Entertaining Angels Unawares?

Post # 17

Hebrews 13:1-2. “Let brotherly love continue. 2 Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.”

I was thinking of a puzzling occurrence the other day that happened about 30 yrs ago, maybe 1975 or 76. I haven’t told any of my family or friends, except the members of StPixels.com in a blog comment on 1 Jan 09, and decided to post it here as well.

We had a church picnic and the ladies were preparing food in a park shelter and I was helping to start a fire in a cook stove. Suddenly a very nice looking man came and asked the ladies if they had an ax he could borrow. They said Merv has one. He called my name in an authoritative voice and I said all that I had was a small hatchet and it’s quite dull. He took it and began to chop at the sides of a large piece of cord wood. I remember shaking my head and thinking that’s no way to chop wood. Anyhow he went ahead and loaded up the stove to the right of mine (we were using the left half of the shelter).

Presently he called my name, gave me back my hatchet and opened the stove door to show me his roaring fire. I looked in disbelief that he could have done it with my little hatchet and no kerosene or anything. Well he had some friends with him who seemed quite poor and were very short – about 5 feet tall. He went away and didn’t come back, but his friends stayed and boiled a pot of stew or something. A deacon told me that it looked pretty yucky. Anyhow, there were 4 or 5 of them seated at a table off to my right having their simple bowl of stew. As I was struggling to keep my fire going, I heard what I thought was our ladies beginning to sing as they prepared the salads and desserts. As I walked around the shelter to the opening on the other side to join the sing along, it was actually the small group that was singing and they suddenly stopped when I looked at them. Their singing was more beautiful than I have ever heard.

I noted that it was quite remarkable as I looked at the abundance of food that the ladies were preparing compared to the simple fare that the poor people had at their table. I went back around to tend my stove and it was about ready for the assistant minister to cook the burgers. We used the other stove too because it was hotter. I thought afterward – why didn’t someone offer to share our food with those in the other half of the shelter?

Heb.13:2 says, “Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.”

I never thought much about it other than it happened and I didn’t know what to make of it. I was about to tell the deacon, but when he grimaced and said the people had nothing and were disgusting, I decided to say no more. Kind of like Mary, I pondered it in my heart.

But I remember the man’s smiling face, who was 3 or 4 inches taller and looked a lot like a former manager of the Meat Market where I had my first after school job – delivering orders by bicycle. He was also a very nice man with twinkling eyes and a good sense of humor. You could tell he liked people.

I could ramble on about him a bit. He was encouraging and gave me a compliment – I think. I observed that when there were no customers he would rake the sawdust on the floor to remove any bits of paper or meat scraps (they don’t use sawdust nowadays). So when I got the chance I picked up the rake and copied what he did. He remarked that I had a ‘head like a chicken – for picking up things’. I laughed and appreciated his insight and attention. Not everyone thought he was referring to my intelligence or willingness to help.

It goes to show there is more to life than what meets the eye.

Tags: Angels unawares