For Sunday, September 1, 2013 – Hebrews 13:1-8, 15-16 – Hebrews 13:1-8, 15-16
She showed up without a reservation, as most of God’s emissaries do. Clutching two plastic shopping bags, a scattered look in her eyes, she said quickly, “I was sent by Father Such-and-So. He gave me money and told me to come here.” Rats. The good Father had beat me to it—I, too, would have liked to suggest another ‘here.’ I wanted to say, this isn’t a shelter. I wanted to say, one of the rules in life is you don’t show up unknown at someone’s door and expect to be taken in. Yet here she was. Late at night. Alone.
I like the idea that “entertaining strangers” might bring “angels unaware” into our lives; I just don’t care for the practice. It’s truly lovely, that God sends us the stranger, the interruption, as gift. But what to do with my love of order and stillness, living within my resources, keeping a respectable distance from disruptions? The rest of you, I imagine, are so much better at the Jesus life. Right away you would spot the angel at your door, right away you would know that the unoccupied bed in your house is meant for her. You surely would have ushered in the angel with curiosity and delight, but I felt only trepidation as she walked through the door.
Have you noticed that scripture doesn’t spend a lot of time telling us how to feel as we live as a new creation? It simply says, here’s what you do: entertain strangers, put yourself in their skin, walk in their shoes—prisoners, too, and people being tortured, the whole of suffering humanity. And it says, don’t try this alone. Yoke yourself to Jesus and to one another. I keep forgetting that part—that the “you” in scripture is more often plural than singular.
I keep forgetting that living the Jesus life on my own isn’t difficult. It’s impossible. Alone, I stumble. Alone, I overthink and overdo. Only together will we freely, even joyfully, have the heart to meet the angels that come, whatever their distressing disguises. Only together will we become whole.
