Ministering Spirits

(Wheatfield With Cypress Tree, Vincent Van Gogh, 1889, Public Domain)

“I regard myself as privileged above a thousand others in that you remove so many barriers in my way…I would have to give up if I didn’t have you.”

- Vincent Van Gogh in a letter to his brother Theo

Sometimes when you meet someone, they greet you as if you had no flaws. They see you, an Image bearer. From the first, they accept you and with their second sight they rejoice in the soul of you. We know, theologically, that they’re not angels, but they can seem like it, God’s ministering spirits sent to serve those who will inherit salvation (Hebrews 1:14).

Theo Van Gogh was like an angel to his brother Vincent, a ministering spirit who saw Vincent’s good qualities and persevered through his struggles. They were both art dealers, and it was Theo who encouraged Vincent to pursue his art. Theo supported Vincent financially, sometimes lived with him, and corresponded with him even through stormy arguments. He saw the Vincent not everyone else saw.

In his poem “On Angels,” Czeslaw Milosz addresses angels who have lost some of the features unique to angels, their white dresses and wings, but in spite of not looking like angels says:

Yet I believe you,
messengers.

He says their visits here are brief and illusory, marked only by a melody, a scent, or a magical light. Their voices confirm they are angels because:

The voice–no doubt it is valid proof,
as it can belong only to radiant creatures,
weightless and winged (after all, why not?),
girdled with the lightning.

But being messengers is not just the vocation of angels, we are also called. It is our mission to see with angel eyes the divine image in others, no matter the outward appearances, and love and aid them.

In Kimberly Willis Holt’s book, My Louisiana Sky, the main character is 12-year-old Tiger Ann, who is growing up in a small Louisiana town in the 1950s. Her mother, Corrina, was struck on the head as a 6-year-old and her mental faculties never progressed beyond that age. She interacted with the world as an adult with all the joy and insecurities of a small child. The family lived with Tiger’s grandmother, Jewel, because Tiger’s father was considered “slow.” When Jewel unexpectedly died, Corrina’s sister, Dorie Kay, came from Baton Rouge with her maid, Magnolia, who was going to stay with the family for the summer. Tiger had grown increasingly embarrassed by her mother over the years, recognizing just how different she was from other moms. When Magnolia arrived, her mom had been grieving Jewel for a week and had not washed or changed, and her eyes were swollen from crying. Tiger was ashamed to have the the proper, efficient, and no nonsense Magnolia meet her. But when Magnolia entered Corrina’s room, Tiger tells us, she “walked in the room with the biggest smile on her face I’d seen since first meeting her.” Magnolia instinctively knew what was needed. Looking past their struggles and the disaster of daily life left unchecked, she later told Tiger, “I like your momma and daddy. They’s good people.” She deftly and heartfeltly took care of Corrina. Magnolia is the picture of an angel who came to minister just when and just how the family needed.

There is need for ministering spirits among us and will be as long as the world is broken. As Magnolia’s ministration provided desperately needed and devoted help to Tiger’s family, Theo provided help to his brother and gave the world Vincent and his paintings.

Milosz’s poem concludes with a charge to stir us up to love and good works, to be that angel:

I have heard that voice many a time when asleep
and, what is strange, I understood more or less
an order or an appeal in an unearthly tongue:

day draws near
another one
do what you can.