Visited by an Angel
I dunno. He looked confused, cold, tired and hungry. I didn’t know who he was. It didn’t seem like anyone else knew who he was. But he opened the door, looked in, seemed to see the coffee cart, then walked right in making a beeline for the coffee.
The forty of us sat a bit bewildered, but continued to press into our theological discussion on the meaning of James 2 regarding favoritism for the man that comes to your meeting with a gold ring and fine clothes. We boldly pressed on, not wanting to be distracted or to insult our visitor with a stare. We tell our kids not to stare because it is rude… but some of us were rude that morning.
Ken got up and helped our visitor with some coffee and exchanged a couple of words.
“Suppose a man comes into your meeting wearing a gold ring and fine clothes, and a poor man in shabby clothes also come in. If you show special attention to the man wearing fine clothes and say, ‘Here’s a good seat for you,’…”
Our visitor got his coffee and began to look around the large ring of table that we all sit around. He made his way to the one seat that was unoccupied. Chuck was actually sitting there, but at the moment was at the restroom. Chuck had just returned from a several month absence due to his brush with death. Chuck was moving slowly with a cane due to the paralysis his illness brought on. We had to save Chuck’s seat.
Our visitor was headed to Chuck’s seat. I thought to myself, “Oh please let him see Chuck’s coffee cup, bible and notes. Is there another seat for our visitor? I hope somebody does something.” As our visitor crouched to sit in Chuck’s seat, the only available at our table, he heard, “This seat is taken.”
“…but say to the poor man, “You stand there” or “Sit on the floor by my feet,” have you not discriminated among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts?” Has not God chosen those who are poor in the eyes of the world to be rich in faith and to inherit the kingdom he promised to those who love him? But you have insulted the poor.”
The only remaining seats were a couple of armchairs off to the side and well below eye level of the rest of the group, so much so, you couldn’t see our visitor. These were not seats of honor.
I thought to myself that if I were the visitor, entering into a room of new people and was told I couldn’t sit at the table with everyone else, I’d be embarassed. I might even want to sit out of view of everyone… besides, they were all staring. How insulting.
Is this really happening? I can convince myself that I don’t go to a wealthy church, and that the expensive cars in the parking lot… aren’t. I can try to tell myself that it is just a coincidence that we didn’t have a single chair at the table for this dazed, homeless (?), I-don’t-know-what-his-story-is man. But did it have to be this passage of preferential treatment that we had to pretend to be so preoccupied with that we could pretend to ignore the profound object lesson that our visitor was teaching us without words?
Wayne whispered to me, “I think he is an angel.”
Like the 40 others in the room, I had no idea what to do. I closed my bible, I couldn’t hear a thing behind the voice in my head that was swimming in that surreal world when something was happening that couldn’t possibly be happening. The whole room had to have felt the palpable presence of God’s Holy Spirit pressing in on our hearts and minds. I was getting ill with my desire to do something, anything. But I was paralyzed. Nothing came to mind.
Eventually I thought about leaving and telling our visitor that he could have my seat, but what if he didn’t want to draw further attention to himself? If I came over to insist that he take my seat, I’d get points for being Jesus-like, but at whose expense? That’s not gonna work. I calmed down but remained quite uneasy.
Next thing I knew, he was gone.