(This concludes with a short Bible study from Luke 6; don’t miss it.)

A good question to ask ourselves: what subject or issue could my pastor speak on–and disagree with me concerning–that would send me over the edge?

What trips my cord? What provokes my wrath? Invites my hostility, stirs up my rage, arouses my ire?

Nothing tells the tale about us like the answer to this.

A few weeks ago, I wrote a rather uncomplimentary piece concerning Rush Limbaugh. The editor of our state Baptist paper asked if he could reprint it. I agreed, but came to question that decision. All the mail the editor received (and forwarded to me) was not just negative, but hostile. I was a raving liberal, a satan, unworthy to call myself a preacher or even a Christian.

I had touched a nerve. Stepped on some toes.

Ann Landers or Dear Abby–one of the advice-giving twins–used to say, “Throw a rock among a bunch of dogs; the one that hollers is the one that got hit.”

This week, it was the Michael Jackson thing.

On this website–and nowhere else, not in any newspaper anywhere, but in the blog which I personally pay for–I wrote about the memorial service which was going on at the time. I started by pointing out that the expected crowd of a million did not materialize, quoted Sean Hannity and New York Times columnist Bob Herbert on the MJ phenomenon, and then commented on Rev. Al Sharpton’s glossing over of the MJ child abuse in his sermon. He assured the Jackson children (and said to the world), “There was nothing strange about your father. What was strange was the way he was treated,” or something to that effect.

The fascinating thing about cyberspace is you put something on a website and it’s gone. The world has it now. It gets passed around and people find it by googling and your thoughts are in the public domain.

It’s great and it’s terrible.

Evidently, a friend forwarded that article to a lady who came back at me with both pistols flaring. I was unworthy to call myself a preacher, I was satanic, I was awful. She wondered if I even watched that wonderful, moving service which she found the epitome of spirituality and godliness. (My words, not hers.)

I wrote her back. (Not all my friends agree I ought to answer these diatribes, but I usually try to.)

I pointed out that most of the article was quoting two others who had more information on the MJ subject than I. As for watching the entire service, no, I had not.

It’s not necessary to drink the whole gallon to know the milk is sour.

I ended by suggesting she give a little thought to the subject of idolatry. “Thou shalt have no other gods before me,” God commanded in Exodus 20.

Idols are not limited to figurines of wood and stone and precious metal. They can be the car in my driveway, the funds in my bank account, my job, a particular loved one, Elvis, Rush, or, yes, Michael Jackson.

I claim no supernatural ability to discern idolatry. But I usually know it when I see it.

A couple of years ago, Louis Giglio (hope I got his name right) was speaking at The Cove in Asheville, NC, the Billy Graham retreat center. On the screen, he showed the huge crowd at a Michael Jackson concert. People were screaming, crying, hugging, waving, reaching their own levels of ecstasy and nirvana. Then, he showed the object of their devotion, Michael Jackson himself. Louis said, “Great worship…poor god.”

This week, a fellow in my community was buried in his LSU shirt. His obituary in the newspaper began by saying, “Robert Waller, LSU fan, died….” The last two words of that little article were: “Geaux Tigers.”

During the funeral service, a man walked to the podium to pay tribute. He looked out at the small crowd of mourners and said, “The only time I ever saw Robert angry was when the referee made a call he didn’t agree with. Go Tigers!” And he walked away. That was it. (Not his real name, incidentally.)

A mortuary employee said we would be amazed at the number of similar funerals they hold, with people buried in the get-ups of their favorite sports and college teams.

Is that idolatry? Could be. Might not be. It depends.

Worship is a matter of the heart, and that we cannot see. However, what is in the heart has a way of becoming visible given enough time.

Ask pastors who serve churches in states with intense rivalries between the college football teams. The state of Alabama has Alabama-Auburn, Florida has Florida-Florida State, Mississippi has Ole Miss-Mississippi State, and so on.

Most fans hold their team loyalties in proper perspective and keep their lives in balance. But every team has its die-hards, supporters who worship the team, devour every tid-bit of news coming out of its sports information office, treat their season tickets like shrines and their coaches as gods (until the losses become intolerable), and organize their lives around this great stackpole.

That is idolatry, pure and simple.

A pastor can attack any sin he wishes in his Sunday sermons. But he had better not say anything against sports fanaticism or show any partiality to the “other team” or he’s done. I mean, gone.

It can be the television, the computer, our favorite electronic games, a special celebrity. Idols come in every form imaginable.

The human heart is so shallow and demands astonishingly little from its gods. If you doubt that, go with me into the Singapore flats where I have entered and watch as the residents bow before tiny worship displays containing their household gods. They purchased those figures, they own them, they worship them.

Idolatry is not limited to the ignorant devotion of primitive and unsophisticated savages. It’s as modern as the golf course, the mall, and the expensive wheels on the cars of the kid down the street.

With these thoughts tumbling around in my mind, this morning I took a break from my through-the-Bible-reading (I’m down to mid-Proverbs) to read something from the New Testament. At random, I turned to Luke chapter 6 and began reading aloud.

“Now it came about that on a certain Sabbath He was passing through some grainfields and His disciples were picking and eating the heads of grain, rubbing them with their hands.”

Pharisees watching that little scene reacted immediately, attacking them for “doing that which is not lawful on the Sabbath.”

Answering them with an illustration of what David did (I Samuel 21) when he was hungry, Jesus said, “The Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.”

That incident is immediately followed by a weightier case of the same affliction.

“And it came about on another Sabbath, that He entered the synagogue and was teaching; and there was a man there whose right hand was withered. And the scribes and Pharisees were watching Him closely to see if He healed on the Sabbath, in order that they might have reason to accuse Him.”

Some people just cannot see the big picture! Nothing mattered so much as to see that their minute points of the law were followed to the letter. So what if a man with a need is abandoned.

“But He knew what they were thinking….”

Well, that couldn’t have been so difficult. Surely it was written all over their faces!

“…and He said to the man with the withered hand, ‘Rise and come forward!’ And he rose and came forward.”

“After looking around at them all, He said to (the man), ‘Stretch out your hand!'”

That was the very thing that man could not do. How like Jesus to ask us to grow in the places we are deformed, to call attention to our withered parts in order to heal us, to command what we are unable to do for that very reason.

“And (the man) did and his hand was restored. But they themselves were filled with rage, and discussed together what they might do to Jesus.” (Luke 6:1-11)

Thus the critics of Jesus revealed their true identity, their inner nature. They would kill in order to protect their prejudices.

The man and his welfare meant nothing to these people. Their laws were everything to them.

Legalism is another form of idolatry.

When Jack Smith’s mother died, he was shaken. Until that moment, Jack’s life revolved around the various hunting seasons. Living in Louisiana (the license plates say “Sportsman’s Paradise” for good reason), there was always something in season, and Jack lived for weekends in the wilds.

Suddenly it occurred to him he would never see his mother again. She was a devout believer in Jesus Christ, whereas he worshiped hunting. A deacon from the local Baptist church called on Jack–at his wife Marian’s invitation–and led him to Christ. I had the privilege of baptizing him and becoming his first pastor.

Jack looks back on the years of his hunting idolatry and, quoting Hebrews 11:25, he says, “The Bible says there is pleasure in sin for a season.”

Then he adds, “The only problem is the season is too short.”

Anyone you know addicted to hunting? LSU? Alabama? NASCAR? Chocolate? Brad Pitt? The Jonas Brothers? Hannah Montana? Barbie dolls? Antique collecting?

What can the pastor attack that ticks you off? Sets your teeth on edge? Drives you wild, sends you over the edge, causes you to lose it?

“Lord, give us discerning minds to see all traces of idolatry in ourselves, and to be willing to give it all up in order that Jesus Christ may be our all in all. Amen.”