What more do we need?

I am an unrepentant fan of the late and great television drama, “The West Wing.” With Martin Sheen playing President Jed Bartlet and Stockard Channing the First Lady, this was a series that explored a good number of social issues facing Americans from 1999 to 2006. It was also a series that highlighted the ethical conflicts leaders face when forced to make difficult decisions in which there seems to be no “right” solution. In one memorable episode, President Bartlet has the opportunity to commute the death sentence of a Federal prisoner convicted of killing two drug lords. Many people want the President to commute the sentence. His Jewish communications director informs him that rabbinical teaching made it almost impossible to execute a criminal. At a meeting with a political operative who happens to be a Quaker, the woman tells the President why her religious community opposes the death penalty: the legality of capital punishment cannot hide the fact that one person is approving the death of another person. And finally, the President meets with his priest who reminds him of Catholic opposition to capital punishment.

In the end and after much anguish, the President refuses to commute the sentence and the prisoner is put to death. His priest finds a tortured soul in the Oval Office as the President receives the news informing him of the execution. “Do you pray?” asks the priest. “Yes,” the President responds, “and I never get an answer which is something that has always bothered me a lot.” The priest then says, “Mr. President, you remind me of the man who heard a radio report that flooding would soon engulf his neighborhood and home. Yet the man said to himself. I am religious, I pray, and God will save me. As the waters began to rise, a rescue boat appeared and the workers begged the man to jump into the boat but he refused, telling them that he had prayed and knew that God would save him. As the waters rose even higher, a helicopter hovered overhead as the crew urged him to grab the rope and be drawn to safety. God would save him.

And then — he drowned — and found himself standing before St. Peter, demanding an audience with God. ‘O LORD,’ he said in utter befuddlement ‘How could this have happened? I prayed and yet you didn’t save me.’ ‘What do you mean: I didn’t save you?’ asked the LORD. ‘I sent you a radio report, a rescue boat, and a helicopter … What the hell are you doing here?’”

The priest then pauses as he looks the President straight in the eye and says ever so gently, “Mr. President, God sent you a Jew, a Quaker, a Catholic, and his own son, Jesus Christ. What more did you want?”

As I child, I grew up surrounded by pictures and paintings of light-skinned men, dressed in flowing white robes, with beautiful feathered wings sprouting from their backs, wings which enabled them to hover, magically, in mid-air. Some had two wings and some had six, the number of wings indicating their rank in a hierarchy which mirrored the social hierarchies of the ancient world and medieval society. In the entryway of our home, there was a framed print which pictured the outline of a house with the stars of night hovering in the sky. Looming over this tranquil scene was a large winged person, one hand resting protectively over the house and the other raised and holding a sword. In the midst of the print were these words, from the Book of Common Prayer, written in beautiful calligraphic script: “Visit this dwelling, o Lord, and drive from it all snares of the enemy: let your holy angels dwell with us to preserve us in peace; and let your blessing be upon us always; through Jesus Christ our Lord” (BCP 140).

This past summer, I visited St. John’s Abbey, the largest Benedictine community in the world, some 70 miles from Minneapolis. Underneath the massive abbey church, there is a series of small chapels, each chapel dedicated to a saint. In one chapel you can find a statue of St. Francis on the side wall looking up above the altar at an arresting carving of Christ surrounded by the many multi-colored wings of a seraphic angel. Christ’s eyes are enormous and gazing steadfastly at Francis who raises his hands to receive the wounds of Christ, the stigmata, on his hands, his feet, and his side, sharing in the suffering of Christ crucified for the poor and the vulnerable of this world. It should come as no surprise to us that Francis was and is referred to the “seraphic angel” sent by God to this world marked by remarkable poverty.

Between a guardian angel who protects the home and a seraphic angel who wounds, we find ourselves on this day, a day on which it is tempting to defend or deny the existence of these celestial beings who populate the pages of our holy book. Perhaps the modern mind in each of us knows better than to give them much air time. After all, scholars are quick to point out that many-winged angelic beings were first created by the ancient Persians who saw them as guardians of royal and priestly elites, angels — as it were — the projection of a monarch’s ego, a VIP’s need, to know that he was favored by the gods more than anyone else. On the other hand, the pre-modern soul in each of us may long for a message from God, a message delivered to us directly, a message that begins with these words, “Don’t be afraid.” Indeed, who among us would not want to hear such a message of good and surprising news.

Of course, the earliest traditions in the Bible know little of multi-colored wings, sword wielding angels, or light-skinned men hovering in mid-air, their feathers beating silently as they float. The earliest traditions speak of God’s angelic companions as those who appear in human form — in human form — as those who help the outcast return to a community where life is nourished (Gen. 16:7-12), who support a woman’s fertility and delight in a newborn infant (Gen. 18:9-15), who lead the people of God in song (Lk 2:9; Isa. 6:3), who point out God’s presence in the most deserted landscapes of human life (Gen. 28:10-19), who draw others out of terrible misery and impoverishment (Exod. 14:19-20), who feed the hungry (1 Kgs. 19:5, 7), who defend the just and the merciful (Dan. 6:22), who announce that death no longer has the final word over our lives (Mk. 16:5-7), who bear witness to “the holy splendor burning in the heart of all things” as they sing with us, “heaven and earth are full of your glory.”

You see, I think the hundreds of stories about angelic beings in our holy book and in our history, are about two things: our deep and often unspoken need to experience God’s life-giving and life-saving presence in our lives and — and — our God-given capacity to be this presence, in human form, for each other and for those we encounter the minute we walk out of this building into that very modern world — that world where the profound yearnings of the soul pulse just beneath the surface of every woman, man, and child.

And so I wonder on this day and I ask you to join me: Whose lives are we being called to protect? Whose wounds call for my attention, your attention? Who longs to be drawn from the margins into our social and churchly circles? Who needs to hear a song of good and surprising news which breaks through the tiresome strains of the status quo? How might we, with greater intent and courage, help our brothers and sisters who live in local and foreign impoverishment? Who among us will feed the hungry with the bread of angels and then ask the difficult question, “Why, in our rich nation, do we need to feed them in the first place?” Who among us will announce to friend or family member that death no longer has the final word in our lives? How shall you and I bear witness, in our daily lives, to “the holy splendor burning in the heart of all things”?

I must confess that I sometimes feel like the fictional but truthful President Bartlet: I am a religious person. I pray. And I want God to answer my prayers. I, too, and perhaps you with me, long to receive a message from God that will bring clarity, or delight, or purpose, or forgiveness, or love, or a deep peace which passes all understanding to my life, to your life, to this world.

And perhaps, then, what each of us needs to hear — from an old priest on television, from a spouse, a friend, a child, a long-time companion, a preacher — is this: God continues to send God’s beloved son, Jesus Christ, among us as word and food to nourish our souls. And this as well: God continues to send us to each other, to each other.

What more, what more do we need?

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