Angels Unawares

August 2015

While sitting in Victoria, B.C’s, Murchie’s sidewalk cafe, back in June of 2013, with my friend Archpriest Basil Rhodes, we noticed a homeless man stop behind me. The man was staring at our food, so Father Basil asked him if he was hungry. He answered with an enthusiastic “yes”, and when Father asked what he’d like to eat, he said “eggs and sausages”. Father Basil told him they didn’t have such a breakfast here, but gave him five dollars to buy it somewhere else.

The whole time this conversation was taking place with this homeless man, another man, around thirty years of age, was standing nearby, listening to every word. As the homeless man walked away, the younger man walked up and confronted us with the question, “how could you give money to a junky? You are not doing him any good by giving him money. Aren’t you men of God?”

I responded by saying that it was not our place to judge anyone, to which he replied, in a confrontational manner, “he’s just going to buy drugs with that money. You don’t seem to be very intuitive”. I told him I’d worked with the homeless before, and that the man was hungry and deserving of our charity. The man said “cheers” and dismissively walked away.

A woman seated at a nearby table called over with the words, “good response”. She then came over to our table, knelt down beside me, and with tears in her eyes, identified herself as a social worker, and told us she’d been going through a particularly difficult time, and that the interaction she’d just witnessed had helped her immensely.

I then told this woman the story of the time I was walking with an elderly bishop of the Russian Church, and how I had spotted a filthy homeless man walking towards us. This man’s hair was disheveled, filthy with years of dirt, and was wearing torn clothing. He had no soles on his shoes, so with each step we could see the bottom of his feet. Instinctively, I took the elbow of the bishop, and attempted to get him to cross in the middle of the street. The bishop asked why, and I said, “Look at the crazy man coming towards us”. The bishop told me we were not crossing, but would continue.

When directly in front of the man, the bishop stopped, reached out, taking the man’s filthy right hand into his own, and placed a twenty dollar bill into the man’s hand, covering the bill with the man’s left hand. At that moment the man looked up into our eyes, saying nothing. But looking back were the bluest, clearest eyes I had ever seen. They were not the eyes of a homeless man, nor the eyes of a deranged man, eyes filled with wisdom and holiness.

As we walked away, I remarked about the man’s eyes, to which the bishop responded by saying, “We just encountered an angel unaware, and we were being tested,” recalling the words of Scripture, “Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares” (Hebrews 13:2).

After the social worker left, a man seated at a nearby table remarked, “that was the most remarkable story I’ve ever heard, and you made my wife cry”. This other couple had witnessed the whole of these encounters.

A moment later, the young man who’d judged us so harshly after the original encounter, returned. He came up, asked forgiveness for having judged us. He said he’d followed the homeless man, and witnessed him buying yogurt and fruit with the money we’d given him. I stood up, gave the young man a hug, and we all parted ways.

With love in Christ,
Abbot Tryphon

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