Fr Michael and the angels

Preached at Choral Evensong on the Eve of the Feast of St Michael and All Angels and welcoming Fr Michael Walcott to the Parish of Croydon as Associate Vicar and Chaplain in the Whitgift Foundation.

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Tonight, we begin the celebration of the feast of St Michael and All Angels.

In the ancient custom of the Church a celebration starts on the eve of the feast.

Tonight we celebrate Saints Michael, Gabriel and Raphael and all the angels of God, his messengers.

To speak of angels can sound a bit weird and whacky, even New Agey, something you might think that rational Christians left behind years, if not centuries, ago.

Except we’re faced with the presence of angels in the scriptures and in the liturgy of the Church, and so they can’t be readily dismissed.

And what we see there is that the angels are protectors and connectors: they protect us from Satan (a fallen angel) and connect us to God.

Our first reading may have sounded obscure but it accounts for the beleaguered king of Israel facing the rampaging army of the king of Syria.

Nothing can save him now, until through the prophet his servant sees something he would not otherwise have seen.

The Lord opens the servant's eyes, and he sees that the mountain is full of horses and chariots of fire surrounding Elisha.

Thus is revealed God's invisible, protecting, and powerful heavenly army.

As a protector, we name the archangel Michael, as protector against the armies of Satan.

Think of the Book of Revelation:

Now war arose in heaven, Michael and his angels fighting against the dragon. And the dragon fought back, but he was defeated…that ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world. (Revelation 12.7,8a,9)

What a powerful protector!

And, as our second lesson, told us, Jesus speaks of the protection of children whose angels see the Father’s face in heaven.

These are often termed our Guardian Angels.

They protect and connect personally: they protect us from evil and connect us with the vision of God.

And that connecting role of angels is at the forefront in the birth of Christ.

Think of the involvement of the angels in the connecting of heaven and earth in the incarnation of Jesus Christ.

That’s when the archangel Gabriel comes to Mary to announce to her that she is chosen by God to be Mother of the Lord.

It’s when an angel says to shepherds, in a glorious and luminous presence:

Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, who is Christ the Lord. (Luke 2.11)

And then ‘a multitude of the heavenly host’ - angel upon angel - fills the skies praising God and singing:

Glory to God in the highest,

and on earth peace among those

with whom he is well pleased. (Luke 2.14)

It’s no accident that in the ceiling of the quire of this church, and moving towards the sanctuary, are figures of angels, recalling that our earthly worship connects to the heavenly worship.

In the Liturgy of the Eucharist we praise God, and join in the worship of the heavenly Temple (cf Isaiah 6.3):

Therefore with angels and archangels, and with all the company of heaven, we laud and magnify thy glorious name, evermore praising thee, and saying:

Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of hosts;

Heaven and earth is full of thy glory!

Hosanna in the highest.

Angels connect us with the worship of heaven, because they are heavenly bodies, not human ones.

But angels are not remote from human beings.

Angels and human beings are all creatures of God; they are part of the God given order of things in creation, and they’re on our side.

As our collect for this great feast prays:

O EVERLASTING God, who hast ordained and constituted the services of Angels and men [humans] in a wonderful order: Mercifully grant that, as thy holy Angels alway do thee service in heaven, so by thy appointment they may succour and defend us on earth.

Still, the angels are distinct from us, which is why the question, ‘how many angels can dance on the head of a pin’? is a pointless one (excuse the pun!).

One person can’t dance on the head of a pin, but given what we know of the multitude of the angelic host, they probably can, because they are not embodied as we are.

And their strongest message is of the dignity of the human body - as worthy of protection from evil and connection with God - that is most powerful, and why they are so associated with God taking human flesh in Jesus Christ.

On this feast we are delighted tonight to welcome a priest.

And his name is auspicious: Michael Angelo Walcott.

A priest has, in a sense, to be angelic – not to be prissy and remote, or off the set of a nativity play - but as a protector and connector: someone who presents God to his people, and his people to God.

Angels are powerful indeed, and all too often churches want a priest with the combined talents of the archangels; but priests are also human beings.

God gave us Fr Michael, not St Michael!

God works through our humanity to be the face of his Son today: that is how we can be ‘angelic’.

Fr Michael mustn’t be laden with over expectation, but to use his priesthood to place God before God’s holy people, and God’s holy people before the Holy God, in the presence of angels and archangels and all the company of heaven.

Fr Michael, may the Heavenly Father, send His angels to watch over you and your loved ones. Guard you from all harm, danger, and evil, and cover you with Your divine protection, through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen

God or Mammon: it's one or the other

Amos 8.4-7 Against those ‘who buy the poor for silver.’

1 Timothy 2.1-8 ‘Prayers should be made for all people to God, who desire all people to be saved.’

Luke 16.10-13 ‘You cannot serve God and money.’

 

‘You cannot serve God and money.’

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The Bible is really quite black and white on many matters.

For example, in the book of Deuteronomy we hear, ‘today…I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse.’ (Deut 30.19)

The direction is to choose life and blessing not death and curse.

It is often noted that Jesus adopts this either/or approach too.

So, in today’s gospel reading the Lord makes a hard-hitting point: you cannot serve God and money.

It’s one or the other; it really is a black and white, binary choice.

That doesn’t often sit well with Anglicans, and there are some times when creative ambiguity or lack of precision in some matters is helpful: but not here!

Of course, people have tried to fudge the ‘God or money’ choice over the ages.

We fool ourselves into thinking that we can serve God and money, or ‘mammon’ as the older translations put it.

Mammon. It’s a good word, for a bad thing!

Mammon is not just about having money – we all need money and at its best make it work for the good - but mammon is wealth that becomes a distraction and corrodes the soul.

It’s not just cash and gold that distract us from God.

We’re talking here about the sin of avarice - one of the seven ‘deadly’ ones - which is an extreme, obsessed greed for material wealth.

The sort of mantra that came from the financial markets in the 1980s, and lives on: ‘greed is good.’

When we’re in that territory, and that is the master we serve, then Jesus is clearly quite right: we cannot serve God; in fact we’ll despise God as a brake on what really drives us.

And when we do that then we despise the poor, because we start to believe that they are contemptible because they have neither money nor the power to make choices that we, the rich, have.

The poor - to which we might add the young, the old, the disabled, the ‘unproductive’ - then are a burden on the rest of us making money and living our cosseted lives, and why would be give a thought to them?

This goes further in the dangerous, frankly heretical, path known as the ‘Prosperity Gospel’, which connects material wealth with spiritual power and links more money with more blessing from God: that is plain wrong! it is contrary to Jesus’ Christ’s Gospel!

Not only does Jesus say that serving money takes us away from God, but the prophet Amos reminds us that money is not simply to serve ourselves; it is also to serve the poor.

What we receive as a gift and blessing is of true value when helping the poor and those in need.

Money is a necessary but dangerous and highly toxic part of human life and society.

Money empowers, but power can corrupt, and when it becomes an idol we worship, then God disappears off our radar.

So: life or death, blessing or curse, money or God?

The choice, as they say, is yours.

Identify the Highest God and pursue it single-mindedly.

This choice, this decision, comes before us today in Holy Baptism.

Baptism for each of us, and today for Mya-Rose and Asharn, offers blessing, life and God.

In baptism we turn away from sin the world and the devil, which we see in the deathliness, curse and allure of material wealth and acquisition.

As Jesus says, do not seek ‘treasures upon earth, which moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal’ (Matthew 6.19) but seek the eternal treasure.

May that be our quest, in the words of the psalm, ‘The law of your mouth, O Lord, is dearer to me than a hoard of gold and silver.’ (Psalm 199.72)

Mya-Rose, Asharn, everyone: may that be the treasure for which you yearn; the endless abundance of life in God’s presence.

 

Exaltation of the Holy Cross

Evensong on the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, 14th September 2025.

Isaiah 63.1-16 ‘It is I, announcing vindication, mighty to save.’

1 Corinthians 1.18-25 We proclaim Christ crucified

 

‘But far be it for me to glory except in the cross of our Lord, Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.’ (Galatians 6: 14).

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I am currently reading a book by a Greek Orthodox writer called ‘The Crucifixion of the King of Glory’.

The title of that book would have been a mystery to the both Jews and gentiles at the time of Jesus’ death, and it is pretty mind boggling to many people today who, if they think about it all, see the cross as a piece of branding or a sign to represent Christians and the Christian faith.

The Romans would be astonished: crucifixion and crosses were for executing common criminals, slaves, rabble rousers and those who weren’t Roman citizens.

A noble Roman execution - yes, they thought of it that way, noble and ignoble – a noble Roman execution, would be to be beheaded by sword.

That was the fate of St Paul, author of our second lesson, at his martyrdom, because he was a Roman citizen.

So, to think of crucifixion, kings and glory in the same breath is a bit of a stretch until it is considered through the eyes of faith.

That’s the point St Paul made in our second lesson as he speaks of the message of the cross appearing to be foolishness to Jew and Greek alike; but to those who hear the proclamation that Christ crucified the cross reveals, no, is, the power and wisdom of God.

As Paul says in another letter, the one to the Galatians, “But far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world. (Galatians 6: 14).”

Something is transformed on the cross; the logic of power and the extent of love as understood and operated by you, me and human history is overturned.

This how St John Chrysostom, the fourth century Bishop of Constantinople, saw it.

In a phrase attributed to him says of the Crucified Lord on the Cross, ‘I see him crucified, I call him king’.

Above each crucified criminal the Romans would write the accusation against the victim.

So, we read in St John’s Gospel:

Pontius Pilate [the Roman Governor of Palestine] also wrote an inscription and put it on the cross. It read, “Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews.” Many of the Jews read this inscription, for the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city, and it was written in Aramaic, in Latin, and in Greek. (John 19.19,20)

You see this above a crucifix to this day: Iesus Nazarenus Rex Iudeorum, the Latin letters INRI.

And in this crucifixion is a proclamation.

This proclamation transforms the instrument of death.

As a prayer in Holy Week, the time when we are intensely re-living the passion of Christ, puts it:

O God, by the passion of your blessed Son you made an instrument of shameful death to be for us the means of life: Grant us so to glory in the cross of Christ, that we may gladly suffer shame and loss for the sake of your Son our Saviour Jesus Christ.

By Christ’s suffering for us, an instrument of death becomes the means of life; folly becomes wisdom; a stumbling block becomes a foundation – that is why we can speak of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, why we exalt it in our proclamation and in our hearts.

In this transformative proclamation, there is something important we can learn from our Orthodox Christian siblings when it comes to the cross.

In the West we have tended to emphasise the pain, agony and disfigurement of the cross and what crucifixion is, and we are not wrong to do so: it was real; it was horrible; it was torture.

Nevertheless, when the Orthodox represent Christ on the cross, they proclaim more than an agonising death: they portray Christ serene, stately almost, and priestly.

‘I see him crucified, I call him king’.

Instead of INRI over his head - which is what it said - they place what we proclaim: Ὁ Βασιλεύς τῆς Δόξης (Ho Basileus tēs Dóxēs): The King of Glory.

This is the one who is glorified on the cross, the cross that becomes his throne of glory.

That’s what we’re about when we talk about the cross.

It’s not a bit of branding, or an accessory, we bear the cross because we rejoice that something so terrible should have been transformed into a means of redemption for the whole human race.

‘But far be it for me to glory except in the cross of our Lord, Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.’ (Galatians 6: 14).

Prefer nothing to Christ

Wisdom 9.13-18b ‘Who can discern what the Lord wills?’

Philemon 9b-10,12-17 ‘Have him back no longer as a bondservant but as a beloved brother.’

Luke 14.25-33 ‘Anyone who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciples’.

 

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It’s fair to say that based on our Gospel reading today, Jesus never ever promised that being a Christian, a disciple of his, was going to be easy!

That’s actually been the consistent message for the last few Sundays.

He spoke of the division he would bring, pitting even those who are closely related against each other (Luke 12.49-53, 20^th Sunday in Ordinary Time).

He spoke of the narrow door through which we must enter the kingdom, by shedding the baggage that we carry of our own pride and vanity (Luke 13.22-30, 21^st Sunday in Ordinary Time).

He spoke of the need to be humble in order to sit at his banquet, before being called to a higher place (Luke 14.1,7-14, 22^nd Sunday in Ordinary Time).

Today it’s about taking up our cross and renouncing everything, even the people and relationships most precious to us.

Really?

Great crowds followed Jesus and what did he do?

Did he revel in the cult of celebrity; get wowed by all his followers; say smooth and seductive words to keep people on board with his ‘project’?

No.

Quite the contrary.

This is what he actually said:

If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. (Luke 14.26,27)

That’s not out of the ‘how to win friends and influence people’ playbook.

You can’t accuse Jesus of playing to the crowds; indeed the crowds eventually turn on him and shout ‘crucify him’.

He did not come to please, but to walk the way of the cross, and walking the way of the cross revealed it to be none other the way to life in all its abundance, inviting us to walk with him into the loving, generous heart of God.

The community of Jesus, his family, the Church he brought into existence, is formed by the cross.

The scene at the crucifixion is of Mary and the Beloved Disciple entrusted into each other’s care:

When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to his mother, “Woman, behold, your son!” Then he said to the disciple, “Behold, your mother!” And from that hour the disciple took her to his own home.

Rowan Williams described the Church as being, ‘A community without boundaries, other than Christ’.

In other words, it is allegiance to being a disciple of Jesus Christ, embracing and bearing our own cross, that defines the Church in the first instance: that’s what Mary and John at the cross of Jesus represent.

All the other allegiances we have in life have to be put into that perspective.

St Benedict puts it like this:

Prefer nothing to Christ. (Rule of St Benedict 4.21)

The other allegiances and things we prefer: status, influence, power, money, whatever it may be that we depend on, other than Christ, are not to be preferred.

And that even is about our nearest and dearest.

But I don’t want to hate the people who are closest to me.

So I need to read this right.

Jesus deploys a very typical way that Rabbis speak: he overstates his point, in the negative, to elicit a response.

The point is not about dismantling the family and making relatives hate one another, but to prompt us to examine what life lived preferring nothing to Christ actually looks like; to understand what the family really looks like and how love of Christ flows out in love of neighbour, of one another.

What if I really preferred nothing to the love of Christ?

How would that look in the way I live my life?

What would be the ways I would have to live that I am not doing now?

Do my possessions, or possessiveness, even something darker, actually possess me?

In his letter to the Christians of Philippi, St Paul put it like this:

But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. (Philippians 3.7)

In fact, he goes on:

Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ. (Philippians 3.8)

Because he prefers nothing to Christ, he counts everything that was his previous priority, obsession and allegiance as rubbish – in fact, the Greek word in the original text is a little fruitier – everything that he had before is like dung, compared to what he has in Christ!

What freedom, what liberty!

The essence of today’s gospel is ‘prefer nothing to Christ’.

And it has bearing on our lives and relationships, be that in our family or household, amongst friends at school or at work.

Jesus does not come to destroy families, and human relationships, but to shape them into being microcosms of the church lived out through the home every day of the week.

When we are preferring nothing to Christ we are not exalting ourselves above others; we are not exalting ourselves even above God, for God is not in competition with us, but wills our good.

The Church is indeed ‘a community without boundaries, other than Christ’.

May our families be ‘a community without boundaries, other than Christ’.

May our church schools be ‘a community without boundaries, other than Christ’.

May our nation look like ‘a community without boundaries, other than Christ’.

The cross can be said to represent north and south, east and west, heaven and earth, horizontal and vertical, all coming together, and at its centre and heart: Christ.

Beware though: preferring nothing to Christ, Christ as the centre of your life, will not be without cost: it is the way of renunciation, but its rewards are abundant and eternal.