The Great Equalizer

There were at least two, no three, early sources of wonder when first I met Jesus Christ. One was the way the colors around me sharpened. Three no four, the profound peace I felt, four no five, the sense of purpose that invaded my life. The sense of leisure, too, as we rested at the feet of our pastor teacher, and friend and listened. That is, I tried to listen while suppressing inner voices that said, “We should be doing something, isn’t there some work to be done?” Or “Who is he that he knows so much, I know things too.” Whereas the voice of the Holy Spirit quietly insisted, “This is the work of God, that you BELIEVE in the one whom He has sent.” But the crowning wonder of those early days came later when I, as a lowly sawmill worker (that other “work” I was looking for came soon enough), found warm acceptance in a congregation among professionals and those I considered more “important” than myself. It wasn’t as if these people were trying to be nice and welcoming to me and my little family, it went well beyond that. There was a mysterious equality, a sensation of community and commonality unlike anything I had ever experienced. I am convinced now that it was at least partly due to the unifying power of the ordinance or sacrament of communion in which we partook with regularity. That unifying power in communion has a way of collapsing all barriers between and among people and showing us instead how deeply alike we are, and especially so in Christ. While experiencing this mystery, I kept waiting for a letter to arrive saying something like, “Come to Africa, we need you” or “Go to Spain and wait for further instructions (echoes of Mission Impossible?) but the letter never came. But I was close in thinking there would be a clue at the Post Office, because it came in the form of a notice on the bulletin board there about completing my BA by gaining a degree in Education. So, wonder of wonders, I shifted from passive to active mode and quit waiting for a life-changing letter. After all it had already come in the Epistles (love letters) I was already devouring with such frequency!