Entertaining Angels

How many angels have you entertained recently? Perhaps you met one when you took time to stop and chat to the cashier at Sainsbury’s, whose face brightened up as she told you about her grandkids. Or maybe you met one when you asked Alex if he wanted a coffee as you passed him sat out on the pavement again near your office, and discovered he’s still waiting for a response from the council about finding him some temporary housing.

Perhaps one popped into church and you showed them round, or pointed them to the candle stand, or handed them a coffee and a jam doughnut on Wednesday while hearing about their week, Or maybe you helped an angel up the steps onto the number 3A with their pushchair containing a very unimpressed toddler, when it was chucking it down with rain. Maybe you met one when you offered a plaster to the jogger who tripped over on the uneven pavement the other day, Or perhaps when you welcomed back Nataliya for a cup of tea to ask her all about what her new flat is like, after she spent some months with your family under the ‘Homes for Ukraine’ scheme. Perhaps you’re sat next to an Angel right now… or you will be later …

How would it change your interaction with that person, I wonder, if you knew that they were, or suspected they might be? As well as being heavenly beings in their own right, angels are also understood - especially in some First Testament thought, to denote or symbolise the presence of God among God’s people. And there are plenty of stories of people being both blessed and challenged by the presence of Angels visiting their community:

• Abraham and Sarah were blessed by offering hospitality to the three visitors,
• Jacob wrestled with and had his life changed forever by Divine encounter with the Angel of the Lord,
• And the people of Sodom and Gomorrah experienced the consequence of their sin of lacking hospitality for the strangers, and for treating them with unbearable brutality. 

Angels may come to us clothed in white with beating wings as in popular depictions of Gabriel to Mary at the annunciation, or perhaps more often, they come to us indistinguishable from ‘the ordinary’ - as those in need of shelter, food, rest, and relationship. Those of us who have been watching the scenes unfold in local and national media, will know that this week has seen more than its fair share of renewed brutality and inhospitality towards those who find themselves as strangers in our land.

What would the keyboard warriors, angry protesters, and indeed we do differently if we knew, or even imagined, that there were angels among those seeking asylum in our city? Among ordinary people who have come to us in need of shelter, food, rest, and relationship but instead find themselves trapped in neglected hotel rooms by poverty, fear, and the threat of violence. How do we respond to the presence of God in all people as we hear the call from Asylum Welcome, in their open letter to Nigel Farage, that: ‘In this moment, it’s vital that voices of compassion and unity are heard clearly. Together’ they say ‘we can show that people seeking asylum deserve dignity, safety, and welcome — not hostility.’

Dignity, safety and welcome, seem the very least we can do for those who are made in God’s image – quite aside from any angelic credentials that they may also come with. Asylum Welcome is challenging us to be a city that practices the hospitality which is demanded by our faith; not least in our readings from both Hebrews and Luke this morning. Because hospitality is not an optional part of our practice as Christians – it is a Gospel imperative and, our salvation depends upon it.

But hospitality, demands something more of us before we can either offer or receive it. Something more challenging than even opening our hearts to the plight of others….Hospitality demands humility. It demands that we have the humility to acknowledge that we no-more deserve a place at the feast than anyone else, and that to either invite them, or be invited by them, we must be open to the presence of God in the other – even when they seem profoundly different from us.

Interestingly Jesus did not snub the invitation to dinner with the Pharisee, but he didn’t shy away from challenging what he noticed either, or sell-out on his morals in order to secure himself an invitation to go back. Jesus sees the guests jostling for a seat close to the host, notices the profile of those in attendance, and decides to tell a parable about a wedding feast which illustrates the farce of this invite-only, elite feast he too is present at. He tells the guests to eschew social convention and instead to exercise humility, not least so as to prevent their own social shame should they think of themselves more highly than they ought and be asked to move seat in disgrace. And he doesn’t stop there… Jesus goes on even to challenge the host himself; instructing him that, contrary to strict Roman codes of reciprocity, we are to throw open the doors of our feasts, not to those who can return the invite, but to those who have no capacity to do so. 

As we sit here in a place which, I surmise, hosts more feasts than the national average… Jesus’ words are a stark challenge to us in the institutional life of this City, and indeed this University. If we are invited to be a guest at a feast, we must remember we are there by grace, not by any ‘dining right’ we have earned, or has been awarded to us because of our work or position or birthright. And if we are the one hosting the dinner, we are not only to invite the great, the good and even the occasional guest preacher; but Jesus is clear that irrespective of occasion, we are to throw open the doors to the children of this City and to their parents who serve our dinner, clean our toilets, beg on our streets, and claim asylum in our land. 

How many angels might we find amongst the service industry of Oxford? And how many might we find at the Living Room, the Porch, the Gatehouse, the Winter Night Shelter, or Asylum Welcome? And how many more angels might this ancient building hold, if we take seriously our call to be a house of hospitality and refuge at the heart of this University and City? 

It is all too easy for us to push the problem of hospitality far into the future. To speak of the radical hospitality of God’s table, yet struggle to accept those who come to the altar with us or who sit next to us in the pew - let alone to acknowledge the thousands who feel unable to enter this holy place for fear of judgement, or the failings of the church.

We must face the reality that many will feel unwelcome, and many will feel hurt or angry, and understandably so. It is nothing short of a miracle that anyone who has been hurt or let down-by, or who is suspicious of the church in any of its expressions, ever comes or returns to it at all. But if we believe Jesus, then we must make sure that everyone knows they are on the guest list; irrespective of worthiness, status, or means.

Sitting around God’s table is not a comfortable experience. It was never meant be. 

If we are doing our job right as Christians, and we have the humility to challenge ourselves and our institutions to show genuine hospitality to all, then whether you are sitting down to formal dinner in college, sitting in the pew this morning, or taking your place at the eternal banquet in which we share … you will inevitably be sat between sinners and saints, strangers and friends, those with much and those with little… and you might even find yourself, entertaining an angel once again.