Amazing Grace

David Orendorff · Luke 15:1-10 · September 9, 2007

Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me.  I once was lost, but now am found, was blind, but now I see. 1 John Newton, Amazing Grace, The United Methodist Hymnal, (Nashville, The United Methodist Publishing House, 1989), 378.

 

John Newton when he wrote this monumental hymn was referring to his own life.  He had been a slave trader but was converted under the influence of George Whitefield, John and Charles Wesley. 2 The Hymns of the United Methodist Hymnal, Diana Sanchez, ed., (Nashville, Abingdon, 1989), 134.

John Newton was a lost sheep.  He bought and sold people as if they were cattle.  In truth, cattle were often treated better than slaves.  The slave traders turned ancient tribal rivalries into a profitable business.  The result was the kidnapping and slaughter of whole villages, and whole regions of Africa.  Those few who survived the kidnapping were herded and packed onto ships.  The slave trade of the Americas alone is said to have brought 30 million Africans to market.3 New Family Encyclopedia, (Lexicon Publications, 1982), 534  This rough estimate does not include those Africans who perished in the wars, raids, and kidnappings necessary to fill the ships.

Rarely did the traders make it to market with their slaves.  More typical is the report Captain Adriaen Blaes gave to his employers, the Amsterdam Directors of the Dutch West India Company, explaining the “misfortune” of the vessel St. Jan.  Two hundred and nineteen slaves were purchased from the Gold Coast in March of 1659 to be resold in the Americas.  By the time the St. Jan had departed from the coast in August near Equatorial Guinea the slaves were malnourished and ill.  Everyone was put on short rations and during the voyage 110 dead slaves had to be thrown overboard.  In September the St. Jan reached the West Indies where she took on food and water.  Only 90 of the slaves remained.  Shortly after, the St. Jan ran aground and frightened for their lives Captain Blaes and his crew abandoned the ship and the slaves to their fate.

Captain Blaes reported his abandoning the Africans this way:

At day break, perceiving our danger, we saved ourselves with all the crew in the boat, leaving the Negroes in the ship, taking our course to this place (Curaçao), in order to inform the Hon’ble Director M. Beck of our misfortune.4 New York Colonial Manuscripts, State Archives, Albany, in Elizabeth Donnan, ed., Documents Illustrative of the Slave Trade, (Washington, Carnegie Institution of Washington, 1930-1935), I, 145 as quoted by Leslie H. Fishel, Jr. and Benjamin Quarles, The Negro American: A Documentary History, (Atlanta, Scott, Foresman and Co., 1967), 19.

 

“Misfortune” is hardly the word we might use for the misery and death of 219 men, women and children.  In fact, Captain Blaes, when speaking of “misfortune,” was probably not thinking of human carnage, he was probably referring to the “misfortune” of a lost cargo, of lost wealth.

Captain Blaes deposition is in included in an anthology of writings from the history of Black America.  The editors write of this deposition:

The opening passage…is significant not so much for the grim events that it relates as for the manner in which it demonstrates the completely impersonal nature of the slave trade, a business that tended to bring out the worst in those who engaged in it.5 ibid., 18.

 

Slave trading was a nasty business and it was John Newton’s business.  So when he talks of himself as a “wretch”, he means he was a quite nasty fellow.  And when he writes “I once was lost” he means he was lost to love, to humanity, to decency, to himself, to God.

But far from being rejected by God, John Newton is the kind of person for whom God is looking.  It isn’t that God doesn’t care about the perfect people, but it is the John Newtons who need saving.

Some years back our family was backpacking with some friends in the Beartooths.  Erika, my oldest and in Middle School at the time, was complaining of the load, of not being able to breath, of how hot it was, of how tired she was getting.  We were only two miles in and we had three miles and a pretty good saddle to climb before we reached camp.

I got irritated and told her to stop complaining, that I was tired of her whining.  I probably didn’t say it that nicely.  Erika got angry and stomped off down the trail, ahead of the rest of us.  I gave my map and compass to the others and went after her.  I finally caught up with her and then I tried to take a short cut to where we ought to be.

I learned several lessons.  First, never take a short cut without your compass and map.  Soon we were lost.

Finally, we retraced our steps, found some other hikers, looked at their map and made our way to Becker Lake.  We had been gone five hours from the others and they were frantically worried about us.  They weren’t worried about each other, they didn’t rejoice because they were never lost, they rejoiced because the lost were found.

Years later I was to learn that I was not only lost in the mountains, but I was lost with Erika on that day.  Erika has, and evidently had, athletic asthma.  Whenever she physically exerts herself, her lungs, instead of opening to take in more oxygen, shut down.  So when she needed air the most she got the least.  What I reacted angrily to as her whining was in fact her accurate reporting of the effects of her asthma.

Erika would also tell you that had I listened to her we could have found our way back to the others in much less time.  I have since learned that this is probably also true.  She has an uncanny ability to know where she is and how to get where she wants to be, not only in the woods, but also in Paris.

I am the lost kind of person for whom God is looking.  The perfect Dads, the ones that never make mistakes and are never nasty to their children don’t need God to save them.  We “lost” Dads desperately need someone to come looking for us, to point us in the right direction, to rejoice for us when we are finally guided to camp.

After God finds him, John Newton writes his second verse:

'Twas grace that taught my heart to fear, and grace my fears relieved; how precious did that grace appear the hour I first believed. 6 The United Methodist Hymnal, 378.

 

John Wesley was convinced that until we understand how desperate is our situation, we do not understand how great is God’s mercy for us.  John Newton’s heart had to be taught to fear.  He had to learn and become convicted of the awful things he was doing before he understood how grace might relieve his fear.

I had to be taught to repent of my sins against Erika before I could understand how great was God’s grace in her forgiveness.  And then, in the understanding, is rejoicing and a tender and precious relief.  We are not doomed to stay lost, for we have a God who day in and day out seeks to find us, to hold us and to bring us home.

Through many dangers, toils, and snares, I have already come;
'Tis grace hath brought me safe thus far, and grace will lead me home. 7 ibid

 

Before we know of our danger, before we understand the peril by which we are threatened, there is grace.  God does not come to our lives only after confession, sorrow, or baptism, but before we are born, God is with us, loving us and seeking to influence our ways.

I imagine God speaking to all of us who know what it means to be lost and saying something like:

I have been looking for you, hoping to love you from the beginning.  When a man and a woman found desire in each other, I was that desire so that you might come into creation. I was the one who cried when you fell and laughed when you got up.  I have been seeking you all your life, your pain is my pain and your joy is my joy.

When you said I love you to your first love, I was in your voice and I was in your lover.  When your flesh yearned for completion in another, I was in that yearning, because I wanted you to know the fullness of love, not as concept but as fact of flesh and soul.  All your days I have been looking for you, because I love you.

When you saw the hungry and were moved to care, I was the hungry and I was the care.  When you saw a child in anguish and you reached your hand, I was the child and I was the hand.  Whatever moves you to seek to love and be loved, I am that and I am there.

Please hear me my beloved.  From the beginning I have been looking for you, hoping that you will know how very much you mean to me, how very much I want you to be filled by this life and with this love.

Please hear me my beloved for to eternity I will come to you and be with you and love you.  Please hear me my beloved.  So that you would know me, I take on your flesh and come as son to be crucified and daughter to be abused, I set aside all that would make us separate so that we might be one in spirit, one in soul and one in flesh.  Please hear me for it is your name that I sing to the angels that they might know how very much I love you.

Please hear me my beloved, for this is my love song and it is why I created you. 8 Originally written for a “Walk to Emmaus” talk on prevenient grace.

The Lord has promised good to me, God’s word my hope secures; God will my shield and portion be, as long as life endures. 9 The United Methodist Hymnal, 378.

 

Jesus did not bring John Newton home and then just leave him in the pen with the other good sheep.  Though we are in need of being found, we are also in need of being reformed.   John Newton, if he wasn’t going to be a slave trader, needed to be something else.  God called him to pastoral ministry.  He became an Anglican priest, a leader in the evangelical wing of the Church of England and a vigorous opponent of slavery. 10 Leslie H. Fishel, Jr. and Benjamin Quarles, The Negro American: A Documentary History, (Atlanta, Scott, Foresman and Co., 1967), 18.

In 1807 the English Parliament took the first step to ending slavery by banning slave trading in its empire.

(John Newton’s) tombstone epitaph sums up his experience:  “John Newton, clerk, once an infidel and libertine, a servant of slavers in Africa, was, by the rich mercy of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, preserved, restored, pardoned and appointed to preach the faith he had long labored to destroy.” 11 ibid.

Yea, when this flesh and heart shall fail, and mortal life shall cease, I shall possess, within the veil, a life of joy and peace. 12 The United Methodist Hymnal, 378

 

May it be so for me and for each of you! Shalom and Amen.