Ripe for Abuse

[Ragamuffin]

These are days of confusion on every front, functional illiteracy about not only the Bible but important tenets and documents of democracy, a time of fear and uncertainty. People are looking for an authoritative voice to guide them through. Unfortunately, they often follow an authoritarian voice which is as far from authoritative as it gets as today's reading shows.

Therefore, we really must be careful personally to guard ourselves and gather watchmen around the walls of our hearts. These watchmen need the freedom to say whatever is necessary to correct any wrong tendency and we need to agree to listen and act prayerfully.

I am not in a church based ministry so I cannot imagine how much "helpful" feedback you all get on a daily basis. My sympathies are with you. But I hope as a church member that there is some mechanism or some tilt of your heart that is listening for God's voice in all that feedback to correct you.

In my own context I have seen individuals preach and teach such sensitivity but practice none of it. And those of us who were appointed as watchmen marginalized because in our guardianship we have seen weaknesses or compromises or outright abuse of authority and shared it. It is, as the book noted, humiliating and demeaning to have these individual's look down their noses and proclaim that we as the watchmen are the problems. They are God's instruments and we are insurgents against His anointed.

Let us all, as undershepherds take care lest we present God with a frightened and fragmented flock rather than a robust and healthy one at His appearing.