’s all one grand interconnected piece.
I firmly believe angels exist because I’ve met some. The word angel comes from the Greek angelos which means “messenger.” Biblically that’s what angels are, messengers of the divine; of all that is glorious and good; all that is full of light and love. The Hebrew word for messenger (and so angel) is malakh. This is the word used in the Genesis narratives when angels appear to the ancestors of Israel.
Modern depictions of angels that have grown prevalent in popular religious culture come from the biblical literature and the Jewish and Christian hierarchies of angelic being. Interestingly, in the Jewish biblical tradition there is less otherworldliness about angels than you might imagine.
The Medieval Jewish rabbi and scholar Maimonides listed ten orders of angels in his angelic hierarchy. Those angels at the top were the grandest, most important, most wonderful, and those at the bottom were, I guess, less angel-y.
Here is the angelic hierarchy according to the 12th century Jewish sage Maimonides:
1.Chayot 2. Ophanim 3. Arelim 4. Hasmallim 5.Seraphim 6. Malakhim
7. Elohim 8. Ben Elohim 9.Cherubim 10.Ishim
Some things I find interesting about Maimonides and his angels:
The Chayot and Ophanim come from Ezekiel’s vision of the chariot of God. The Chayot are, in Hebrew, “living beings” (okay, living beings with wings and four faces resembling a man, a lion, an ox and an eagle) and the Ophanim are the winged “wheels” of the chariot. In Christianity, the four faces of the Chayot are used as symbols for the four Gospel writers Mark, Matthew, Luke and John and in the Tarot Card deck they appear as the World. The living beings took on quite life.
The next two angelic beings Maimonides lists are The Erelim and their name means the courageous or valiant ones and the Hashmallim, whose name is “from the midst of fire” and is sometimes translated electrum (think lightening storms).
So far angels are brave, electric living beings on wheels. Kinda like Speed Racer.
The Seraphim come next.
Seraphs have a great history. They first show up in the Torah. They are snakes. Numbers 21:6 tells us the seraphs were: “fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people.” The prophet Isaiah (6:1-7) records the only heavenly mention of seraphs in the Hebrew Scriptures:
"... I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and His train filled the Hekhal (sanctuary). Above Him stood the Seraphim; each had six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew."
The Malakhim or messengers come next, followed by the Elohim and ben-Elohim. Literally in Hebrew the gods and sons of the gods. In an English bible, anytime before the burning bush story, whenever you have the word God in English, you are translating the words El or Elohim, masculine singular or plural. El is the old Canaanite god.
The Cherubim come next. The name comes from the Hebrew “like a youth” and so the image of the little babies with wings. Yet biblically they are chariot of God along with the Chayot and Ophanim. Christian imagery puts them right up there with the Seraphim in angel social hierarchy. (Which is good social climbing for the seraphs since they started off as snakes.)
The last angel Maimonides mentions is the Ishim or human-like beings.
I want to take up Maimonides on this point because unlike my mom (you’ll like her, she’ll visit) my experience with angels is with human-like beings. It’s why I am convinced angels exist. Let me go to Maimonides again because he didn’t only deal with biblical angels, he dealt with angels from a rational perspective as well.
Near the end of the Dark Ages, in the 12th Century, Maimonides was a rationalist in a time of vast pietism and superstition. As the Dark Ages gave way to Scholasticism in Christendom, he brought rationalism to Judaism. One of his major works, The Guide for the Perplexed (don’t you love the title) deals with deconstructing a fundamentalist, literalist view of scripture and God. In Part II, Chapter 6 of The Guide he writes this about angels:
.."angel", as you know, means messenger. Thus anything which executes a command is an angel. So the motions of living beings, even those that are inarticulate, are said explicitly by Scripture to be due to angels.”
all parts of the Universe, even the limbs of animals in their actual form, are produced through angels: for natural forces and angels are identical. How bad and injurious is the blindness of ignorance! Say to a person who is believed to belong to the wise men of Israel that the Almighty sends His angel to enter the womb of a woman and to form there the fœtus, he will be satisfied with the account; he will believe it, and even find in it a description of the greatness of God's might and wisdom; although he believes that the angel consists of burning fire, and is as big as a third part of the Universe, yet he considers it possible as a divine miracle. But tell him that God gave the seed a formative power which produces and shapes the limbs, and that this power is called "angel," or that all forms are the result of the influence of the Active Intellect, and that the latter is the angel, the Prince of the world, frequently mentioned by our Sages, and he will turn away; because he cannot comprehend the true greatness and power of creating forces that act in a body without being perceived by our senses. Our Sages have already stated--for him who has understanding--that all forces that reside in a body are angels, much more the forces that are active in the Universe. [1]
Maimonides knew that religious words, such as angels, are best interpreted metaphorically. Even from the biblical literature we can make a case for the human nature of angels. I happen to believe there is no supernatural world, I do however believe there is much to the one reality we don’t yet understand and it is wondrous and awe inspiring. Angels are living beings, servant messengers, close to the divine on fire with love, courageous, and human. They are us. As June Jordan wrote in her poem for the women activists in South Africa during apartheid, We are the ones have been waiting for.
Speaking of Seraphs the Catholic Medieval theologian Thomas Aquinas wrote:
"Thirdly we consider in fire the quality of clarity, or brightness; which signifies that these angels have in themselves an inextinguishable light, and that they also perfectly enlighten others."
An inextinguishable light so that they enlighten others. This is what the angles in our lives do. I’ve mentioned already that I believe in angels because I’ve met some. Let me tell you about some of the angels I’ve encountered. Maybe they’ll remind you of some of the angels in your life.
Paul Russo was my Little League baseball coach. He was part of a group of parents who took over the Leominster National Little League just after I started playing. This group was tired of coaches yelling at kids, acting as if winning was more important than learning how to play the game and learning how to be a team. It was the middle of the 1970s. The Red Sox had just lost what was up to that time the greatest World Series ever played, and my parents had just gotten divorced. Paul Russo taught me about hitting. I could see the strike zone chart from Ted Williams The Science of Hitting in my sleep, I still can. He never favored his own two sons over the rest of us. And he could have. They were very good. One went on to be a very good college player and the verge of the big leagues. He never let the other kids get away with harassing me when I cried over striking out, because he knew it wasn’t about striking out, it was about my parents getting divorced. I never realized until much later in my life how much he taught me about working with young people. He taught me how to lose and how to win and I’ve done both. I met him coming out of a convenience store last summer. We hadn’t seen each other in thirty years. I told him, it was quite spontaneous really, how much he meant me to all those years ago. You could tell he never knew and that too few people had had those conversations with him over the years. It was like repaying a debt. We are each other’s angels, after all. And we meet when it is time, We keep each other going, and we show each other signs…
Nicole and her wife Cicely and Sarah and her wife Clare are some of my angels. They are all our dear friends from First Church in Leominster. During Mass Equality’s campaign for Equal Marriage rights in Massachusetts I helped to organize a meeting with our state representative at our church. The turnout was good. We needed to convince her to vote on the side of love and uphold the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court’s ruling. When I spoke, I talked about wanting my son to grow up in society where everyone was an equal person before the law and we the people really means we and everybody. After the meeting. Nicky and Cicely and Clare and Sarah came over to me and thanked me for speaking and told me I did a great job. They were laughing.
“What?” I asked.
“He really doesn’t know,” said Sarah.
“You didn’t even say, I’m straight but…” You just said your piece.”
We talked a bit more, about how we all wish there had been more straight allies present and some other topics. I wish I had thought to say it then, but those four people really helped save my family. We were refugees in a way from Catholicism. They became our church community, like a family. They showed us the light and fire of love. When Sarah needed to legally adopt her and Clare’s daughter, I wrote an afadavat in support of their marriage and the adoption. Sometimes I just can’t figure out why these folks are such good friends and big supporters, but they I am their’s, too.
We are each other angels
And we meet when it is time
We keep each other going
And we show each other signs…
Two weeks ago, I buried my only uncle, Joe. He’d battled cancer and congestive heart failure for a few years. I never heard him complain. My mom’s only sibling, his wife, Sylvia, my only aunt, had become his primary care taker and like so many people in similar situations, her life had become a routine dominated by his illness, yet she wouldn’t have had it any other way. She was a living being of courage and the presence of light and love. As my cousin Jen recalled at the funeral, Joe told her, “Your mom sure is picky about a lot of things, so I guess I’m pretty lucky that she picked me.”
We are each other’s angels
And we meet when it is time
We keep other going
And show each other signs.
Just last week I got an email from my friend John. Not in and of itself an unusual event. But I asked his permission to use part of it in this sermon. He wrote:
“Tony thank you for forwarding me that sermon I really enjoyed reading it. Over the last few weeks I have thought of you often and how your life and your family's life may be changing in the coming months. I have so many mixed feelings about you moving to Texas but I always remember that is your calling. On the flip side I feel really sad at the thought of my friend moving that far away. It really does feel good to be able to share things with another man..who is open to emotional issues and is sensitive and not afraid to talk about and share feelings.”
I met John for the first time a little over four years ago when I went to join his Gym, Eastman’s Fitness, next door to the UU Church in downtown Leominster. In the last four years he’s become one of my closest friends. When I received that email I realized he is the first close friend I’ve made since my best friend Andy – the best man at my wedding, Zack’s godfather - died four and a half years ago – just before I joined Eastman’s Fitness. We really are each other’s other’s angels. I bet most of you have a story like this.
And we meet when it is time.
We keep each other going
And we show each other signs.
We are the presence of what is divine and sacred and holy in this existence to each other. When we are on fire with it, when we are close to it, when it encourages us and emboldens us and makes us electric and moves us and enlivens us we become angels for each other. This is how hold up one another in love. We engage each other in stories of liberation so that we are transformed.
We listen.
We lift.
We lug.
Real attentive listening is the work of angels. Only after paying attention in this way can we uplift and help each other to be our best selves. This is not easy work. It can require heavy lifting. Sometimes things come up and we’ll be required to carry each other, put each other on our backs. You never know when you’re going to be in the situation my aunt found herself in, but all families have their story like it. I’ve done hospital and hospice ministry. I’ve sat death vigil with families. I’ve seen it.
Being an angel, a messenger, is a prophetic calling. Unitarian minister and theologian James Luther Adams said the religious community is called to be not only a priesthood, but a prophethood of all believers, open to all people.
Universalist John Murray put it this way:
You may possess only a small light, but uncover it, let it shine, use it in order to bring more light and understanding to the hearts and minds of men and women. Give them, not Hell, but hope and courage. Do not push them deeper into theological despair, but preach the kindness and everlasting love of God.
Did you ever have a dog that was so friendly and wanted to be everyone’s friend that when your friends came over, you though it might actually go home with someone else? Yup, that’s the big brown dog. I’m one of the dog’s messengers. So are you. We are each other’s angels. I’m really happy we’ve met each other this week.
And we meet when it is time
We keep each other going
And show each other signs….