You get the impression newspaper editors begin their staff meetings by asking what their constituents need to be worrying about today.

This Memorial Day, 2013, we have our choice of several juicy issues, any one of which can keep you up at night….

–The crumbling highway infrastructure. We’ve had three bridges knocked out in this country this week alone.

–The weather.  Tornadoes destroyed much of Moore, Oklahoma a week ago, taking 24 lives in spite of the advance notice.  We’re told that Oklahoma is the number one target for these monster storms.

–Terrorism. A British soldier was gunned down on the streets of London a few days ago. Nine suspects have been arrested, several of them apparently terrorists.

–The continuing assault on traditional morals and the definition of the family. The Scouts will accept gay kids into membership and more and more states are legalizing same sex marriage.

Okay, had enough?

If one enjoys worrying, he can always find good cause.

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There is a reason very few who write articles for the various “preacher” online services such as churchleaders.com, sermoncentral.com, and crosswalk.com reply to those who leave comments.

It messes up their day.

Case in point. This morning, I decided to check the replies on an article of mine which one of the above services had sent out recently to 50,000 of their closest friends. There might have been 15 or 20 comments.  Several said things like, “You didn’t give us a remedy” or “You misinterpreted that text” or “You didn’t quote Bonhoeffer” or “What do you have against preachers?”

Ugh.  I hit reply a time or two and left notes. And then regretted it.  It’s so hard not to sound defensive when you are trying to explain why you said one thing and not something else.

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“The silk we love for its softness and beauty is also one of the strongest and toughest fibers in the world. It has a strength of around five grams per denier compared with three grams per denier for a drawn wire of soft steel.” (From “The History of Silk,” by Harold Verner, quoted by Liz Trenow in her novel “The Last Telegram.”)

Soft and beautiful. Strong and tough.

You gotta love it.

What some in our day have called “a velvet-brick” and others “a steel magnolia.” Soft and beautiful, strong and tough.

A pretty apt description of our Lord Jesus Christ, isn’t it?  We see His softness and beauty in a hundred things He did: took time to receive the little children and bless them, responded to the cries of the leper and touched him, restored a dead son to his grieving mother, forgave an adulterous woman who had been publicly humiliated by religious bullies, and saved a five-times married woman of Samaria.  He invited the dying thief on the cross next to Him to spend eternity with Him in Paradise, and prayed for His executioners.

Our Lord said, “Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light” (Matthew 11:28-30).

No wonder people are so enamored by this Lord Jesus Christ.

He was a beautiful man.

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“But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ” (II Peter 3:18).

The pastor had been called from his rural church to another part of the country. He was excited about the new challenge, as he well should have been. In a parting comment to a friend, he assessed the state of spirituality of the church members he was leaving behind:

“There is enough ignorance in this county to ignorantize the whole country.”

What happens when a pastor gets called to a church like that? A church where the members and leaders alike do not know the Word of God and have no idea of how things should be done (what Paul called “how one ought to conduct himself in the household of God”–I Timothy 3:15), or why it all matters.

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“Not that I have already obtained it, or have already become perfect, but I press on…” (Philippians 3:12).

No matter how accomplished you become in sermon-building and how comfortable you feel standing before crowds delivering the Lord’s message, you should never get to the point of phoning it in.

The time never comes when a preacher can switch on automatic pilot.

There are good reasons for this limitation….

1) You are not big enough for that.

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“…a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish” (Ephesians 5:27).

Anyone can criticize the church. It’s the most vulnerable institution in the world, the most victimized, and the most vilified.

Criticizing the church is like clubbing baby seals.  It has no way of fighting back, but just lays there and takes what you dish out. The difference is that, after the beating, the church stands to her feet and goes on about her business, while you the critic walk away beaming as though you have done something heroic.

You haven’t. You have picked on the easiest target in the world.

In this morning’s newspaper, some (ahem) rocket scientist wrote a letter to the editor taking on the church for the Spanish  Inquisition of the Middle Ages and before that the Crusades.  I assume he just discovered these.

No institution on earth has been so targeted for villainy as has the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ.

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