are you not entertained?

Do people want to be inspired and find real truth, a motivation for living a life that is much bigger than themselves, or do they simply want to be entertained? This old Calvin and Hobbes comic strip summarizes perfectly what I want to get across:

“… if we can’t find inspiration, we’ll accept entertainment.”

-Hobbes, the Tiger from Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Waterson

I don’t understand a lot of popular culture and the fascination with celebrities. I don’t want to keep up with any Kardashians, (did you know that they obtained their original fame because the father (who isn’t even alive anymore) defended OJ Simpson?), and I pass by the tabloid magazines in the grocery store with disgust. I don’t want to dance with any stars, because first of all, I don’t think those people are “stars.” Elaine’s boss from Seinfeld was one of the original “stars!” Come on! Yet these shows and people attract a lot of attention and garner huge twitter followings. The Bible tells us to avoid idol worship, yet we have shows that don’t simply encourage people to worship idols, but to become an American Idol.

Some of these celebrities use their status fame and fortune to draw attention to worthy causes I’ll admit. They become spokespeople for humanitarian causes, disease research, all admirable actions. But I have a hunch that most people aren’t drawn to their personality because their donating money to charity. At the end of the day, charitable donations are nothing more than a small section on the Wikipedia page of a famous person.

It’s much easier for everyday people to entertain than it is to inspire as well. Friends can spend hours joking with each other, exchanging sarcastic bites, or discussing the intricacies of college football. Comic relief is my go to mechanism when things begin to strike a little too close to home. I’d rather have people laugh at my jokes than actually know my heart. I confess that numerous times as I sit down to write a post, or tweet, or write a facebook status, the goal in mind is to see how many page views, retweets, favorites, or likes I can get.

Ultimately, we know that people, no matter how famous, no matter how smart, no matter how clever, will fail us. Our earthly heroes can’t entertain us forever, and they certainly don’t inspire us for very long. This shouldn’t be news to you. So the obvious choice for inspiration is Jesus, right?

Except that we approach Jesus the same way we approach anyone else, looking either for inspiration and entertainment. And far too often, we prefer entertainment over inspiration.

 

“Yeah, that whole Jesus dying on the cross for my sins 2000 years ago was cool, but what has he done for me lately?” That sounds like a ridiculous statement to many, and I doubt many of you would ever say that, but I know that describes the attitude of my heart sometimes, and I’m sure it does of yours as well. Why else are we drawn to the cool looking worship leader and his v-neck t-shirts and the “hipster Christianity” scene? Why do we read all the new hip Christian pastors and authors and their new books that seem to come out once a month? Why is it so easy to read all the Christian literature out there, but neglect the boring, timeless, dull Bible, the active and living word of God? (How can so many words that seem to contradict each other describe the same book in that previous sentence? And what’s the deal with all these rhetorical questions? Doesn’t Phil know any other literary devices?)

Why is it so easy to look past the Gospel?

Christianity isn’t that hard to understand. God loves us. People rejected God’s love and choose sin. God still loves us so he sent Jesus to die for our sins. We can accept Jesus or reject him. There it is. Put bluntly, that’s Christianity. In those books that we read, a lot of it boils back down to these points. For some reason that’s not good enough for us. We either try to add more, and write a Gospel according to yourself, or get bored and tired of the whole Christian scene all together, and look to be entertained or inspired elsewhere.

And there’s the problem. You don’t come to Christ looking to be entertained. You come to Christ looking for life. You don’t come so you can carry around a Bible verse as a mere pick me up in your back pocket every day. You come to Christ so you can carry around the word of God for the sheer joy of just knowing God’s character, so you can know the realities of a redeemed kingdom in the midst of a fallen word.

If you're looking for entertainment, you the world has all your needs. If you are looking for life, only Christ has your needs.