Entertaining Angels

A couple of years ago, we began hanging icons on the wall behind the altar.  They are changed seasonally.  In the summer, beginning with Trinity Sunday, we hang up an icon that shows three angels sitting around a table. It is a copy of what is called the "Rublev Icon." It was "written" (icons are written, not painted) in the 15th century by Andrei Rublev. It's a scene from our Old Testament lesson the past Sunday. In it, God, in three persons, visits Abraham and Sarah when they are encamped at the Oaks of Mamre. It is at this point that God tells them the Sarah will, despite her advanced years, have a child before a year has passed.

It's clearly a story about faith and hope and doubt, but it's also a story about hospitality. According to the custom of the desert, Abraham welcomes the strangers as guests. He promises them water to wash their feet and bread, but delivers a lavish feast. But in Rublev's icon, there is more to the hospitality story than what Abraham delivers.

When you look at the icon and see how the three angels (a very thinly veiled reference to the Trinity) incline their heads and a physically present to each other, it's clear that there is hospitality happening among the members of the Trinity. St. Augustine wrote in On the Trinity, that love is the energy that passes from the Father and the Son through the Holy Spirit. That divine love is, in fact, the Holy Spirit and the basis of all creation. As ones who are created in the image and likeness of God, we are called to live in that divine love.

All of this got me to thinking about what goes on sometimes in churches, not just St. Dunstan's, but most churches. We often become compartmentalized in our own small groups, seeing ourselves as our own entity rather than members of one body. At one of our vestry retreats, we did a Bible Study on I Corinthians 12: 12-26. The key verse in this passage about how we are all members of one body is the verse that says "The eye cannot say to the hand, ‘I have no need of you’, nor again the head to the feet, ‘I have no need of you.’"

To paraphrase, 'the choir cannot say to the property committee, 'I have no need of you', nor again the altar guild to the outreach committee, 'I have no need of you.' The important thing that we all need to remember is that we are members of one body -- the Body of Christ, and that we are all called together build God's kingdom. Although we may have individual goals and interests, our common goal is what is most important, and if we are not working together then whatever we are doing is just plain not working.

A couple of us were talking the other day about how it takes, literally, all kinds to be a church: artsy people and detail people, big picture people and focused people, physical people and thinking people, and on and on. And of course, there are people who have more than one kind of gift. We need all of the gifts that our people have to offer if we serious about being the Church. We need to be both willing to offer our own gifts and gracious about the gifts that others bring.

When we are graciously inclined towards one another, open and present to what each brings to the table, we truly are living in the divine love that spoke the world into being.  And that's the kind of transformational love that changes the world.