Monday, August 25, 2025
(click here to listen to or read today’s scriptures)
Searchers
Woe to you, blind guides!
Jesus echoes Ezekiel, who warns prophets, teachers, pastors, mentors, counselors and guides against misguiding those who listen to them.
Because they lead my people astray saying, “Peace,” when there is no peace, and because, when a flimsy wall is built, they cover it with whitewash, tell those who whitewash the poorly built wall that it is going to fall. I will tear down the wall and level it to the ground so that its foundation will be laid bare. (Ezekiel 13)
Jesus condemns the Pharisees specifically. Earlier, Jesus  warns anyone who misleads children – better a millstone around their necks.
So not only do I want to understand when I am a “blind guide” but even more I want to open my eyes! With them closed, my blindness will lead me even sooner than others to the edge of the cliff, where I will certainly fall to my death without the guidance of God.
As Michael Weiser says in his personal introduction to his book The Unseen Realm, “I’ve always been interested in anything old and weird.” Well, me too! But reading apocryphal books from the earliest days of Christianity (like Ephrem the Syrian’s 4th century Cave of Treasures) means my truth-sensors need to be on alert. Emphasizing the mystical as much as the moral aspects of Christian life puts me in the company of some pretty weird folks from down the centuries, men and women who were often rejected by their peers because of their interest in “anything old and weird.” Catechists, who teach church-sanctioned truth, challenge theologians, who by definition search the edges of accepted truth for nuance and potential improvements, and most of us would prefer that catechists be our leaders. But what might we be missing?
My sheep hear my voice, says the Lord; I know them and they follow me.
When our own leaders hear voices, we sometimes lock them away if they say much about what they’re hearing. Jesus’ voice in my ears cannot be judged easily by someone with other ears. Jeremiah found himself at the bottom of a well when he spoke up about God’s word in his ears. And he was certainly not the only one persecuted or ignored when God’s word challenged established understanding.
But self-doubt, skepticism about absolutes, and a definite preference for questions rather than answers mark most explorers of the spirit world, which in the last analysis is the only world worth exploring for a lifetime. So that is why I’m looking forward to reading more of The Unseen Realm as our Empty Nesters Sunday School community explores “spiritual realities” for the next several months. I’d always rather be fascinated and tentative than bored and certain.
Let the faithful exult in glory;
   let them sing for joy upon their couches;
Let the high praises of God be in their throats.
   This is the glory of all his faithful. Alleluia.
I am sure David is thinking of faithfulness to God, not loyalty to idea or man or anything else limited by our own finitude. I remember The Searchers and its fictionalized history of Cynthia Ann Parker and the Comanches who abducted her after killing her family. After thirty years of life with the Comanches, Cynthia Ann no longer wanted to return to northeast Texas. She had chosen a different way of life. When her rescuers brought her home, she died only a few years later. (The Captured details a similar story, this time the story of Adolph Korn, a 10 year old from Mason, Texas.)
Who were the blind guides? How much searching must one do before truth rises out of the fog? Can I speak for anyone else? I’ve been raised in a culture that demands the right of everyone to have their own truth, but surely there is more to truth than that.
I think our God-given nature invites us to search all along the way, perhaps with less stopping and settling and instead more walking and searching, asking questions that sometimes open doors to new questions, and sometimes even to truths that insist on a hearing because they come from God.
Our good news did not come to you in word alone,
but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with much conviction.
You know what sort of people we were among you for your sake.
In every place your faith in God has gone forth,
so that we have no need to say anything.
This journey can be lonely, but I know it is peopled along the way with other searchers, listening with ears to the ground for sounds of God that would escape notice otherwise. To me, that sounds like a good way to live.
(1 Thessalonians 1, Psalm 149, John 10, Matthew 23)
(posted at www.davesandel.net)
#
