´óÏó´«Ã½

Please note: This script cannot exactly reflect the transmission, as it was prepared before the service was broadcast. It may include editorial notes prepared by the producer, and minor spelling and other errors that were corrected before the radio broadcast.

It may contain gaps to be filled in at the time so that prayers may reflect the needs of the world, and changes may also be made at the last minute for timing reasons, or to reflect current events

Ìý

Sunday Worship 28th September 2014: Wrestling with Angels

Ìý

Radio 4 Opening Announcement: It’s ten past eight – time to go live to Emmanuel Church, Didsbury – the home of the Daily Service – for today’s Sunday Worship.Ìý On the Eve of the Feast of St Michael and All Angels, the Bishop of Manchester David Walker and Canon Stephen Shipley explore the significance of God’s messengers – ‘Wrestling with Angels.’

Ìý

Music: Let all the angels of God worship him (Handel)

Ìý

SS: Good morning.Ìý Handel’s chorus from his celebrated oratorio ‘Messiah’ takes us straight to the heart of the matter – what’s the point of angels?Ìý OK, they may spend their time worshipping God, but does God really need all that flattery?Ìý

Ìý

Sadly, many people regard all that angels stand for as fanciful and irrelevant.Ìý Yet in many a church and cathedral they’re depicted everywhere – carved in stone on the tops of pillars, hanging from the roof with enormous wings, picked out in gold leaf on the reredos behind the altar, reaching out from the top of the organ case blowing long and elegant trumpets.Ìý All very satisfying aesthetically – if you like that sort of thing – but what part can angels play in the faith of an intelligent Christian today?Ìý Well, I believe they play an important part.Ìý I believe in angels - angels in heaven and angels on earth – and I do so because I have a particular belief about God, the Lord of angels, and I submit that this whole view of life enriches it beyond compare. That’s the theme of our worship this morning - so let’s pray:

Ìý

Eternal Lord God, you have ordained and constituted the service of angels and mortals in a wonderful order: mercifully grant that as your holy angels always serve and worship you in heaven, so by your appointment they may help and defend us here on earth; through Jesus Christ who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.Ìý Amen.

Ìý

Hymn: Ye holy angels bright (Tune: Darwall’s 148th)

Ìý

Ye holy angels bright,
who wait at God's right hand,
or through the realms of light
fly at your Lord's command,
assist our song,
for else the theme
too high doth seem
for mortal tongue.

Ye blessed souls at rest,
who ran this earthly race
and now, from sin released,
behold your Saviour’s face,
his praises sound,
as in his sight
with sweet delight
ye do abound.

Ye saints, who toil below,
adore your heavenly King,
and onward as ye go
some joyful anthem sing;
take what he gives
and praise him still,
through good or ill,
who ever lives!

My soul, bear thou thy part,
triumph in God above:
and with a well-tuned heart
sing thou the songs of love!
Let all thy days
till life shall end,
whate'er he send,
be filled with praise!

Ìý

SS: ‘The service of angels and mortals in a wonderful order.’ÌýÌý That phrase from the Collect for St Michael and All Angels reminds us that the traditions of worship have continued down the centuries to point to the reality of God, and we, together with our forebears, continue to make our contribution to the unending hymn of praise, to play our part with the angels in the wonderful order that is the Eternal God.Ìý But we can’t ignore the danger that liturgy can grow remote from everyday experience, that its bells may ring ever more faintly for potential worshippers, and, most serious of all, that it will be regarded and used simply as a form of escapism.Ìý Those who devise and lead worship have a great responsibility – to look continually at its rhythm and if necessary, to freshen and enliven it – inspired of course by the Holy Spirit!Ìý And here, music can be an enormous help.....Ìý Let’s listen to one musical interpretation of the role that God gives his angels.

Ìý

Music: For he shall give his angels (Mendelssohn)Ìý

Ìý

For he shall give his angels charge over thee, that they shall protect thee in all the ways thou goest, that their hands shall uphold and guide thee, lest thou dash thy foot against a stone.

Ìý

SS:Ìý ‘For he shall give his angels charge over thee, that they shall protect thee in all the ways thou goest.’Ìý The words of the psalmist set to sublime music by Mendelssohn in his oratorio ‘Elijah’.Ìý They give a glowing testimony to the security of those who trust in God – they’ll be under the angel’s wing of God’s protection.Ìý But let’s be careful about imagining all angels sprout wings.Ìý Because pared down to its basic meaning, in the Bible an angel is a messenger – the bearer of good tidings or the conveyor of warning or judgement.Ìý Which means that you could be an angel – so could I – we could be God’s mouthpiece delivering his message; or we could be, by the way we live, a practical example of what God wishes all his people to be.Ìý The world is full of angels if only we always had the eyes to see....

Ìý

Jacob had the eyes to see.Ìý He hardly deserved to though, considering how he’d cheated his brother.Ìý In a moment we’ll hear Bishop David Walker reflect on what happened when Jacob left home because his mother finds out that Esau is planning to kill him.Ìý The story is in Genesis Chapter 28:

Ìý

Reader:ÌýÌý Jacob left Beer-sheba and went towards 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.’

Ìý

Bishop David: Almost without exception, when we read in the Bible of angels visiting earth, they've come with a very clear task in mind. Whether they are routing a besieging army, proclaiming the Saviour's birth or escorting St Peter from prison, there's no doubt that the visiting angels have come in order to make a visible, significant and noteworthy impact on human history, and to do so through a very particular intervention. The odd thing then about the story of Jacob's ladder is how very ordinary, invisible and mundane the activity of these angels is. They are simply going to and fro, between heaven and earth, engaged in the quiet and largely unremarkable work that will be the means by which the Lord's promise to Jacob will be fulfilled. These are the envoys of a God who is intimately involved in the everyday life of his creation, not a God who for most of the time sits detached above it.

Ìý

It requires Jacob to be given a special vision in order for him to see the angels. Most of the time they are going about their business entirely unnoticed by any human eye. Throughout the books of the Old Testament they represent the way in which God is working his will on earth, not through occasional miracles but by gently steering the course of history through the lives of sages and shepherd boys, kings and countrywomen. Theologians sometimes refer to it as God's ‘General Providence’, an old fashioned sounding but beautiful word.

Ìý

A providential world is a world where both good and evil happen. It's a world where the consequences of our false and fallen choices are not very often miraculously wiped from the slate of history. We must bear their scars and suffer their consequences. But it’s a world where, no matter how much we mess up, even were we to mess up as badly as Jacob had done, God's love and God's purposes will ultimately prevail.

Ìý

This is the world I discovered myself living in when, in my late teens, I found the evidence for the resurrection of Jesus Christ to be so compelling that I needed to reorder my whole life around its truth. Suddenly, I was part of a universe which had a destiny. Within that destiny I would uncover my own particular calling, nudged by God along the way. I would still make many mistakes, but in God's providence they would be fewer. And not even all of them put together would throw God's purposes off their course.

Ìý

Freed from that worry, I began to understand what the great Reformation leader Martin Luther meant when he said, "If you must sin, sin boldly". It's become one of my favourite sayings. It’s a call to action in a world where all too often Christians are guilty of inaction through fear of error. In God's angel filled, providential world it's often better to try and to get it wrong than not to get it at all.

Ìý

For when we do try, through the myriad nudges of those invisible angels who are constantly ascending and descending the ladder between heaven and earth, all that is necessary for the fulfilment of God's will shall come to pass.

Ìý

Hymn: As Jacob with travel (Tune: Jacob’s ladder arr. Barry Rose)

Ìý

As Jacob with travel was weary one day,
at night on a stone for a pillow he lay;
he saw in a vision a ladder so high,
that its foot was on earth and its top in the sky:
Refrain: Alleluia to Jesus, who died on the tree
and has raised up a ladder of mercy for me,
and has raised up a ladder of mercy for me.

Come, let us ascend! All may climb it who will,
for the angels of Jacob are guarding it still;
and remember, each step that by faith we pass o'er,
many prophets and martyrs have trod it before. Refrain

And when we arrive at the haven of rest,
we shall hear the glad words, "Come to me all the blest,
here are regions of light, here are mansions of bliss."
Who would not want to climb such a ladder as this. Refrain

Ìý

SS:Ìý An 18th century carol arranged by our music director this morning, Barry Rose, telling the story of Jacob’s ladder.Ìý And God came down that ladder to seek Jacob out.Ìý The Jewish and Christian faiths point to a God who searches for us and comes down to earth in order to find us, to fill us with wonder.Ìý The 17th century Herefordshire poet, Thomas Traherne, put it beautifully:

Ìý

ÌýÌýÌý Reader:Ìý How like an angel came I down!

ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý How bright are all things here!

When first among his works I did appear

ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý O how their glory me did crown!

The world resembled his eternity,

ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý In which my soul did walk;

ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý And ev’ry thing that I did see

ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý Did with me talk.

Ìý

ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý The skies in their magnificence,

ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý The lively, lovely air;

Oh how divine, how soft, how sweet, how fair!

ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý The stars did entertain my sense,

And all the works of God, so bright and pure,

ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý So rich and great did seem,

ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý As if they ever must endure

ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý In my esteem.

Ìý

ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý A native health and innocence

ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý Within my bones did grow,

And while my God did all his glories show,

ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý I felt a vigour in my sense

That was all spirit. I within did flow

ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý With seas of life, like wine;

ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý I nothing in the world did know

ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý But ’twas divine.

Ìý

SS: Lord, you found out what we were doing and you came among us.Ìý ‘Come, let’s do this together,’ you said.Ìý ‘Come and do this with me.’

Ìý

All:Ìý So thank you, Lord, for interfering in our lives.

Ìý

SS: You promised us nothing by way of success, recognition, possession or reward.Ìý ‘These will come at the right time when you walk with me,’ you said....

Ìý

All:Ìý So thank you, Lord, for promising us nothing.

Ìý

SS:Ìý You gave us no resources, apart from ourselves – hands meant for caring, lips meant for praising, hearts meant for loving.Ìý And the Holy Spirit to make us restless until we change......

Ìý

All:Ìý So thank you, Lord, for the essential gifts.

Ìý

SS:Ìý Then, when we’d thought we got it right as to where we should go and what we should do; just when we’re ready to take on the world, you come, like a beggar to our back door, like an angel by our side saying ‘This is the way, I am the way.....’

Ìý

All:Ìý So thank you, Lord, for coming again and keeping us right and showing you care for us and for all people.Ìý Amen.

Ìý

SS:Ìý And so we come to the other story in Genesis about Jacob and an angel.Ìý It’s in Chapter 32 - and once again it points to a God who seeks Jacob out.Ìý This is a God who relishes company, who’s gregarious, who finds the solitary eminence of heaven a lonely place – a God we might stumble upon by accident, but the encounter may challenge and disturb us.Ìý Not for nothing did Charles Wesley call his celebrated hymn based on this incident ‘Wrestling Jacob.’Ìý [It’s sung now to a tune specially written by Cyril Taylor for the ´óÏó´«Ã½ Hymnbook published in 1951 when Canon Taylor was working in the ´óÏó´«Ã½â€™s Religious Programmes Department: ‘Come, O thou Traveller alone.’]

Ìý

Hymn: Come, O thou Traveller unknown (Tune: Jabbok)

Come, O thou Traveller unknown, Whom still I hold, but cannot see!
My company before is gone, And I am left alone with Thee;
With Thee all night I mean to stay, And wrestle till the break of day.

In vain Thou strugglest to get free, I never will unloose my hold!
Art Thou the Man that died for me? The secret of Thy love unfold;
Wrestling, I will not let Thee go, Till I Thy name, Thy nature know.

Yield to me now, for I am weak, But confident in self-despair;
Speak to my heart, in blessings speak, Be conquered by my instant prayer;
Speak, or Thou never hence shalt move, And tell me if Thy Name is Love.

’Tis Love! ’tis Love! Thou diedst for me! I hear Thy whisper in my heart;
The morning breaks, the shadows flee, Pure, universal love Thou art;
To me, to all, Thy mercies move; Thy nature and Thy Name is Love.

Reader: Jacob got up and took his two wives, his two maids, and his eleven children, and crossed the ford of the Jabbok. He took them and sent them across the stream, and likewise everything that he had. Jacob was left alone; and a man wrestled with him until daybreak. When the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob, he struck him on the hip socket; and Jacob’s hip was put out of joint as he wrestled with him. Then he said, ‘Let me go, for the day is breaking.’ But Jacob said, ‘I will not let you go, unless you bless me.’ So he said to him, ‘What is your name?’ And he said, ‘Jacob.’ Then the man said, ‘You shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with humans, and have prevailed.’ Then Jacob asked him, ‘Please tell me your name.’ But he said, ‘Why is it that you ask my name?’ And there he blessed him. So Jacob called the place Peniel, saying, ‘For I have seen God face to face, and yet my life is preserved.’

Ìý

Bishop David:Ìý I learned pretty early on as a Christian that attempting to pray joyfully and in pleasant words when inside I'm consumed by grief, frustration or anger is a bit of a pointless task. I discovered that when I mask my feelings and try to enter God's presence as though everything were well, then the one who I'm fooling is not him but me. It must have been around my 22nd birthday, when I was so frustrated that God didn't seem to be giving me the clear lead about the future direction of my life that I felt I needed, that I spent half an hour locked in a side chapel of King's College Cambridge, kicking repeatedly at the base of an ancient stone altar, until finally I had exhausted my emotions. Only then, having taken out my anger with God as best as I could, was I ready and able to move on.

Ìý

We find Jacob in a similar position in this second extract from the Book of Genesis.Ìý Having cheated his brother Esau of his birthright, now, alone in the night, he is literally wrestling with his future and his destiny.

Ìý

The same God who much later provided me with a convenient altar to kick, sends Jacob an angel, so that Jacob too can physically express his struggle and frustration. Jacob cannot win his fight, but by persisting until daybreak he is able to gain the angel's blessing and, along with it, the gift of a new name, the sign of a new beginning.

Ìý

This discovery that God is especially close to those prepared to rage against him with their honest feelings pervades much of the Old Testament. It's there in the Psalms, where the writers accuse God of abandoning them to their enemies. And it’s there in the story of Job, whose anguished cries to God win more favour than the neat theological justifications for his ill-fortune put forward by his so-called comforters.

Ìý

Listen to any series of news headlines and there’s plenty to be angry with God about. How can he allow children to be abused, women raped and men beheaded for political propaganda? How can he permit terrible disease - AIDS and Ebola - to destroy families and communities?

Ìý

Jacob's story tells us that it is necessary at times to grapple with these questions, to wrestle with God for an answer.Ìý It may not be the answer we want or expect, but do not give up - wrestle harder.Ìý Fight for justice; speak out against evil, rage against the dying of the light. And when we find ourselves battling with God's own angel, so be it. Wrestle on, until daybreak comes, and with it will come new blessings.

Ìý

Music: He that shall endure to the end shall be saved (Mendelssohn)

Ìý

SS:Ìý ‘He that shall endure to the end shall be saved’ – Jesus’s assurance to his disciples – set again to Mendelssohn’s music.Ìý Jesus doesn’t promise it will be easy.Ìý All of us at some time or other find ourselves in the midst of crisis.Ìý You lose your job or miss the promotion you were relying on.Ìý An unexpected diagnosis forces a radical change of life style or what seemed to be a stable relationship suddenly goes wrong. It may be that this mysterious episode in the story of Jacob has a lot to teach us in these circumstances.Ìý His wrestling with the angel, the messenger of God, reminds us that however much we plan ahead, events can still take us by surprise.Ìý That is the human condition.Ìý As the old Jewish saying declares, the one thing that makes God laugh is telling him our plans for the future!Ìý So when things go wrong – and we are struggling with our faith – wrestling with God – perhaps we need to remember what Jacob said to the angel: ‘I will not let you go unless you bless me.’ÌýÌý In other words, somehow within every crisis there lies the glorious possibility of rebirth.Ìý We may discover strengths we didn’t know we had and a clarity of purpose we hitherto lacked.Ìý

Ìý

No, the struggle won’t disappear – and just like Jacob we might be left scarred and limping.Ìý Yet God is with us even when he seems to be against us.Ìý For if we refuse to let go of God, he’ll refuse to let go of us and he will give us the support to emerge stronger, wiser – blessed indeed.

Ìý

So we bring our prayers to the throne of grace this morning,

Ìý

Voice 1:

We pray for each other and for those on our minds particularly today - those to whom we can go at any time, those who will listen to us and support us, who make our lives worth living........

Lord in your mercy, hear our prayer.

Ìý

Voice 2:

We pray for all who are struggling with their faith, whose dreams have died through setback and disappointment – for all whose lives are beset with bitterness or guilt........

Lord in your mercy, hear our prayer.

Ìý

Voice 1:Ìý

We hold before God the troubled places of the world, all who suffer from cruelty and injustice, all who are held against their will, all who long for peace and stability.Ìý And particularly this morning we pray for those in authority who make decisions which will affect the livelihood of many..........

Lord in your mercy, hear our prayer.

Ìý

Voice 2:

And we pray for the lonely and isolated, those who are grieving for loved ones, those who are suffering in mind or body and those who care for them.....Lord in your mercy, hear our prayer.

SS:

And as we contemplate the worship of the angels in heaven, so we pray that we may be God’s messengers here on earth as we say together the Lord’s Prayer.

Ìý

Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.Ìý Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.Ìý Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.Ìý And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.Ìý For thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory, for ever and ever.ÌýÌý Amen.

Ìý

Bishop David:

May Almighty God bless us; may Christ give us the joys of eternal life; and may the Holy Spirit guide us in the way of truth; and to the fellowship of the citizens of heaven, may the King of Glory and his angels bring us all.Ìý Amen

Ìý

Hymn: How shall I sing that majesty (Tune: Coe Fen)

Ìý

How shall I sing that Majesty
which angels do admire?
Let dust in dust and silence lie;
sing, sing, ye heavenly choir.
thousands of thousands stand around
thy throne, O God most high;
ten thousand times ten thousand sound
thy praise; but who am I?

Thy brightness unto them appears,
whilst I thy footsteps trace;
a sound of God comes to my ears,
but they behold thy face.
They sing because thou art their Sun;
Lord, send a beam on me;
for where heaven is but once begun
there alleluias be.

How great a being, Lord, is thine,
which doth all beings keep!
Thy knowledge is the only line
to sound so vast a deep.
thou art a sea without a shore,
a sun without a sphere;
thy time is now and evermore,
thy place is everywhere

Ìý

Organ Voluntary: Prelude in E flat BWV552 ‘St Anne’ (Bach)

Ìý

Radio 4 Closing Announcement: Sunday Worship came live this morning from Emmanuel Church, Didsbury.Ìý It was led by Canon Stephen Shipley with the Bishop of Manchester, the Rt Revd David Walker, and Manchester Chamber Choir directed by Barry Rose and accompanied by Jeffrey Makinson.Ìý The producer was Rowan Morton Gledhill.Ìý Next week’s Sunday Worship comes live from the chapel of Heythrop College in the University of London and celebrates the tradition of prayerfulness which is a hallmark of Jesuit spirituality.

Ìý