Touched by an Angel: A Communion Meditation

1 Kings 19:4-8

Angels were in the news last month. All around the world in newspapers, on television, radio, and the internet, there was a buzz about angels. It all happened because of a light-hearted comment by Pope Benedict XVI, who after he fell and broke his wrist suggested that his guardian angel had, well, dropped him. The news media, it turns out, were far more interested in the topic of angels than they were in the pontiff’s broken wrist, and stories about angels abounded for several days.

A Baylor University Religion Survey revealed that 55% of Americans say that they have been protected from harm by a guardian angel. What that means is that about 55 out of each 100 people worshiping here this morning believe they have been touched by an angel. What that also means is that 45 out of each 100 people here this morning believe the other 55 are just plain touched. A guardian angel? What’s up with that?

I had a guardian angel once. When I was in college, I was dating a girl from my hometown. One evening when we were together—we were in the library studying diligently, I’m sure—she said, “I hear that Beverly Hudson is coming to Chapel Hill Friday and that you are having dinner with her. What am I supposed to make of that?” “Make of it?” I said. ““Make of it? Nothing! Bev and I have been friends since the fifth grade. Bev’s like, well, she’s my guardian angel.” As soon as I said it I tried to figure out what it meant. I had never even thought of it before. My “guardian angel”? Two years later, I married my guardian angel. And she’s been wishing ever since that she had dropped me while she had the chance.

I don’t know if the prophet Elijah believed in guardian angels. But this morning’s OT lesson from the Revised Common Lectionary says that he was “touched” by an angel. An angel, it says, woke him from his sleep and encouraged him to eat to keep up his strength for the journey. The text doesn’t call this angel a “guardian angel.” It simply says mal’ak, “angel,” not mal’ak shomer, which would be “guardian angel.” But this morning’s Scripture passages shows us exactly what a guardian angel is for the 55% of us who believe in them—and for the 45% of us who do not. A guardian angel is a manifestation of the provident and personal care of God.

The provident care of God is God’s provision for us in our time of need. “The Lord will provide,” says Genesis 22:14, and God provided Elijah with food in the wilderness. The personal care of God is God’s provision of what each one of us needs in our time of need. For Abraham, God provided a ram in the thicket. For Elijah, God provided sustenance for the journey. For Mary the mother of Jesus, God provided her kinswoman Elizabeth to be a companion with whom to share the joy and the fear, the laughter and the tears of her unexpected pregnancy. For Mary Magdalene, God provided the sound of her name being called on the breeze in the garden. All of us have experienced the provident and personal care of God, whether we recognize it or not, whether we acknowledge it or not, whether we experience God’s care as manifested in a “guardian angel” or not.

Our culture at large already calls provident and personal care an “angel.” Outside the Bible, outside the church, outside religious and theological circles, “angels” abound. Maybe you have heard of “Angel Flight.” Angel Flight is an organization of volunteer pilots who offer their time, their expertise, and their planes to fly financially distressed people to and from critical medical treatment. Angel Flight does not provided free air transportation to any of us and all of us wherever we want whenever we want to go there. But Angel Flight provides a way for people who cannot otherwise afford it to get to the treatment they need. That’s provident and personal care, and we call someone who provides it an “angel.”

Perhaps you have heard of the “foreclosure angel.” Her name is Marilyn Monk, and she lives in Texas. In November 2008, a neighbor’s home was being foreclosed on. Marilyn Monk felt like she had to do something to help, but she had no idea what to do. So she did the only thing she could think of. She showed up at the auction at which the mortgage company unloaded her neighbor’s home, and she bought it herself. And then she turned right around and sold it back to her neighbor for what she bought it for—the steeply discounted price at which the bank had dumped it into the market but wouldn’t let the owner pay for it to stay in it. Ever since then, Marilyn Monk has been working to arrange for others to buy back their homes at the low price the bank will accept—as long as someone other than the person living in it will pay it. She doesn’t try to arrange for all of us to reduce our payments and stay in our homes at a steeply discounted price. She tries to provide for those who are most in need: that’s provident and personal care, and she is called an “angel.”

Don Ritchie is an 82-year-old retired insurance salesman. His home is next to a park called The Gap outside Sydney, Australia. The most prominent feature of The Gap is high cliffs overlooking Watsons Bay. Over the years, those beautiful and imposing high cliffs at The Gap have come to attract people who have decided to end their lives by throwing themselves off the top. For the last 45 years, Don Ritchie has been talking people off the narrow ledge above the bay. He hasn’t succeeded with everyone he has tried to save. But hundreds of times he has managed to help them decide for life instead of for death. He has invited them into his home for breakfast or lunch (or a beer), and he has become the angel of The Gap. He doesn’t invite all of us in for breakfast or lunch or an adult beverage, but he does invite people he comes across in their time of need. People have seen in Don Ritchie provident and personal care, and they have called him an “angel.”

There are angels all around us, and there are angels among us. Whether you are among the 55 out of a 100 people who say they have been touched by an angel or among the 45 out of a 100 people who say they haven’t, you have experienced the provident and personal care of God. And every one of us who has received the provident and personal care of God is capable of sharing it with others. In ways that are small and ways that are large, we are all called to be bearers of God’s provident and personal care to the world—to neighbors and friends, to family members and strangers.

The central Christian symbol of God’s provident and personal care for each one of us is right here on this table in the bread and the cup of Communion. Every time we eat this bread and drink from this cup we are reminded that “the Lord will provide.” In and through the life and work of Jesus Christ and the continuing presence of the Holy Spirit, God provides for us in our time of need. So, come now and eat and drink, or the journey will be too much for you. And when we are finished here, we will go out from this place and share what we all have received: God’s provident and personal care.

This material is Copyrighted © 2009 by Jeffrey S. Rogers. It may be copied or disseminated for non-commercial use, provided this notice is included. The author can be contacted at jeffrogers110@bellsouth.net.