Solemnity of S. Michael and All Angels

Genesis 28:10-17
Revelation 12:7-12
John 1:47-51

+ In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

If you were an innocent inmate, one of your heroes would be Francis Crick, an English biologist who died earlier this year. In recent years, prisons have released scores, probably hundreds, of innocent prisoners, many on death-row, because legal authorities increasingly rely upon DNA testing. Recently developed DNA technology has produced evidence which has exonerated many prisoners. DNA testing has also led to the convictions of many guilty people. Thus far, it seems that DNA testing has done much to promote justice, and so a civil society. Knowing something about DNA hasn't just improved our medicine and health care.

Francis Crick probably made the most important contributions to describe the structure of DNA. He did much of the basic science that has led to amazing bio-technology. His astonishing career includes making fundamental breakthroughs in unraveling the universal genetic code. His legacy includes many of "the thorniest questions of our time -- genetic fingerprinting, stem-cell research, screening for hereditary diseases, the [so-called] 'gay gene,' and all the other 'genes of the week.'" ⁽¹⁾

Many Christians, alas, have not reconciled themselves to Darwin. They find the notion that human beings share a common ancestor with apes to be subversive. They would find Crick's work even more upsetting. "Evolution. . . emphasizes how far man has come from his tree-swinging forebears. [DNA paints a starker picture.] Man and chimp share 98.5 percent of their genetic code. . . But we also share 75 percent of our genetic makeup with the pumpkin." ⁽²⁾

I know of nothing in Darwin's theory of evolution or Crick's description of DNA and the genetic code to be remotely in contradiction to Christianity. The application of some bio-technology does contradict Christian teaching, but not the underlying science. That the science does not disturb some Christians would probably have disappointed Crick because he delighted in challenging and upsetting the faith of Christians. He became a fellow at Churchill College at Cambridge University

only on condition that no chapel be built on the grounds. In 1963, when a benefactor offered to fund a chapel and Crick's fellow fellows voted to take the money, he refused to accept the argument that many at the college would appreciate a place of worship and that those who didn't were not obliged to enter it. [In response, Crick] offered to fund a brothel on the same basis. ⁽³⁾

Crick's humor must have been appreciated, but his proposal was rejected, and he resigned.

Crick was bold. Despite his absolute rejection of religion, he took on the big questions, such as: how did life originate?

[Bouncing along a tenuous chain of probabilities, Crick argued,] Could life have first started much earlier on the planet of some distant star, perhaps eight to 10 billion years ago? If so, a higher civilization, similar to ours, might have developed from it at about the time the earth was formed . . . Would they have had the urge and the technology to spread life through the wastes of space and seed [sterile planets such as our own]?

For such a job, bacteria are ideal. Since they are small, many of them can be sent. They can be stored almost indefinitely at very low temperatures, and the chances are they would multiply easily in the "soup" of [earth's] primitive ocean. ⁽⁴⁾

In other words, Crick's answer to where life comes from is "space aliens sent rocket ships to seed the earth." ⁽⁵⁾ When this Nobel Prize winner contemplates the origin of life he sounds like a Roswell groupie or National Enquirer reporter.

Our culture often treats Christians as crazy, but every non-Christian explanation of the origin of life is far, far loopier than that provided by catholic Christianity. I think that C.S. Lewis said something along the lines, "If a man doesn't believe in Christianity, he will believe in anything at all."

It's easy to mock Crick, and I should show some restraint not only out of Christian charity, but because I admire him. Early in his life, he made a decision about God. He rejected God, and he had great integrity in being true to his atheism. We can probably fault him in being pig-headed, being unable or unwilling to see and to experience things in a new way, being resistant to growth, to change. Nonetheless, God was important to him, even if not in the same way he is important to us.

Crick's religiosity, however, is unusual. We live in a post-Christian culture, but atheism is not really the prevailing point of view or attitude. I wish that it were! I wish that people cared enough to make a decision. It'd be better for Christ and his Church. The prevailing religious attitude today is indifference. So many people don't allow themselves to ask the big, important questions: where does life come from, what am I doing here in life, what is my purpose?

If these questions are important to us, if we try to structure our lives based upon them, then we've begun to listen to God's holy angels. The angels are God's messengers. They help us first to confront the important questions and second to guide us to an awareness of God's glory and his purpose for us.

This is the message of the passage from Revelation we heard this morning - a message delivered with imagination and poetry. S. Michael and his angels have cast the devil out of heaven, down to earth, where the devil deceives us. The primary way he deceives us is not by having us reject God. At least if we reject God, we've asked the questions, and we've allowed God to be part of our lives, albeit in a negative way. The primary way the devil deceives us is preventing us, distracting us, discouraging us, from asking the questions, and then from taking the answers seriously.

Even many Christians don't ask themselves these questions: what does God want from me, what is his purpose for me? When we don't routinely ask ourselves these questions, our faith becomes lukewarm. We lose passion and enthusiasm for Jesus and the Church. Our faith becomes stale, even lifeless. We have to ask these questions again and again. A mature spiritual life seeks regular renewal, and one of the ways we have renewal is by asking and praying about these questions. We do this individually, and also corporately, the larger Church - nationally and internationally, and at the parish level, and even smaller: the programs and small groups of a parish.

What Jesus wants from us more than anything is for us to make a decision about him, and we need to renew our decision for him regularly. Jesus wants us to make a decision about him, about his identity and importance, and to reflect about what that means for our lives, and we find that in today's gospel.

Jesus tells Nathanael, "Ye shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man." Jesus refers to himself repeatedly as the Son of Man. He uses that title for himself more than any other. But what does 'Son of Man' mean?

Son of Man would have had two possible meanings to our Lord's contemporaries. One, commonly in the Old Testament 'Son of Man' refers to a typical human being, a mortal person. Two, 'Son of Man' may refer to the messianic figure prophesied by Daniel - the all powerful, glorified, heavenly King. The Son of Man is the point of contact between heaven and the earth, the place where God comes down to meet his people, the place of divine glory. For Jesus' contemporaries, the second interpretation would be difficult to apply to Jesus given his very ordinary and humble circumstances, especially since Jesus said he was to suffer and to die, a complete contrast to the Jewish expectation for the Messiah.

Which of these two did Jesus mean? Quite likely, both meanings appealed to him. Jesus' sayings often had double meanings, meanings on many levels. His goal was to provoke his hearers to make their own decision about him. God is love, and love never coerces. It is patient because it requires free choices. Jesus' hearers had to make a free decision about him and work out their attitudes about him. That's what he wants from us as well.

One of the great mistakes about following Christ is that we have a simple rule book to follow. Sometimes there are clear absolutes, but often there are not. Loving God and one another is our primary purpose. Loving one another as Jesus loves us means there are often difficult decisions, full of gray areas, which require us to pray and to reflect, to turn to the angels to hear their divine messages for us.

Jesus taught mostly by telling parables. These are stories taken from every day life - ordinary situations full of spiritual meaning. Like the heavenly warfare imagery from Revelation, like the imagery of angels ascending and descending upon the Son of Man, Jesus used parables because they are vivid and memorable expressions of his teaching and because they force the hearer to think and to reflect. We have to pray regularly about who Christ is and what claim he has on our lives and what he wants from us and how we've responded.

Francis Crick thought that he'd found the secret of life in DNA, but DNA is only a partial answer to the 'how' of life, not the 'why,' not the meaning of life. The meaning of life can only be found in God. So for renewing our understanding of God's purposes for our lives, we pray for the guidance of the holy angels.

+ In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

1. Mark Steyn, 'Post Mortem: The Twentieth-Century Darwin: Francis Crick (1916-2004), The Atlantic Monthly, October 2004.

2. Ibid.

3. Ibid.

4. Brackets from Steyn, the rest is Steyn's quote of Crick.

5. Ibid.