Last month, a Facebook friend posted the poem “The Touch of the Master’s Hand,” a poem I remember reading and using in sermons, in the 1950s. Now, sixty-five years later, I have mixed emotions about that once-popular poem penned a hundred years ago.
Rather than take the space to paste the poem here, I am giving you this link to read it online. Or you can listen to it impressively recited on YouTube—and here is the link (with subtitles) to it being sung in 2017.
The Poet
Myra Brooks Welch was best known for the poem introduced
above. Myra (1877~1959) was born in Illinois, but in 1920 she and her family
moved to La Verne, Calif. They were members of the Church of the Brethren, the
Anabaptist denomination that was prominent in that city.
Ms. Welch reported that she heard a speaker address a group
of students on the power of God to bring out the best in people. She said that
she was inspired by what she heard and wrote “The Touch of the Master’s Hand” in
just 30 minutes!
Her poem was published in the February 26, 1921, issue of The
Gospel Messenger, the Church of the Brethren’s official church paper (now
known as just Messenger).
The Poem
Myra Welch’s poem spread across the country, and I heard it and was favorably impressed by it, while still a teen-aged Southern Baptist in
Missouri—and as some of you know, I started preaching in 1954 at age 16.
Wikipedia (here)
gives a good, succinct summary: “The poem tells of a battered old violin that
is about to be sold as the last item at an auction for a pittance, until a
violinist steps out of the audience and plays the instrument, demonstrating its
beauty and true value.”
Then comes the primary point: “The violin then sells for
$3,000 instead of a mere $3. The poem ends by comparing this instrument touched
by the hand of a master musician to the life of a sinner that is touched by the
hand of God.” (Myra, though, no doubt considered Jesus Christ to be the
Master.)
The Problem
While I have no doubt that there are many people whose lives
have been significantly changed by having been touched by “the Master’s hand," sadly, there seems to be far too little evidence of such change in far too many
people who claim to be followers of Jesus.
Those who are evangelicals, as I was in the 1950s, are the
Christians most likely to resonate with the message of Ms. Welch’s poem. But now
it seems that some conservative evangelicals are prominently pushing policies
that seem opposed to the teachings of Jesus.
There are unfortunate moral lapses evident in the lives of some
Christians in all denominations, as well as people of other religions and of no
religion. But I am writing here not about personal piety but about problematic positions
on public policy, of which there are many.
The problem is not just one in this country, however. Think
of the situation in Ethiopia, for example. Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed is said to
be (here) “a devout
Evangelical Pentecostal Christian of the Full Gospel Believer’s Church.”
The Ethiopian PM reportedly attends church regularly and “occasionally
ministers in preaching and teaching.” Further, “he frequently underscores the
importance of faith.” By his public religiosity, he seems to be an example of a
man who has been “touched by the Master’s hand.”
To the great chagrin of many, though, in the past year the policies
of Abiy Ahmed have led to what is being called “war crimes.” While garnering
little news coverage in this country, the civil war in Ethiopia has been marked
by military atrocities as well as by a huge humanitarian crisis.
The Oct. 9 issue of The Economist reports that “Ethiopia
is deliberately starving its own citizens.” Some 400,000 people in the northern
part of the country are facing “ catastrophic hunger.”
How could such problems possibly result from the policies of
a man who has been “touched by the Master’s hand?”
_____
** For a
broader description of the current civil war in Ethiopia, see
this article by Philip Jenkins in the Oct. 8 issue of The Christian
Century.
