This isn’t a political post.

It’s one of those techno-nerdy posts.

You see, last night my e-mail address of almost 10 years was used by one of those spamming software resellers as the originating e-mail address for a message sent to thousands of people about OEM (original equipment manufacturer) software.

I know this, because I have more than 500 returned-message notices in my inbox this morning.

Thank heaven it wasn’t a message for internet porn, or worse.

So today I’ll have to see what kind of remedies and recourses are available to me for the hijacking of my e-mail address.

If you received one of these messages, purportedly from me, you have my regrets.

And I would caution you against purchasing OEM software – from anyone.

Are you sure, Jesus?

If I want to follow You, I have to hate father, mother, wife, children, brothers and sisters?

If I want to follow You, I can’t invite friends to a dinner I host … only poor people?

If I want to follow You, I must sell my possessions and give the proceeds to the poor?

If I want to follow You, I have to see myself only as an unworthy servant?

Lord, that doesn’t sound very self-esteem-building. Or familial. Or even friendly.

And it certainly doesn’t sound very American.

Are you sure about all that stuff?

Last night I was called back to a post of mine from a few weeks ago (Worship, Gifts and Women) by a new comment, and I read through a few of the other comments with a measure of sadness.

One series of those comments became a conversation with a woman desperate to see immediate change in the perception of her church toward the idea of women being permitted to lead in worship. And I could sympathize with her, more than she could know or than I could express.

While I was rereading those comments, I thought about some things Lynn Anderson said in his 1994 work Navigating the Winds of Change:

Change won’t come immediately!
Back in the early days of our nineteen years at the Highland church, some of the elders and I prayed and worked towards changes that didn’t happen until fifteen years later! Be patient. (p. 175)
…
Change may not be ethical in some situations.
Some of us may be forced to hard choices. You may be driven by a passion to reach totally unchurched seekers or by a concern to keep from losing the boomer or buster generation from the church. But these people are not likely to be reached through traditional church models. You may have tried your best to get your congregation to retool so that it can connect with the unchurched or with a new generation of Christians. But others in your church, maybe even the founders who have invested their life’s blood in your congregation, may be driven by a different vision. In that case, to force your changes may not be ethical.

All churches don’t have to be the same. Some churches can change a little, some a lot. …. But remember, some churches won’t be able to change – not at all! Attempts to force 180 degree changes on such churches simply is not ethical. (pp. 175-176)

You may not agree with Lynn Anderson. (I don’t agree with him on all points – in fact, I think George Barna’s research since Navigating was written shows that many young professionals just drop out of church and there’s not much that anyone can do about it. But most come back a few years later, missing what they’ve left behind.) Still, Lynn has been there. He is an unashamed change agent. I’ve met him, and I think he has a heart for the Lord and for the lost and for the church.

And I believe he knows what he’s talking about when he makes these points.

Years ago there was an ad in Christian Chronicle for an album performed by the choir at my alma mater Harding, an album named after a famous old hymn featured on it. The clip-out coupon was phrased: “Rush me my copy of Teach Me Lord To Wait!”

Patience is still a virtue. So is brotherly-kindness.

But they don’t come easily to all of us, and they don’t come right away to any of us.

I love to read blogs. They make me think and ponder and seriously reconsider …

We interrupt this blog to bring you a special announcement:

Send me all of your money.

Right now. All you can spare. If you trust me, you don’t need to know what I’ll use it for.

Oh, all right. Don’t send it to me.

Send it to Larry James, c/o Central Dallas Ministries.

He needs it to close Friday on a housing opportunity for low income people there. He must have it by Friday.

Oh, okay. Maybe he doesn’t HAVE to have it by Friday.

But you could pretend, couldn’t you? Because Friday is the day he needs to close. And wouldn’t it be great if he had a whole bunch more donations to go into the closing with? Or to come back to afterwards? Wouldn’t you love to “make his joy complete” that way?

You can read more about the need here:

http://larryjamesurbandaily.blogspot.com/2006/10/providing-high-quality-downtown-homes.html

If you can’t send a lot of money, send a little. If you can’t send a little, and you have a blog, post this link. If you don’t have a blog and can’t post this link, tell somebody about it.

Right now. Today. Hurry!

Friday’s coming.

And now we return you to our regularly-scheduled blog:

The truth is, for each of the folks whose blogs I like to read because they make me think and ponder and seriously reconsider the things I believe, I wish there were a dozen Larry Jameses to boot me off of my butt by their humble, godly example; to encourage me to DO the things I believe.

It’s a striking passage, that Matthew 23.

It strikes the Pharisaic mind right between the eyes, pretty much blackening both of them.

These are the utterances of Jesus that may be titled in your Bible, “Seven Woes.” Or, in a more conversational translation, “Seven ‘Whoas!'”. Seven stop-and-rethink-these-items.

The one that draws my attention every time is right in the middle, which probably is at the heart of them for a reason:

Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices – mint, dill and cummin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law – justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former. You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel.

There’s some funny material in there to lighten it up. I can’t quite picture Jesus lambasting the Pharisees to the listening public like a red-faced, fiercely-toned, pulpit-pounding modern-day preacher and still saying those things. You know, about the gnat and the camel. And the “blind guides” part.

But I could be wrong. There’s some pretty serious lambasting in there, too.

For tithing to the extreme – but neglecting justice, mercy and faithfulness. The very things God expects/requires of us, according to Micah 6:8. That’s a lot to neglect. Especially when emphasizing compliance with the law in the tiniest matters.

Would such a Pharisee preach someone into hell for missing a sprig of mint or a shoot of dillweed? Yet conspire against an innocent man of God? Even His Son? To the point of murder?

Looks that way.

We Christians would never do that, would we?

Picket an abortion clinic with signs bearing hateful slogans, without offering to adopt, provide foster care, advocate equal pay for women, train and reward good parenting for those who keep rather than abort?

Castigate someone for an infraction against our worship tradition at the Lord’s table, while doing nothing to help thousands of starving refugees in Africa?

Condemn a brother for having a different opinion on doctrine, while lifting no finger to teach lost millions about Jesus?

Surely we know our mountains from our molehills.

Don’t we?

Are we concentrating on the majors – and not neglecting the minors with whatever time and energy the Spirit gives us after we have displayed Jesus’ good will in a major way? So that people will see our good works and praise our Father in heaven?

Are we being blind guides in such matters?

Or is it just that these verses give us a pair of black eyes, too?

“Whoa!” unto us.

Tomorrow at our ministry staff retreat, our agenda has an hour blocked off to discuss what I’ve long been thinking of as “Christian Consumerism Syndrome.” But it’s probably better articulated in this article by Skye Jethani in March’s Christianity Today:

http://www.christianitytoday.com/le/2006/003/3.28.html

I hadn’t read it before last week, when one of my elders forwarded it to me. After I had read it, I asked for it to be included on the agenda.

My home church – with a new Family Life Center (including the Cafe) and a wide variety of opinions present on preferred worship styles – runs the risk of being perceived as [or becoming?] just another boutique church.

– Unless we can establish a way to express to our corner of Little Rock a strong commitment to living a Christlike life above every other available choice in the marketplace.

In my opinion.

What’s yours?

It’s true.

Any idiot like me can have a free blog. Any doofus with two lips and a voicebox who can form words, can form them into criticism of others.

You don’t have to be smart, credentialed, unbiased, logical or even a critical thinker in order to be able to criticize.

You don’t have to be willing to spend hours in research, or to write or create or dream or do. You don’t have to take the time and engage another person’s soul in the fine art of friendly persuasion.

All you have to do is know what you like, and what you don’t.

You don’t have to have a reason for it.

And if you have one, it doesn’t have to make sense to anyone but you.

If that.

I don’t even know quite what has suddenly prompted this moment of outrage in my soul – maybe it’s cumulative – because nothing has really happened in my life of late to nudge it on.

If anything, it’s probably a sudden realization that I spend too much of myself in criticism.

It costs nothing. Requires nothing. Generally yields nothing.

And, yes, I’m even talking about constructive criticism. Not just the so-called kind that sugar-coats pure bile; I mean even the best-hearted, best-intentioned kind of criticism.

What does criticism add to anything? At the same time, what can it destroy?

As a general rule, the characters in the Bible, in literature, and in life whom I’ve encountered spending a lot of themselves in criticism are not my heroes. They aren’t happy people. And they don’t add to the joy of others.

As a general rule.

I don’t want to be one of those people.

Criticism is judgment expressed, and it can be helpful or harmful or neither, depending on the recipient(s). But because it is expressed, it’s relational – and has power. Criticism is the nitroglycerin of relationships. It can heal hearts. It can explode them.

It is best used in very small quantities by people who are keenly conscious of what they are doing.

I beg your forgiveness if I have been uncritically critical, whether harsh in disapproval or lavish in praise or shruggish in my indifference.

What you create in your life before God and others is among you and Him and them.

It’s not that I don’t appreciate criticism – especially the thoughtful, caring kind. It’s that I don’t want to need it. I don’t want to feel so compelled to give it.

And I sure-as-judgment don’t want to abuse it.

That’s kind of a short description what I think church should be more like.

Oh, it’s not original with me; lots of folks have said so.

But church really should be the kind of place that unanimously, joyfully greets: “Norm!”

Except with one major difference.

Not the beers.

The greeting.

Church should also be the kind of place that unanimously, joyfully greets: “Cliffy!”

“Lilith!”

“What’s shakin’, Frasier?” “My faith in humanity.” “Bet we got something for that behind the bar. What’ll you have?” “I’m in a poetic mood tonight. How about a KJV, straight up?”

Then it would really be church.

Time Magazine wonders if God wants us to be rich.

“But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?’ This is how it will be with anyone who stores up things for himself but is not rich toward God. … But seek his kingdom, and these things will be given to you as well. Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father has been pleased to give you the kingdom. Sell your possessions and give to the poor. Provide purses for yourselves that will not wear out, a treasure in heaven that will not be exhausted, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” – Jesus of Nazareth, Luke 12:20,21,31-34

Hmm. Jesus seems to want us to be rich toward God.

Joe Beam suggests that married Christian couples could have much better relationships through less-inhibited sex.

Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything. Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it, just as Christ does the church – for we are members of his body. “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.” This is a profound mystery – but I am talking about Christ and the church. However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.” – Paul the Apostle, Ephesians 5:21-33

Hmm. Paul seems to think that husbands and wives should love and respect each other as deeply as we love our own bodies, and submit to each other’s needs in everything – even in something as intimate as helping with a bath – just as Christ and the church relate to each other.

Seems to me that both items involve our demonstration of love for God and for others that His Son died for.

And that they have nothing to do with what we as individuals want.

Selflessness. Christlikeness.

Could it really be that simple?

I wonder when it was.

I wonder what it was like.

“It” being the moment when Jesus realized what He had to do, and that it would cost Him His life.

Was it when He first saw a common criminal suspended on a cross? Was it when He first gave life back to a dead body? Was it when Satan tried to compel Him to leap from the temple’s highest point? Or when He closed the scroll in a little synagogue and said “This prophecy is fulfillled today” – realizing all the import of Isaiah’s words about the suffering servant?

In this life, we may never know when it was.

But I think I have the vaguest, shadowy picture of what it was like. For every once in a while, I get the stark, electric realization of something I have to do to follow Christ – and that it will cost me my life.

Not – so far – to the point of causing my immediate death, mind you. But what I do will cost me my life as I know and cherish it. I will lose something I have treasured; something I have valued … more than Him. It will be gone forever and there will be no going back to it. And leaving it behind will just lead me to more and more such choices, as God slowly strips away my protective wealth and armor and clothing to leave my naked soul before Him.

So He can clothe me with Christ.

All too often I meet such moments of epiphany and choose the transient few pennies, the rusty armor, and the moth-eaten rags.

I know I’m in trouble when my choices are less and less frequent. God is being patient with me. I, however, am delaying His effectiveness through me while He waits.

You see, I don’t know that there could be only a single moment in Jesus’ life – or ours – when the cost is realized and must be counted. I think God sends them in His own time, at His own rate. He can stop sending them when He chooses.

And that kind of epiphany freezes me right down to the marrow.