Years ago, a man heard a minister
protest the use of the word
“wretch” in the hymn “Amazing
Grace” — the minister contending
that God doesn’t make wretches.
The man questioned in his mind,
what about simply becoming
wretched on one’s own?
Sunday, the same man sang
“Amazing Grace” in worship
and the redacted hymn substituted
the word “one” for wretch. The
man thinks about the wretched-
ness appearing and the omen of
more and greater wretchedness
in the wake of the recent president-
ial election and thinks about how
wretched people can act to the point
of having to be called wretched
for all their wretched behavior —
guilt for their behavior and shame
for being that wretched. The
composer of the hymn was captain
and slave trader on a ship trans-
porting slaves from Africa to the
New World before he was convicted
of sin and embraced by grace and
was bold enough to call himself a
wretch and work for the end of
slavery. And the man thought,
If we are all just “ones” and
in no way wretches, we have nothing
to be sorry about, nor for which
to ask forgiveness and if none of
us needs forgiveness and the grace
of salvation from wretchedness, well
then, wretchedness wins.