Why Do We Care?

I just do not understand why people in this country are so enthralled with people like Terrell Owens and Brittany Spears. All they seem to do is make one bad decision after another. Their bad decision is made and then every media outlet falls all over themselves to get the scoop on their selfishness, greed and stupidity and then we go out and buy the magazine or newspaper so we can read all about it. Or in my case I will sit in front of the television and watch umpteen hours of coverage about Owens talking bad about someone and dividing the lockerroom but who cares because he has "got so much talent." Why do we care about these people? Why does sportscenter devote over half of their show each day to the bonehead mistakes people like Barry Bonds and Alex Rodriguez make? Do you want to know why? It is because we love drama. Our culture is a culture that lives for drama. It is a source of life for many people. I don't mean drama like a good murder mystery or the final seconds of a great basketball game. I mean drama like the "he said, she said" crap of our celebrities. Tune into Sportscenter today or to E Entertainment News and I would be willing to bet that 75% of the show will be devoted to some negative "drama" by the elite people in the industry. I guarantee you that the "drama" will make up most of the show and the 10th story of the day will be about some obscure Triple A baseball player who helped his grandmother across the street or some "D" list celebrity that gave $20 to a girl scout for some cookies. These shows do have standards you know. Why do we highlight all the negative publicity and not highlight the many positive things that athletes and celebrities are doing. It is because by and large we do not really care. We want the "dirt" on everyone so that we know that we are better than them or to validate our own struggles in life. We don't just want it with our celebrities but we want it with one another. I would argue that gossip is the most unrepented sin there is. People do not even realize they are doing it. We want to know we are better than other people so we can somehow appeal to that. We so badly want this "cosmic scoreboard" that we can look at from time to time to see how we are comparing not to God's standards but to other people because that, too often, is where we are finding our worth. God's law has been lost on Christians and we now live a "Christianity of Comparison" that says as long as I am not doing the bad things that that guy is doing over there then I am fine. It is as if we think that as long as we are "better" than most people then we are right with God. Not only is this not true but it is communicating something awful to the unbelieving world. We are telling them two things. First, that you must get your life cleaned up before you can come to Christ. No one has their life cleaned up! Christ died for sinful, broken people that did not clean their lives up first but instead realized their sin and placed them at the foot of the Cross. The Tax Collector in Luke 18 had the right idea when he cried out to God and said "have mercy on me, a sinner." He realized that all he could do was to appeal to God's mercy because all he had was his sin. Secondly, we communicate to unbelievers that our deeds can be given to God in exchange for salvation. The theme verse of this blog dashes these hopes. "While we were still sinners, Christ died for us." When we were broken, reprobate, totally dead in our sin and had no inclination towards Christ, that is when Christ died for us. It was not because of any merit of our own. Our deeds accomplish nothing for us. Once we are accepted in Christ then our deeds are a fruit of our relationship with Him. So to conclude, I do not know why we are so interested in the mistakes of our celebrities. What would happen if the negative stories became the last story of the show and the positive ones were moved to the front? What if a big deal was made about the benevolent giving of celebrities and the time they spend helping others? Would this have a positive influence on kids today? Of course it would. Unfortunately, the negative stories will stay at the forefront communicating to kids that this is how you supposed to act. The stupid decisions, drugs, beating you wife and huge, greedy contracts will continue to get the publicity because that is what people want to know about and that is what kids will aspire to be. Oh let the Lord cleanse us of these things. Let Him show us His standards and how we do not measure up. My prayer is that this would not lead us to despair but would lead us to our knees begging for forgiveness, repenting of our sins and thanking Him for His abundant grace. Thanks be to God for His grace!!