Given at Christ Church, Worton
Matthew 21. 12-16
“Fame! — I wanna live forever.”
So ran the theme tune of a popular TV drama of my youth, about a group of teenagers at a specialist high school in New York for those aiming at a career in the performing arts. The young characters wanted to be famous for their talents – as did the young actors who played them. But we live in a time when people don’t become famous necessarily for their talents or achievements, but often become famous just for being famous. The celebrity lifestyle is one that some people actively chase, indeed that some are willing to degrade themselves to achieve, drawn like a moth to the flame of being a household name.
The Gospels present Jesus as something of a celebrity, followed by crowds everywhere; sometimes, as when he overturned the money-changers’ tables, he could even carry out what we might call today a ‘PR stunt’. Yet the crowds’ attention was often exhausting to Christ; in Galilee, after a day surrounded by throngs of people clamouring to be healed and to be entertained, he would retreat into the hills, or out into the lake on a boat. Sometimes, the crowds followed him even there. As we believe that Jesus Christ was God in human form, we see something here about the character of God that is perhaps a little surprising.
One of the hallmarks of the early 21st Century has been the way that technology has eroded the distinction between public and private life – for celebrities and public figures, certainly, and also for quite ordinary people.