Epiphany III – C
January 24th, AD 2010
Meadowvale Lutheran Church, Mississauga
Pastor Peter Lisinski
“SPEAKING GOD”
One day long, long time ago – to be precise, in the late summer or early fall of September in the year of our Lord 1976 … Where were you 35 years ago? … I was just beginning to settle in to my new position as a Shipper-Receiver at the newly constructed warehouse of a Dutch multi-national electronics corporation located in suburban Scarberia, where I had been employed since the previous May.
“A-a-a-a-r-r-g-g-o-o-o-o-s!” The grizzled veteran trucker with C.P. Rail bellowed the customary lament that always heralded his arrival after the perennially hapless Toronto Argonauts had, yet again, miraculously snatched defeat from the jaws of victory! Right on cue, from all corners of the warehouse a chorus of in unison: “A-a-a-a-r-r-g-g-o-o-o-o-s!”
After briefly disappearing from view to get a cup of dark and stagnant hot water that passed for coffee out of the ancient dispenser in the tiny lunch room near the entrance, he trudged the entire length of the loading dock, rehearsing the continuing saga of the proverbial “Argo Bounce”, so tragically manifested in the previous night’s comedy of football errors.
Eventually he bobbed and weaved his way over to my corner, clutching a bill of lading in his left hand, which I noticed – just as I had noticed every day for the past six months – was still missing a thumb. As I snatched the tattered paper from between his nicotine-stained index and middle fingers and carefully detached my copy from the carbon paper, he lightly punched me in the arm, as usual, and said, endearingly, “How’s it goin’, Hippie?”
Like I said, it was a long, long time ago!
When I returned to my cluttered desk to begin my next task the plant manager, was waiting for me. Bill Hunter was the only person in the entire place who always wore a hard hat whenever he ventured out of his upstairs office to grace the warehouse with his presence. It was light blue, the same colour as his eyes. He was a wiry, middle-aged Scot whose think head – no pun intended – of wavy hair had gone completely white long before I had been hired.
I knew by the way the reddish hue of his face matched his bloodshot eyes that he was angry. I can’t remember exactly what he was angry about – these thirty-five years later – but his exact words remain engraved in my rapidly diminishing memory. “This is the second time you’ve done this,” he scolded!
I acknowledged my mistake and began to apologize. “Sorry’s not good enough,” he interrupted! “What I want to know is this: “When are mistakes like this going to stop?”
I had never consciously pondered that particular philosophical question prior to that moment; and down to this very day I can’t explain the answer I blurted out. Perhaps it was because I had long since outlived the typical youthful delusion of possessing an intelligence superior to God’s and returned to active church life. But whatever the inspiration, I looked him in the eye, and said, matter-of-factly, “Mr. Hunter, mistakes like this are not going to stop until the second coming of Jesus Christ when all imperfect human beings will become perfect in the salvation of God.”
He looked as stunned by what he had heard as I was surprised by what I had said. After a few speechless moments, he quietly broke the awkward silence between us: “I have a feeling you’re not going to be with this company for long,” he said. Then he turned and walked away. As I watched him go I wondered what he meant. But there were no immediate consequences. And by the time I was summoned to his office the following spring and handed a pink slip, I had already come to the same conclusion – though probably for different reasons – and begun to make plans to exchange by safety boots and box cutter for the clerical cloth and collar.
Today, of course, with the benefit of 20/20 pastoral hindsight, and a quarter-century of balancing myself on a preacher’s soap box, I have come to understand that not only had I spoken God’s word to Mr. Hunter on that fateful day; but Mr. Hunter had also spoken God’s word to me!
The truth is that God speaks to all of us, and through all of us, each and every day, whatever our particular station, condition or circumstances in life may be. And sometimes, God’s consistent, persistent, insistent, -- but often inaudible – voice actually does break through the discordant symphony of sound and fury that shapes our life in this maddening world.
Sometimes God speaks to confront; sometimes to console; sometimes to condemn; sometimes to confirm; but always God speaks to conform our lives to their original purpose, and reorient imperfect human beings toward our eternal destiny as children of God called to live in the perfect love of one united humanity. God can speak, and sometimes chooses to speak, through blue-collar workers in warehouses, white-collar workers in office buildings, or full time homemakers in suburbia, just as God promises to speak through vested clergy in Sunday pulpits.
And, who knows, one day – perhaps today, tomorrow, or next Tuesday – God may even choose to speak to you, and through you, to someone else!