“He Sang So Many Songs, He Became One”

If my blog today seems somewhat discombobulated, as my dad would have said, it’s because it is.  Because I am.

Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his faithful servants. — Psalm 116:15

I was standing in line at a bank in Atlanta.  The person in front of me turned around, smiled and nodded, looked around the crowded lobby, suddenly refocused on me and said my name. First and last name both.

“Yes, sir, uh, and hello, Dr. Mallard.”  He was one of my two favorite professors in graduate school.   In a class of several hundred. I didn’t think he even knew I was alive.  And he’d just called me by name.

Well done, thou good and faithful servant. — Matthew 25:21

“It’s good we’re here together like this, Joe,” he began.  “I was going to get hold of you today.”

“Uh, pardon me?”

Standing in a bank line together, he invited me to be a teaching assistant.  He invited me into another world.

I have no idea what banking I was trying to do that spring morning, but Bill Mallard made a monumental deposit in my life with that conversation.

We preach Christ. — 1st Corinthians 1:23

Emory University’s Candler School of Theology, one of our official United Methodist seminaries, lost a beloved leader when Dr. Bill Mallard died two days before Christmas 2014.  I lost a mentor who had believed in me at a time I desperately needed what we now call “a reboot.”

Everyone has a favorite teacher.  Or several.  (And since I have 5 favorite NFL teams, you can imagine my list.)  Bill Mallard is in a four-person-tie for first place among my own most influential instructors.

I have stories about everything from the condition of his office (makes mine look OCD) to his car (ask me sometime about his speedometer) to his love of hymnody (The Wesley Brothers would be proud) to his generous theology (“All truth is God’s truth”).  He replanted my fumbling faith in the abundantly rich soil of God’s grace, and I’m eternally grateful.

I  wrote him a letter about a year ago, having no idea he was in poor health.  To my surprise, he wrote back. Shouldn’t have been a shock at all; that’s how and who he was.

This is from the official Emory statement about Dr. Wm. Mallard —

Perhaps his contribution to Candler and its students is illustrated most clearly by the course he co-taught with Roberta Bondi, the History of Christian Thought (origins to Medieval period). Their practice of opening each class with a full-throated rendition of “Give Me that Old Time Religion” won the hearts of many a Candler student who otherwise might not have found the intricacies of early Christian church history anywhere near as enticing as they did.

One could frequently hear Bill’s boisterous laughter resounding through the corridors of Bishops Hall in conversation with students and colleagues, and no one passed him without enjoying the twinkle in his eye and the shamelessly happy smile that beamed the joy he felt within him. Doubtless this is why so many alumni sought him out both at Candler and in Methodist gatherings across the country.

– See more at: http://candler.emory.edu/news/releases/2014/12/remembering-bill-mallard.html#sthash.SXEt40DJ.dpuf

 “He sang so many songs, he became one,” said Dr. Don Saliers, another top-four-favorite of mine, at Dr. Mallard’s service over the weekend.

Mercy.  Grace.  Christ.

Bill Mallard.

Beloved, we are God’s children now; what we will be has not yet been revealed. What we do know is this: when he is revealed, we will be like him, for we will see him as he is.  — 1st John 3:1,2