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Morning Meditation
July 2, 2025
Scripture: Hebrews 13:2
Do not forget to show hospitality to strangers, for by so doing some people have shown hospitality to angels without knowing it.
Meditation by Glenn Beamer
About twelve years ago I was waiting at an airline ticket counter in Chicago to take a flight back to Philadelphia. The line was long and not moving particularly fast. About 30 seconds after I joined the line a family of seven, with kids ages 18 months to 12, came in behind me carrying luggage and all the paraphernalia that goes with being 18 months to 12 years old. I discovered immediately that they were running late. I knew this because the frantic mom yelled at her hapless husband that they were very late and it was his fault.
I had more than the requisite two hours lead time; I turned to the husband and said, “Here buddy, I have time. Go ahead of me.” The poor guy looked like I had handed him the keys to Disney World as he gently ushered his five kids past me. The mom’s expression softened ever so slightly.
What happened next was unanticipated and an affirming miracle to any Christian who’s travelled through O’Hare Airport. The political scientist ahead of me had extra time and graciously ushered the haphazard family past, and then the next family made it six standees and 3 parties, and thus began a chain reaction of small, relatively costless favors. Within a few minutes the placated mom, redeemed dad, and their kids were at the counter getting their boarding passes. With a look of immense relief and gratitude, the dad led his kids to their gate. None of us standees had given up much; collectively we had created peace in the dad’s life, Peace that would have otherwise been, shall we say, unlikely.
The critical component in the verse from Hebrews is , “For in so doing, people have shown hospitality to Angels…” The ones offering the favor or kindness are not the Angels, the recipients are. The Catholic priest and prolific author Henri Nouwen articulated our inviting role to our as yet unknown Angels as a recurring journey from hostility to hospitality.
In his book Reaching Out, Nouwen writes, “(the) creation of free space where a stranger can enter and become a friend instead of an enemy. Hospitality is not to change people, but to offer space where change can take place… The paradox of hospitality is that it wants to create emptiness, not a fearful emptiness, but a friendly emptiness where strangers can enter and find themselves free; free to sing their own songs, speak their own languages, dance their own dances; free to leave and follow their own vocations.”
My own profession of teaching is one in which the hosts, professors, frequently struggle to create empty space. The nature of professor training is to fill one’s soul with wheelbarrows of knowledge. During my first year of teaching, I perceived that trying to transfer that abundant knowledge to the “empty space” I assumed was in my students’ brains was depriving them of their own imaginations, their own creativity. Students responded politely to my erudite lectures, concepts, and lessons, but there was little enthusiasm, and its absence was my responsibility.
Yes, students need to learn specific research, analytic, interpretive, and inferential skills, but no teacher can hope to fill their minds with all the knowledge to there is to be had. But they find joy in the space in which to ignite their own individual creativity and to pursue those ideas that excite them.
If we can perceive the angels in front of us as empty vessels than we can equip them with the tools they need to create and steward ideas and relationships none of us have conceptualized or considered.
Nouwen’s recommendation to create empty space is one we should heed enthusiastically as individuals and as a faith community. As my O’Hare experience illustrates, that empty space may not be epic, nor even intentional. Nevertheless, such spaces are essential to living our faith.
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