Memorial of the Holy Guardian Angels

Lectionary: 457/650

The king granted my requests,
for the favoring hand of my God was upon me.

Our first reading from the Book of Nehemiah describes the tactful negotiations of the Jewish governor as he set out to restore Jerusalem. The holy city had been destroyed by invading armies several times over by Assyrian and Babylonian armies; but the Jews still called its ruins, now overgrown with weeds, their home. 
Nehemiah saw the hand of God in the emperor's favorable decision. If an alien government favored God's people, they had their own reasons for doing so, but he saw the graceful work of the Lord of History.
I suppose there are moments when history seems to walk slowly forward, step by step, with a stately, predictable progress. Political forces push here and there in many different directions, but every power is offset by another and no one's particular agenda is enacted overnight. Children growing up in such a time suppose that's the way it should be. They study the wisdom of their ancestors and learn trades suitable to a predictable future. Businesses prosper, farms flourish, old people retire and live comfortably in the shelter of their homes. They might even call the era "peaceful" and consider themselves "free." 
They feel sorry for other nations, even those other nations that enjoy a similar stability, since "their" type of "freedom" is quite different from "ours." I often hear the Veterans say that Chinese and North Koreans are not free; some declare they would not want a European type of freedom with higher taxes, affordable health care, and limited access to firearms. 
And then there are moments when political forces, suddenly unrestrained, perhaps liberated by military events, lurch forward, gaining unexpected and unfamiliar ground. We have seen, for instance, women's equality leaping forward in Afghanistan and Iraq, shepherded by the American military. Many of these Muslim women must suppose the Hand of Allah has favored them with foreign invaders, at least for the moment. 
But, as we should have learned with the American Civil War, war doesn't change things very much. No sooner were African-American slaves "freed" than they were again driven into savage poverty by resurgent social, political and religious forces. If conquered Southerners surrendered their former right to own slaves, they rushed to reclaim their God-given superiority, using even the "scientific facts" of Social Darwinism. Nor would they hesitate to use guerrilla tactics in an alternate kind of war. That "cold war" continues as white police officers may kill black men with impunity. 
During "peaceful" eras the secure may believe they have little need for God's guarding, guiding angels. They can dismiss the old myths and live without religious faith. They believe in "The Economy," and hope that "Education" will bring everyone into substantial agreement about the status quo. There will always be enough for everyone, they suppose, and the proof of that is, "I've got mine." But it's nice to have Guardian Angels for children, along with Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, and the Tooth Fairy. 
Students of the Bible recall the long history of God's people. God's guiding hand doesn't always lead to prosperous, stable freedom. I came across this recently, in the Book of Ezekiel:

But I will let a few of them escape the sword, starvation, and plague, so that they may recount all their abominations among the nations to which they go. Thus they may know that I am the LORD.

God's people -- Jews, Christians, and Muslims -- may hope to confess their sinful past to astonished strangers who might come to believe, by such testimony, that God is Good. The Lord's Guardian Angels will protect his stateless, homeless people in alien lands as these missionaries atone for the sins of their ancestors.  
This is certainly a different kind of freedom, one which Jesus practiced and Saint Francis understood.