Virus detection

System Integrity Restore

Joel Osteen had a brilliant metaphor- he said this Sunday from a church that fills literally a stadium, that he had to go get his computer cleaned of all the viruses and restored to its original factory settings because it crashed. You know where I am going with this. The owner's manual for the original factory settings is obviously scripture- the Maker's manual for how everything is supposed to run at maximal strength, capacity and functionality.
Viruses can get pretty sophistocated, and they are damned sneaky and invidiously invasive. They can entirely hijack a system. You know what I am talking about -spyware, adware, and all kinds of viruses that masquarade as something attractive to you which end up hijacking your files and programs. Sometimes they come as emails that are designed to attract you to open them, then BAM!-you have just downloaded something you didn't realize you downloaded and it is now invading your system. Pretty damned sneaky. Once they rape your systems, the entire thing crashes. Evil.
The cultural virus that prompted Judge Bork to write an entire book on "Slouching toward Gemhorah" is condemned by others as too much prudery. The point is well taken however- It's a virus-a slippery slide to a quicksandish mudhole to let the occasional lapses in virtue free-fall flat out into the kind of corrosive immorality that forces your whole system to crash. But make no mistake, it really can do just that.
Paul says in Corinthians, -listen-don't even eat with a brother who is physically immoral-(certainly don't eat Christ in the Eucharist with such a brother) because whether he knows it or not, it is a whoredom-he has linked his body, and thus Christ's body to a prostitute- and Christ and prostitutes can't live in the same body - he will crash the entire system right out of the Kingdom of Heaven- you can count on it. And it all looked so attractive and enticing in the beginning. Don't even eat with such a brother. Certainly don't eat Christ in Eucharist with such a brother- how "unworthy" would that be? Remember the penalty for taking the body of Christ in an unworthy fashion- it's for that some of you are sick?
Note that Paul isn't limiting the use of the term "prostitute" to someone who officially holds that profession with a business card- the act of infection, interjection of this sort of virusic attention, like a venereal disease on the soul, is what makes the offending personality a prostitute. Generally, the packaging looks more innocent-otherwise evil would be too easy to see for what it is and that much easier to resist. Evil is wiley.
It mascarades as attractive things all the time- otherwise it would be powerless to tempt.
(Note to confessors- love for the prostitute does nothing to restore the original factory settings, and lack of love for same is not meritous of ten Hail Mary's and an Our Father;
Recall that the only woman reported in scripture whose body was thrown to the dogs to devour is a woman who held high title, position and social standing, a killer of God's prophets named Jezebel. )

Stuart McAlpine, Pastor of Christ our Shepherd Church in DC, a wise missionary son Pastor, and father of enough children to fill a softball team or Scout Troop, once said that whenever you engage physically with someone who is not God's intended for you- your beloved, you "rape your soul." You knew that once upon a time-when you were a small child dreaming of wearing your flowing white wedding dress-like the one Julie Andrews wore in the Sound of Music, or Princess Diana wore with a train that went down the entire aisle of the Cathedral, or when you dreamed of wearing your wedding tuxedo flanked by your best man looking at the girl who looked like Julie Andrews in the Sound of Music.

The settings for purity, piety, holiness and innocence that you were born with are the original factory settings. The slouching toward self justified lapses in virtue is not in the program- it's a virus with the capability to infect everthing such that your immune system is entirely compromised. That is what is meant by vigilence. Remember the ladies with the lamps that didn't go out? Remember the sleeping disciples who couldn't even stay awake with Jesus?
When you open that email (one the rest of us might have already figured out is -hello-SPAM!-) that's what you are- the napping disciple who broke the snooze alarm.