Open Wounds and Blindness

  Ever have a cut and not know you are bleeding all over? I had that happen to me today at church. Sitting in the pew, I looked at my pants and saw a spot on them. I assumed that I had blopped on them the last time I had worn them and quickly tried to blot it off and seemingly being dry, it partially came off. Then, about ten minute later, I looked in the same spot and magically it had reappeared, only this time it was significantly larger. But how? My wife saw my reaction, and she asked me in a whisper, "Are you bleeding?"  I looked on my arm of the same side and it was covered in blood. A spot on my arm of skin about a 1/4" was missing and blood was slowly oozing out onto my shirt and pants. I got up and went to clean off and not knowing where a bandage was, asked a brother to help me. I had finally seen the offense.

  Sometimes men don't see offences. Usually, they don't see how they have offended another and the wound just sits there open and it bleeds until the offense has been fixed. My past two posts have expressed that. And today, when after I did my morning devotion, in retrospect, I saw this in the story of Joseph I had just read earlier.

  Joseph and the Technicolor Dreamcoat is one of my favorite plays. The music and acting can be quite enthralling. I have seen it done many times. Every time, I have seen a man wronged by his brothers, spared death, but sold into something less than optimal, by brothers trying to soothe the wounds they inflicted upon themselves by their own evil. This is how I feel today, one year after the vote to remove the Deacon program in the LCMS.

  I feel like my brothers, equals in service, equals by birth, equals in the sight of God, throwing me and hundreds of other men down into a well, just because they did not like something God had given us, not them. In reality, of course, they had given it to us, but now, 30 years later, they deemed that a mistake, and we could no longer have it. Then, in order to soothe their own souls and make themselves feel better, they pulled some of us out of the well and offered us, some of us, but not all, a way to stay out of the well. Finally, some of the brothers accepted this band aid to stop the bleeding, but didn't know others were still in the well, still abandoned by the brothers who threw them there and still bleeding. For you see, the brothers in the well still didn't have a way out.

  The funny thing is, (not really) is that most of the brothers that originally threw them in the well, didn't notice the blood and didn't really care. That is the point of the story. Not knowing because of spiritual blindness is a way to bleed to death. That is what has happened in the LCMS. No one really cares. And men are still in the well.