Hate Mail from God?

Roger Kovaciny

30 years ago Ukraine was a peacefully developing post-Soviet country. I was walking eastward [that’s important] toward our evening service across the bridge. I could have made it exactly on time … but as I passed it, right across the street there was a truck unloading into a shop. I wasn’t conducting the service, and Ukrainians didn’t expect you to be on time for everything because the trolleys were so crowded. I wouldn’t have actually taken the time to shop, but thought it wouldn’t be so wrong to cross the street and pop in to look. Who would know? And if the store had what I wanted–goods were in short supply back then–I could come back right after church. What’s so bad about being two minutes late?

It may be that God didn’t agree (see final sentence). After starting to walk in the wrong direction–west–I looked up and saw an incoming instant-message from an angel with wings. (In the Greek New Testament, the word “angel” just means “messenger” and only context determines whether it is heavenly, earthly, or in the sky.) Fortunately–I mean, “by grace”–I was wearing a hat, so this wasn’t exactly “hate mail from God.” And at least it was from a dove, the bird of peace, not a raven. But it was air mail, special delivery, priority express, postage due, and do not return to sender! I thoughtfully deposited my nice new hat on the edge of a trash bin for some beggar to salvage–after all, I was in a hurry to get to church! I had learned Jonah’s lesson. When God wants you to go east, don’t go west, or some animal messenger like this dove or Balaam’s donkey may redirect you.

Now you know why I almost never ask God to give me a sign. He might just do it, and I might not enjoy it! Only once have I ever “set out a fleece,” Judges 6:36-40, but that’s another story. But He sometimes seems to give me signs anyway. I hasten to add that signs from God can only confirm what is already written in Scripture, never add to it, subtract from it, change or contradict it. And that I’m not at all charismatic, just a very stodgy old confessional Lutheran who goes to liturgical services all the time. The kind who is so intent on spending church money on Gospel preaching that I wondered about our medical mission to Ukraine. Was this how God’s money should be spent?

Our visionary founding pastor, the sainted John Shep, began with a healing ministry and fed the poor. At our free Bible camp I heard one orphan tell another “The food here is really great! They feed you three times a day!” And we did more, because after those meals we taught them to brush their teeth. They had never seen or heard of toothbrushes or toothpaste, and “dental care” usually meant extraction after a terrible toothache. Many Soviet citizens had full sets of stainless-steel or aluminum-bronze dentures. Some wanted to know “Why are you doing this?” and we then had ideal opportunities to speak about Christ.

But I was still wondering. So God gave me an unasked-for sign about this ministry, or a “providential coincidence” if you prefer. After VBS classes, the teachers went to a coffee stand on a cliff above the Black Sea. It was entrancing to see the stiff onshore breeze forming rainclouds right before my eyes, and rapidly blowing them inland. One of my seminary students called out, “Professor! If you come over here, you can see Gorbachev’s dacha!” Gorbachev was premier of Russia at that time. I walked to the cliff-edge fence and glanced at his huge red-granite summer palace, but was far more interested in what seemed to be a vision from God below me.

White fog was billowing up out of the sea, my shadow fell on the fog–and it was completely surrounded by a rainbow. I took this halo to be a sign that God was approving what we were doing. We were spending specially-donated Lutheran money to take Ukrainian orphans for a change-of-climate cure along with their VBS. (“Change of climate” is what doctors prescribed before antibiotics, and it often works.) As important as it was for me to learn the Ukrainian language and preach, it was also important for me as missionary to speak the language of Christian love through generous humanitarian aid. Charity brought the needy elect together with the Word. Then law and Gospel–not heavenly signs, which I never talked about–converted them. Soviet citizens needed to be shown that we cared about them before they would listen to us tell them what to believe and do. They’d gotten three generations of that from the Communists.

I dare say another sign was given on Transfiguration Thursday. We celebrated this on the Eastern calendar, in the evening. Though it was August it had been a gloomy drizzly dark gray day. I had been walking around the chancel while preaching but returned to the side of the pulpit to reread Mark 9:3: “There Jesus was transfigured in front of them. His clothes became radiant, dazzling white, whiter than anyone on earth could bleach them.”

At that exact moment the clouds broke and a horizontal shaft of sun like a sudden searchlight blasted through the side windows and made my white robe flare up like a beacon. It was wonderful for my flock to see this sign of God’s affirmation. Did I need the sign? No. But who can dictate to God what signs He shall and shall not use? Millions of Muslims have converted to some form of Christianity, and one of the most common reasons is that they saw Jesus in a dream or vision. Should we tell them all that all signs are invalid?

Getting a sign from God is a fine thing, if it’s really from God. Luther himself had healthy streaks of both mysticism and skepticism. Most of the time, seeking for a sign is a mistake, though you can accept coincidences as Providence so long as they confirm rather than contradict or add to the revealed words of God. And signs for you don’t apply to anyone else. I heard about one man to whom “God revealed” that he should marry a woman at church who he hardly knew. She married him, despite misgivings, which were probably HER sign to refuse. It was a disaster and ended in divorce. Maybe he should have proposed, but she should have refused. Likelier he was just mistaken.

Note to reader: If you haven’t been making it to public worship, your sign from God is the one in front of your church. If you want God’s direct word to you, read the Bible. If you want Him to speak to you audibly, get it on tape or read it aloud! But most of the time, you should be guided by the first chapter of I Samuel. When the boy Samuel was a seeing-eye kid for Eli, whose eyes were “dim”–clouded because of cataracts–God spoke to little Sammy. He’d just lain down to sleep and God said “Samuel!” As you know, he reported to Eli three times before Eli said that this was the voice of God and told him to answer “Speak, Lord! Thy servant heareth!”

Did it ever occur to you to ask why Samuel thought that Eli called him when it was actually the voice of God? I mean, the first time it came out of the blue. And the voice came a second time–and it wasn’t Eli the second time. So Samuel just lay down without a care in the world in his bedroom with the mysterious voice, right? Are you kidding me? When a mysterious voice calls out in your bedroom and you can’t see where it comes from, are you going to curl up and drift off? You wouldn’t do it, your kid wouldn ‘t do it, and little Sammy didn’t do it. You’d have been spooked. Wasn’t he?

Remember: Samuel was a seeing-eye kid. He was with Eli from the time Eli woke up till the time Eli lay down. Is there the slightest possibility that Samuel could have mistaken ANY OTHER VOICE for Eli’s?

So what does that tell us? It tells us that when God wanted to speak directly to Samuel, God spoke using the voice of Eli–his pastor. Samuel’s all-too-human pastor, in case you object that your pastor is flawed. And if God wants to speak to you, He will use the voice of your pastor. As a matter of fact, He does so–every Sunday morning. Do you want a sign from God? It’s the one that lists the service times. Do you want to hear from God? Go there and listen to your pastor (and of course check his teachings against the Scriptures, as the Bereans did). But one thing more:

If you don’t read the Bible enough to know what the revealed will of God is, you might not be able to judge what comes from God and what doesn’t. This essay may be a sign from God to you that it’s time to start a serious program of Bible reading! How else will you know whether a “pigeon drop” is a bit of bad luck, a heavenly message–or what you might mistakenly think was “hate mail from God”?