A Forgotten Ministry

I have watched it happen too many times.  And, what shames me even more than seeing it happen is knowing that I, too, am guilty.  Perhaps, it is one of the first things which I need to confess and repent as I go forward into this Lenten season.  The church has never been a perfect community, but one of its more shameful and tragic blights is its care for its old and sick and dying.  Too many times I have seen them ignored like forgotten and no longer useful parts of the Body of Christ and what I must repent are those moments when I failed to take seriously Acts 20:28 which says, "Keep watch over yourselves and over all the flock, of which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers..."    

Maybe getting older and walking a path that has taken me into a darkness never known has made me more sensitive.  What I know is that it deeply disappoints me when I see an older person whose life has been filled with service to Christ and the church being ignored by the church at the end.  If there is any community which should love and care for its own instead of forgetting them, it is surely the church.  Unfortunately, it does not always happen.   

We can chalk it up to church leaders and church people getting too busy doing church things.  We can rationalize by saying something like "out of sight, out of mind."  We can declare our main business to be the one of making disciples. And, we can close our eyes and tell ourselves someone else is surely doing it.  What we need to do is to tell ourselves that it is sinful and that if it is happening to one, then the whole body, including you and me, are accountable.  May God hear our confession, forgive us, and then kick us out the door to care for those in need of the care of Christ which He wants to give through our lives.