by David Melton
Words typically come pretty easy for me. I’ve never been “the life of the party,” so I suspect I’m a little below average when it comes to the spoken word (a painful admission for a preacher!). I feel much more at home when it comes to the written word. I enjoy words. My family teases me (and students do, too!) that I invent words to suit me. I am guilty of that. Words are cool and I like them … but the early summer of this year has left me looking for the right words.
From the perspective of our college, I have been dreading this summer. As last winter piled on us, I knew this summer would be a time of intense fundraising. The costs did not disappear with the finally melting snow. I knew only the churches and friends of our college could help us. I just hate the act of asking. Along with our college trustees, we have asked, and so many of you have helped! The words “Thank You” just don’t seem like nearly enough. It looks like by the time this summer ends we will have raised the largest offering in the history of Boston Baptist College. I’m at a loss for words at this response to help us.
Then, events in our world have continued to leave me looking for words, but for entirely different reasons. The unspeakable mass murder at Emanuel AME in Charleston has been repudiated with words from across the nation and around the world. How can any person be so evil as to kill people because of the color of their skin and after studying the Scriptures with them for an hour in their own church building? Scripture says, “the heart is deceitful, and desperately wicked.” For families of “the Emanuel Nine” that wickedness creates pain beyond any words.
Still reeling from that genuinely historic tragedy, we got the next roundhouse blow from the U.S. Supreme Court. I was not surprised by the Court’s ruling — I was surprised by how emotionally rattled it left me. I grieved for days (and still do). But I’m still struggling to put it into words. Our nation’s highest court redefined the Creator’s invention. We, in this country, have — officially, at least — told God, “We will make our own rules, and Your rules won’t distract us.” I’m not a hater. I interact with dignity with gay persons all the time. I care about them even if I disagree with them. But to declare “as a nation” that we will define our own terms … I’m speechless.
What a start to a summer! The events have left me, a word-lover, with little to offer. May I suggest the words of the pastor-hymn writer Maltbie Babcock more than a century ago … “This is my Father’s world, O let me ne-er forget, that though the wrong seems oft so strong, God is the Ruler yet.” Those are words for moving forward!