Moonwalking Through the News Cycle
June 27, 2009
This week we have seen the passing of three different pop culture figures: Ed McMahon, Farah Fawcett, then, to the world’s dismay, Michael Jackson. Remember way back on Tuesday when everyone was talking about Jon & Kate + 8 and the announced divorce? Some of you may remember in the recesses of you mind the scandal from Wednesday, South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford and his Argentinean mistress. There was even some real news being covered at one point in the week: the protests and crackdown in Iran.
The 24-hour news cycle has increased exponentially both the perceived value of certain individuals as well as their immediate disposability. You’re important for as long as the media can squeeze something out of you or until you’re overshadowed by someone new or “bigger”.
But the movement from seeming importance to certain irrelevance isn’t a new one. It’s always been that way. The Preacher—Solomon—faced the same struggle 3,000 years ago. “A generation goes, and a generation comes,” he wrote (Ecclesiastes 1:4). The names change, but the famous, and infamous, keep churning through. He continues, “Is there a thing of which it is said, ‘See, this is new’? It has been already in the ages before.”(1:10) Our generation is particularly guilty of the constant pursuit of the new and fresh. But Solomon assures us it’s been done. “There is no remembrance of former things, nor will there be any remembrance of later things yet to be among those who come after.” (1:11)
It’s unlikely any of us are going to be the focus of the news cycle. From the world’s standpoint we don’t even have the hope of being important before we’re irrelevant again. If anything, however, we are better off for it. We should be able to see that wealth and fame are disposable. And the Preacher himself found that even if we did have them they would only bring limited and transitory satisfaction. “He who loves money will not be satisfied with money…, this is also vanity.” (5:10)
Yet so often we are attracted by the pursuit money, fame or just the pleasures of the world. We seek personal achievement, validation or, dare we kid ourselves?, some imagined earthly permanence. We are lured by the same lies Satan tempted Jesus with in the wilderness. But for real permanence we must we must turn away from the world, and from even ourselves. “Jesus told his disciples, ‘If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what shall a man give in return for his soul?’” (Matthew 16:24-26)
God has created us for value and permanence. But it is not a permanence we will find by pursuing our own whims and desires. It certainly will not be a permanence found in any sort of worldly validation, no matter how intoxicating in the moment it might be. If we want our lives to have value and relevance that lasts it will only be found when we take up a cross.
Alan Cornett