Angels Ascending and Descending
The Rev. Canon Frank Logue preached this sermon at
the Collegiate Church of St. Paul the Apostle in Savannah, Georgia on September 29, 2017
Angels Ascending and Descending
A sermon marking 30 years of the Very Rev. Dr. William Willoughby III
serving as Rector of St. Paul’s Savannah
Genesis 28:10-17 and John 1:47-51
Angels are ascending and descending as we celebrate this feast of St. Michael and All Angels. In our reading from Genesis, Jacob is traveling to his mother’s family to find a wife from among his kin. He stops for the night at a random spot along the way as the sun sets. In a dream, Jacob sees ladder set up on the earth, the top of it reaching to heaven with angels ascending and descending. When he wakes up he declares, “Surely the Lord is in this place—and I did not know it! How awesome is this place. This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.”
Then in the Gospel of John we heard Jesus promises Nathanael, “Very truly, I tell you, you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.”
But first came the first impression. It can be difficult to shake off a first impression. When Jesus saw Nathanael he said of him, “Here is truly an Israelite in whom there is no deceit!” Nathanael asked him, “Where did you get to know me?” Jesus answered, “I saw you under the fig tree before Philip called you.” That is all it takes for Nathanael to be all in, because Nathanael goes from questioning Jesus’ judgment to saying, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!”
You can take this information and improve on it cheapest viagra tabs in your own researching efforts. Sildenafil citrate is the key component that is included in the packaging where applicable. cialis without prescriptions mastercard It is widely used to cure https://pdxcommercial.com/property/216-14th-street-oregon-city-oregon-97045/ tadalafil pharmacy online impotence, PE, weakness in nerves, and helps to stay harder and longer to satisfy their females in bed due to low stamina and low energy levels. One main reason is that these male enhancing supplements deliver fantastic results canada levitra that increase the size and improve sexual health. First impressions don’t always go so well. In fact, the first impressions St. Paul’s made on the Willoughbys were perhaps not a lie, but not strictly the whole truth. That’s how it works when a church courts a priest. In hindsight, Father Willoughby sees that he hadn’t known the full situation before he arrived.
That’s more than fair, because I know for a fact that the picture the parish had of Mary Willoughby was a literal photograph of Mary with a very young Katie, both wearing matching Laura Ashley dresses. If a photo can lie, that picture’s pants were on fire. I worked closely with Mary Willoughby for years and love her dearly, but I consider that their sending a photo of her and baby Katie in romantic English dresses to be pushing the courtship part of finding a church too far.
To get a clear-eyed view of first impressions, I called Kay Saussy, who works in the office here at St. Paul’s, to ask her about young Father Willoughby. I wanted her impressions from thirty years ago today. Kay said, “If I tell you, you will scream with laughter.” Then she added in a hushed voice, “Let me go to the phone in the sacristy.” Click. A couple of minutes passed. I waited in anticipation.
“I am going to tell you exactly how it was,” Kay told me. Then she launched into her tale, “Obviously we knew he was coming and so the Altar Guild wanted to spiff everything up. We spent from 9-3 that day fixing and doing. We were ready to go home dead tired. This young man comes up in bib overalls and ugly shoes.” Kay paused. “You better leave out the part about the shoes” she told me and then continued, “I said to a woman on the Altar Guild, just what we need, a homeless person.
“He didn’t introduce himself for a few minutes and we still thought he was a homeless man who wandered in. He realized that he was getting strange looks and introduced himself as our new priest, and he was, but when I met him he was a street person.”
This is perfect for this feast of St. Michael and All Angels as the Letter to the Hebrews warns, “Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it.” The St. Paul’s version of this verse would read, “Do not neglect to show hospitality to homeless persons, for by doing that some have entertained Rectors without knowing it.”
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