Faithfulness Over Fame--January 25, 2023

Faithfulness Over Fame--January 25, 2023

"Now when Jesus heard that John had been arrested, he withdrew to Galilee.  He left Nazareth and made his home in Capernaum by the sea, in the territory of Zebulun and Naphtali.... From that time Jesus began to proclaim, 'Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near'." [Matthew 4:12-13, 17]

Jesus doesn't make himself a celebrity, and he doesn't set out to become powerful or famous, either.  If anything, Jesus makes a point of doing the opposite--carrying on with a mission and a message that had begun before him, like he saw himself as part of a team of relay runners rather than an all-star by himself.

I think that's a part of how he loves, too, now that I think of it.

These few verses are how Matthew gives us the start of Jesus' public ministry.  And it's the utter ordinariness and absence of pomp or circumstance that gets me.  For one, it seems that the event that sets Jesus' ministry into motion here is finding out that his contemporary, John, had been arrested.  Jesus knows, in other words, that John's work needs to be carried on, but that he's not going to be the one to do it--and Jesus knows that picking up that mantle will put a target on Jesus' back, too.  Jesus begins his public ministry, not looking for stepping stones on the path to success or celebrity, but knowing that he's likely to get in trouble with the power-brokers and king-makers.  

This is not the way stories of the rise of political darlings or celebrity sensations should go, right?  We know how those stories go--the profiles of young and successful "up-and-comers" who start making a name for themselves, or who burst on to the scene with charisma, raw talent, and originality.  We know how celebrities promote their latest movies or albums making the rounds on talk shows and doing PR blitzes, and how aspiring candidates write books [or have them ghost-written] to generate buzz before they announce their latest campaigns.  We know, in other words, that if you want to get yourself known, you have to talk yourself up and brag about what makes you worthy of notice.

Well, apparently Jesus has little interest in promoting his "brand" or making anybody's "it" list. Instead, he picks up where John the Baptizer left off, echoing his exact same message and knowing it would likely land him in trouble with the authorities just like John, too.  Jesus isn't looking to become famous--he has come in love to bring the Reing of God.  And that doesn't require applause or paparazzi--just his faithfulness to the task at hand.

It probably is worth noting too, that Jesus' message, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near," is word-for-word what John's message had been [see Matthew 3:2], so it's clear that Jesus isn't here to test-market a new slogan or tweak John's message to make it more popular.  Jesus announces the same subversive message John had shouted out in the wilderness--that Rome and its empire were not the be-all-end-all, but rather God's own kind of Reign was taking shape right under Caesar [and Herod's] nose, and there was nothing any emperor or kind could do about it.  Jesus announced, too, like John, that God's Reign was worth dropping whatever else you were doing and leaving behind old allegiances and agendas in order to participate in it.  In other words, Jesus didn't come to sell some way to get what you wanted from God--it wasn't some first-century version of the ever-popular [but never accurate] prosperity gospel that promises God's help to make you richer or more successful. Jesus doesn't make the easy move for a message that sounds like a sales-pitch, or puff himself up to market himself.  He borrows the words John was already using and announces God's Reign without insisting that he crown himself the new Caesar along the way.  Jesus doesn't need to brag or boast--he just picks up the baton that had fallen to the ground when Herod's police had come for John the Baptizer.  He's not interested in becoming famous--he is interested in being faithful.

That's the difference with Jesus.  He is always more committed to carrying out God's mission in love and to meeting people with God's love than he is to getting attention for himself.  In a culture like ours that is obsessed with making celebrities--and teaching the next generation that it's a worthy life-goal to become famous simply for being famous--Jesus' way is always going to sound strange.  In a time like ours that often measures success by the number of "followers" you have on social media, the number of "views" your content has, or the number of clicks, likes, and subscribers you can boast, Jesus offers us an alternative.  He is committed to doing God's work of loving the world whether or not there is fanfare, because genuine love doesn't need to brag.

That's worth our reflection today, too.  Part of what that says to me is that if we are seeking to learn to love like Jesus loves, then we can practice doing good for others without advertising it.  We can be people who care for a neighbor without needing to post a picture of our good deeds, or who do the little things behind the scenes that nobody else will notice.  We can see our work as church not about selling a "brand" but simply sharing a message that is not our own with the world.  We can be done with trying to angle how this or that action will make us "look" and instead simply act in light of what Jesus' kind of love directs us to do.  And really it's amazingly freeing not to constantly have to worry about whether other people will notice what we do or applaud our actions.  It means we are freed to spend our time and energy on what actually shows love instead of what will show off.

Today, what would it look like for us to spend our energy and time like Jesus--not needing to make ourselves the center of attention, but pouring out our energy into what shows love?

Lord Jesus, allow us to forget ourselves enough not to need to boast about what we do, and simply to act and speak in ways that point to God's Reign.