Arranging the Angels--April 21, 2021

Arranging the Angels--April 21, 2021

"Are not all angels spirits in the divine service, sent to serve for the sake of those who are to inherit salvation?" [Hebrews 1:14]

Yep. You read it correctly--the writer of Hebrews has opened up a conversation around the question, "What are angels... for?"

What a strange and delightful question, right?  This is the sort of theological rumination that seems best accompanied either by pint glasses full of beer or steaming mugs full of coffee and tea, as people chat around a circle in comfortable chairs while music plays in the background. Now, don't get me wrong--that's a delightful sort of conversation to get to have.  And if life affords you that chance, for some good old-fashioned "Table Talk," like our older brother in the faith Martin Luther was known to have from time time (his beverage would have been the beer), please do take that chance.  It can be delightful.  But at the same time, this verse from Hebrews seems to be hinting around at a question that feels as odd as asking, "What are giraffes for?" or "Why did God make waterfalls?"

Most of the time, the biblical writers don't really answer questions like this in a head-on kind of way.  They talk about creation as something God made, simply because of God's goodness and infinite creativity, or out of divine love, or even, as one poet put it about the great sea monsters in the ocean, "just for the sport of it" (see Psalm 104:26 for that curious tidbit).  But we don't usually get God saying things like, "I made this sheep to give you wool," or "I made pigs because they're delicious when smoked." Usually, the biblical writers talk about creation--both the parts we can see, and the parts we cannot see--as part of a wonderful, mysterious whole, that God just made for God's own reasons.  Each part connects to everything else, so one part of creation exists both for its own sake, and for how it connects to everything else, but not usually for a single, isolated purpose.

And yet, here's the writer to the Hebrews, just confidently starting out with the assumption that God made angels to serve in ways that help us humans--those "who are to inherit salvation."  I honestly couldn't tell you why God created giraffes, other than that they're cool looking--and yet here the writer of this biblical book seems sure as anything that he knows why angels were made, and it's for our benefit.  How about that.

The idea is amazing, if you think about it.  Our author is saying that angels--these mysterious and glorious beings beyond our perception--find their greatest purpose in serving the interests of beings other than themselves: namely, us.  Their entire orientation isn't for their own self-interest or individual success over someone or something else, but to serve God by serving human beings.  And the writer of Hebrews doesn't look down on angels for that or pity them, as though they get the raw end of a deal there.  Instead, he seems to think that the angelic hosts are perfectly content living their existence wholly in the service of others, without concern for "what I get out of it."   I suspect that's because the writer to the Hebrews knows that God's own nature is much the same--that God's own being is oriented outward in love at all of us--and so it can't be a miserably existence to live your life wholly in love for others, if that's God's existence. And I suspect, too, that maybe we could learn something from the angels that way, as well--instead of always getting sucked back into the perennial human pit of Me-and-My-Interests-First thinking, that we might actually find our greatest fulfillment when we are seeking the good of others who aren't "like us," like the angels do for us humans.

But then there is another thought to take from this verse, too--that God deems us humans as important enough, worthy enough, and precious enough, not only to have gone to a cross for us, but to have commissioned other glorious beings to be our help, to direct in ways we cannot see and will not get credit for, and to serve or speak a word from God in ways we can understand?  How amazing!  That's important, too, because it is very easy to treat our fellow humans like they are mere statistics, or to just become numb when there's new of yet another mass shooting in the news, and to feel like some of us are just expendable that way.  It's too easy to diminish the value of human beings when it is inconvenient to my daily routines or costs the company profits.  But the writer of Hebrews says that God so values humanity--the whole messy lot of us--that God has created other beings whose purpose is for our benefit and well-being.  Don't let anybody else drag you into cynically thinking we aren't important--or that anybody else you will ever meet is not also infinitely beloved and precious as well--because God has arranged for the angels to be here for our sake.

Today, then, that means everyone you meet is so infinitely precious to God that God has prepared a whole host of other glorious beings to be their support.... and it also means that we, like those same angels, find our deepest fulfillment in seeking the good of others who are different from us, without regard for "what I get out of it."  Go, live this day in that knowledge, and see what happens.

Lord God, thank you for the love that values us so immeasurably, and for those messengers and guardians you have arranged to be our support in this life.