I’ve been thinking about celebrities.
I don’t simply mean that I’ve been thinking about
Kanye West and Kim Kardashian’s spat
over whether their child can have a TikTok account,
or what a Non-Fungible Token is
and why both Paris Hilton and Jimmy Fallon
paid hundreds of thousands of dollars
for the right to claim exclusive ownership
of a digital image of a bored ape.
In addition to thinking about these things,
I’ve been thinking about why
I have been thinking about these things,
why I let these strangers take up space in my head,
even as I grouchily denounce
the vapidness and decadence of celebrity culture.
Why do their lives matter to me?
over whether their child can have a TikTok account,
or what a Non-Fungible Token is
and why both Paris Hilton and Jimmy Fallon
paid hundreds of thousands of dollars
for the right to claim exclusive ownership
of a digital image of a bored ape.
In addition to thinking about these things,
I’ve been thinking about why
I have been thinking about these things,
why I let these strangers take up space in my head,
even as I grouchily denounce
the vapidness and decadence of celebrity culture.
Why do their lives matter to me?
Though the advent of mass media
has certainly increased our access
to information on celebrities,
the phenomenon of celebrity
has been with us for millennia.
The lives of the powerful and famous—
whether athletes and popstars today
or kings and queens in the past—
exert a strange fascination for us:
their triumphs and trials,
their marriages and divorces,
their fashions and fetishes
matter to us because they
seem to offer a window
into a world that we crave,
a world in which life is more colorful,
developments are more dramatic,
choices are fraught with immense significance.
The fact of their celebrity seems to suggest
that they have lives that matter
in a way that ours don’t,
and theses lives show that human life
can be more than it is.
And even if our own lives remain
rather drab and dull and ordinary,
they can gain just a bit
of color and drama and significance
by our vicarious sharing in the world
of these glittering, fascinating beings.
But our fascination with celebrities
cannot, of course, really give our lives
the color, drama, and significance that we yearn for,
because the glitter of celebrity is a kind of optical illusion
that tricks us into thinking
that their struggles have a meaning that ours don’t,
that their achievements are somehow immune
to the flow of time that bears all our works away.
But this is false;
the world will one day forget the names
of Kanye and Kim and Paris and Jimmy.
The life we crave for ourselves,
a life that matters,
whose significance is recognized
and whose deeds can endure beyond the veil of death,
cannot be found in our fascination with the famous.
Where then can it be found?
Well, because we’re all sitting together in a church
I suspect you know what I am going to say.
When Jesus steps into the boat of Simon Peter and his friends
and says to them, “put out into deep water,”
he is not simply giving them navigational instructions.
He is inviting them to live lives that matter,
lives that plunge into the depths of the mystery
that lies at the heart of human existence.
The fish that fill their nets to the point of breaking,
become a sign of the abundant life to which he calls them,
a life that can be found only in venturing out into the deep,
a life that is something more:
something brighter and bolder
and soaked with significance,
a life that matters.
This, of course, terrifies them,
so Peter says,
“Depart from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man.”
I am a man who might look with fascination
on the lives of the great and the glorious,
but who could never live such a life himself.
But Jesus doesn’t care about any of their excuses;
he calls them to join him anyway.
And they leave their nets and their boats
and follow him into the deep.
Isaiah, praying in the temple, looked into that deep,
as if looking through a window into the life of heaven itself,
where God is eternally enthroned in majesty
and the six-winged seraphs cry out “Holy, holy, holy,”
making the temple shake and fill with smoke.
These angelic creatures, whose name means “to burn,”
live lives that shine with a light given them by God,
a light that God desires to give to us as well.
Isaiah, like Peter, is shaken
by the abyss that opens before him,
and seeks to use his sinfulness as an excuse,
as if to say, “Who am I?
How could my life matter?”
But again God will have none of it.
In his poem “The Prophet,”
the poet Alexander Pushkin
captures the dizzying transformation
that God brings about in Isaiah:
“And with his sword he cleaved my breast
Removed my shaking heart,
And then he seized a blazing coal,
And placed it in my gaping breast.
Corpse-like I lay upon the sand
And then God’s voice called out to me:
‘Arise, O Prophet, watch and hark,
Fulfill all my commands:
Go forth now over land and sea,
And with your word ignite men’s hearts.’”
as if looking through a window into the life of heaven itself,
where God is eternally enthroned in majesty
and the six-winged seraphs cry out “Holy, holy, holy,”
making the temple shake and fill with smoke.
These angelic creatures, whose name means “to burn,”
live lives that shine with a light given them by God,
a light that God desires to give to us as well.
Isaiah, like Peter, is shaken
by the abyss that opens before him,
and seeks to use his sinfulness as an excuse,
as if to say, “Who am I?
How could my life matter?”
But again God will have none of it.
In his poem “The Prophet,”
the poet Alexander Pushkin
captures the dizzying transformation
that God brings about in Isaiah:
“And with his sword he cleaved my breast
Removed my shaking heart,
And then he seized a blazing coal,
And placed it in my gaping breast.
Corpse-like I lay upon the sand
And then God’s voice called out to me:
‘Arise, O Prophet, watch and hark,
Fulfill all my commands:
Go forth now over land and sea,
And with your word ignite men’s hearts.’”
Isaiah, Simon Peter and his friends, and we as well,
are invited to live lives that matter,
for in Baptism we have had
a blazing coal placed in our breast
and have been sent to ignite human hearts,
to show by word and example
that God is calling all of us out of the shallows—
out of lives that are drab, dull, and ordinary—
and into the deep waters of the mystery of God.
are invited to live lives that matter,
for in Baptism we have had
a blazing coal placed in our breast
and have been sent to ignite human hearts,
to show by word and example
that God is calling all of us out of the shallows—
out of lives that are drab, dull, and ordinary—
and into the deep waters of the mystery of God.
We may be tempted to say, like Isaiah and Peter,
“Who am I?
How could my life matter?”
But through God’s grace we are what we are,
and what we are is something extraordinary.
In Jesus the realm of God has come to dwell among us,
and we, who have been incorporated into his body,
bear in our hearts a blazing coal,
so that we shine with a light far exceeding
the superficial glittering of celebrity;
we shine with a light that is nothing less
than the fire of the Spirit.
“Who am I?
How could my life matter?”
But through God’s grace we are what we are,
and what we are is something extraordinary.
In Jesus the realm of God has come to dwell among us,
and we, who have been incorporated into his body,
bear in our hearts a blazing coal,
so that we shine with a light far exceeding
the superficial glittering of celebrity;
we shine with a light that is nothing less
than the fire of the Spirit.
So let us live lives that matter:
let us set out with Christ into the deep,
let us join him on the way,
let us burn with angelic light,
and may God have mercy on us all.
let us set out with Christ into the deep,
let us join him on the way,
let us burn with angelic light,
and may God have mercy on us all.
