This week especially, and in this season, one verse from the Epistle has been speaking to me in particular.
Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it. Hebrews, chapter 13, verse 2.
The Common English Bible reads:
Don’t neglect to open up your homes to guests, because by doing this some have been hosts to angels without knowing it.
And the American Standard Version:
Forget not to show love unto strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.
And as I was thinking about this morning’s sermon, I was Googling – always an important stage in the sermon-writing process – and I searched for those words, “angels unawares,” and came across a sculpture of the same name[1]. It was created for the Catholic Church’s 105th annual World Day of Migrants and Refugees back in 2019, six years ago this month. The Vatican commissioned a Canadian artist, Tim Schmalz, to create it.
In fact, there are now eight of his sculptures in Rome, each one representing an aspect of compassion, kindness, human need. Their titles are: Be Welcoming. When I Was Sick. When I Was Hungry and Thirsty. When I Was a Stranger. When I Was Naked. When I Was in Prison. And Homeless Jesus. The artist describes them as “visual prayers.”
This particular work, Angels Unawares, is 20 feet long and weighs 3 and a half tons – it’s made of bronze, and sits in St. Peter’s Square in Rome, not on a pedestal or a stage like so many monuments, but right on the cobblestones. And it depicts a boat filled with people – 143 figures, to be precise, which is the exact number of saints depicted in the surrounding colonnade. The figures in the boat are migrants, refugees, in a wide range of nationalities, ages, historic periods and emotions, from despair and grief to hope and excitement. They are all crowded together on the boat, and in the middle of this huddled mass rises –
a pair of wings.
You can’t see whose wings they are – the angel among them is invisible – just these beautiful, graceful sweeps of feathers arcing up from the crowd of people beneath.
Schmalz says that he placed the wings in the center, and the angel unseen, to suggest that “the wings belong to all of the people on the ship… that we all are spiritual, and that it is in fact our spiritual duty to be welcoming.” Suggesting, perhaps, that all of the migrants on the boat, all of those strangers to new shores, are angels.
The artist says he hopes that visitors to the sculpture will “see themselves, their ancestors, their brothers, their sisters” in the faces he has carved, and will, in being able to touch the sculpture, be able to touch the Word of God.
On the World Day of Migrants and Refugees in 2019, the sculpture was unveiled and Pope Francis gave a message reflecting that year’s theme: It is not just about migrants. Francis said:
It is not just about migrants: it is also about our fears: “fear,” he said, “deprives us of the desire and the ability to encounter the other, the person different from myself; it deprives me of an opportunity to encounter the Lord.”
It is not just about migrants, Francis said: it is about charity – about valuing every human life.
It is not just about migrants, Francis said: it is about our humanity – recognizing that we are all part of the same body of Christ, that we are all gifts to one another.
It is not just about migrants: it is a question of seeing that no one is excluded.
It is about putting the last in first place.
It is about the whole person, about all people.
It is not just about migrants, Francis wrote: it is about building the city of God and the city of man.[2]
Pope Francis said that we are in an age of migration. Yes, we who are in Europe, and we who are here in the United States are seeing people arrive at our borders and our shores who are fleeing violence and seeking the promise of a safer life, as they have done for centuries – but we forget that we are all migrants – we were immigrants to our own countries, decades or centuries ago, and we are sojourners on this earth, visiting God’s creation and caring for one another in the beautiful, temporary time we have before we are with the angels.
Forget not to show love unto strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.
The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church describes angels as an “innumerable multitude” of “spiritual beings who enjoy always the vision of God in heaven.”
Angels are intermediaries, connections between us and God.
Angels are messengers, bringing glad tidings of great joy, singing
Glory to God in the highest
and on earth
peace.
And, over and over in scripture and in our hearts, angels keep telling us: Do not be afraid. Of each other, of the unknown, of the unexpected, of the stranger.
Don’t neglect to open up your homes to guests, because by doing this some have been hosts to angels without knowing it. (CEB)
In 2025, the Catholic Church will celebrate the World Day of Migrants and Refugees the first weekend of October. Pope Leo has announced this year’s theme as “Migrants, missionaries of hope” – especially in this year, as migrants are meeting hostility and arrest instead of hospitality and rest in our homes and in our borders.[3]
I don’t believe the writer of the Hebrews was saying, welcome strangers into your home on the off chance they might be angels – I believe the writer was saying that they – we – are all angels. Every stranger is a messenger of hope, every stranger is a brief connection with God. Every act of compassion and hospitality, every meal shared is in remembrance of the life and teachings of Jesus – who was a migrant and refugee, from his birth to his death and resurrection. Every stranger – whatever language they speak, whatever color their skin, whatever reason they are here, whatever challenges they are facing or fleeing that we cannot even fathom, is an angel from God.
There is a deep connection between this teaching and the story of the Good Samaritan. Who is our neighbor? Who is the stranger? Who is the angel? We are all one and the same. Children of God, part of our family, their lives and their stories intertwined with ours.
[1]https://angelsunawares.org
[2]https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/messages/migration/documents/papa-francesco_20190527_world-migrants-day-2019.html
[3]https://migrants-refugees.va/world-day-of-migrants-refugees/
