1-26-24 - Fame

You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.

Fame has a powerful effect on people, both those who become famous and those who pay them an inordinate amount of attention. Fame can undermine our priorities and cause us to be less than our best selves. If given the chance to hang out with a celebrity we admire, who wouldn’t clear the schedule and get to wherever the meeting was to take place? I’d run to meet a celebrity I thought was cool – and I’d be pretty sure I let everyone knew about it. Being around famous people can make us feel more important.

People who are famous say it is odd to receive such attention from total strangers simply because you have a talent or skill or position that gives you exposure. It can be hard to be the object of projection from a public that doesn’t actually know you, but thinks they do. Celebrity can constrict movement, home life, spontaneity, and even affect family and friends.

So I wonder how Jesus handled it: At once his fame began to spread throughout the surrounding region of Galilee.

Without a doubt, Jesus’ fame helped him spread the Good News more widely. It attracted followers, who helped spread the Good News more widely still. Yet we also know from the gospels that more than once the crowds kept him from something he was trying to do, and he spent long hours teaching and healing all who came to him.

And, of course, fame has an underbelly. As we often see, the famous can suddenly be deemed – or become – infamous, notorious, the criticism directed toward them all the more fierce because it is the flip side of adulation. It was the fame generated by Jesus’ raising of Lazarus that sealed his condemnation by the temple authorities, and we know how the crowds shouting “Hosanna” as he rode into Jerusalem became mobs crying, “Crucify him” within the space of a few days. We love our heroes – and we love to watch them fall.

Should Christians seek fame? Some star athletes and artists use their celebrity to proclaim their faith, with mixed results. And some pastors who have gotten very famous on the Gospel lose their way morally and legally. Perhaps fame is not something to be sought, but if it comes to you unbidden, it should be managed with all the humility you can muster.

We might also pray for people in the public eye, that they would wear their fame lightly, not taking themselves too seriously. We can monitor how much we seek or covet attention and affirmation from a wide range of people. Maybe the regard of a small group is more meaningful – and a safer bet.

Jesus became famous out of all proportion to his humble beginnings – his humble human beginnings, that is. From the perspective of his divine origins, his long reign at the “top of the charts” is understandable. But he never acted like a famous person, never exercised any prerogatives or favors, never let fame draw him off-mission. He went to the cross like the lowest of criminals – and emerged from the grave the Lord of heaven and earth, whose fame will never diminish, until we all come together in that Land where no one is more valued than anyone else.

© Kate Heichler, 2024. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.

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