Matthew 15:19-20: "For out of the heart comes evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander. These are what make a man 'unclean.'; but eating with unwashed hands does not make him 'unclean.'"
Last night, while watching the premier episode of the Ultimate Fighting Championship, I flipped through other channels to see what's on. I came onto VH1's "Top 40 Celebrity Scandals." I stopped to watch, and surprisingly, I knew most of these scandals that broke out. The reason I knew that they broke out is that our wonderful national news coverage tends to cover controversies and scandals as their top headlines rather than important, global-covering crises in Africa, Asia, and the Middle East. It really is a product of national-centered news coverage that leaves Americans very oblivious of other true problems in the world today; that we should be hearing about the mishaps and sinful behavior of celebrities who have a lifestyle that none of us should not dream about.
Yet my main piñata-beating point for today is the hypocrisy of the show. Hypocrisy upon all of us. The show would do its countdown, covering old scandals from former politician Mark Foley's racy comments to his congressional interns, to sportscaster Marv Albert's lewd behavior in a hotel room and his criminal charges. The first reaction from any person in viewership is shock and laughter, shock from the bizarre sinful behavior, and laughter to see how silly they are in getting exposed. The most bizarre and funny incident involved a former NFL player, Eugene Robinson, who received the Bart Starr Award for high moral character, only to be arrested that night for soliciting a prostitute. Ridiculous.
After describing each scandal, there is a segment where comedians make fun of the incident and journalists who give analysis and insight to each scandal...how shocking it was and several jokes to complement it.
But I found something very interesting, an assumption as we the audience and the comedians/journalists have about these celebrities when it comes to moral behavior. Its very subtle, but very true: "We are better than them, only celebrities goof up and we expect them to do it." Since idolatry is prevalent in American society, we either expect these people to do these things anyways since they have access to a lavish lifestyle , or we become so shocked that these people of "higher standing" fall so fast.
Time to look into the mirror. Look at the verse above. Jesus outlines and blasts the Pharisees' hypocritical maintenance of traditional laws in religion (Matthew 15) as their basis of remaining clean in their life, presenting themselves as moral people. But Jesus exposed their hearts as they nullified the Word of God for the sake of tradition while showing that they spiritually were far away from God (verses 6-9).
So we point the finger and say, "celebrities are just doomed to fail and they are always going to be in situations where they will fall." We look at the analysts and comedians as they break down the moral failures of their life, with us assuming that "yeah, uh huh, we know that we would never get into outlandish situations like that." We feel as if celebrities are the only people who are capable of such sin.
Yet I love how Jesus exposes and convicts our hearts. The whole point is, you and I are just as capable of committing sin as someone in "high stature." We assume we live humble lives as middle-class or lower-class citizens because we don't have the means to get into "clever sins." We think that by going to church and steering clear of doing stupid stuff like this and not getting exposed will keep us clean before God and people. We won't get humiliated.
But if we truly look at what Jesus is saying, if someone really examines the Law (The Ten Commandments) and how our Savior came to fulfill, we should be humiliated anyway, because we are all sinners!
Another way to look at it, just imagine all our thoughts, especially in line with the sins Jesus outlined above, were exposed on television. You and I as regular Joe Shmoes were on a TV show called "Top Sinful Thoughts of Regular Citizens." Yet you might protest "but I never committed the act openly." Yet in the book of 1 John 1:10 says, "If we claim we have not sinned, we make him (Jesus) out to be a liar and his word has no place in our lives." Its a heart issue, and God is Holy: no defect, no contradiction of truth in Him, and no tolerance for sin. Being good people doesn't count it. If we believe we are better than celebs in God's eyes, then all that is left in us is pride. In other words, you might not commit the act openly, but your heart exposes your sinful behavior anyway, committed or not. You can easily murder someone in your mind, or cuss out a person in your brain, or think lustful thoughts. You and I just committed sin when we cross that barrier.
To wrap this up neatly, we know that God's judgment falls upon all of us. Yet Jesus died for the ungodly (Romans 5:8). That means He died for celebrities and everyone else. Died to give us a new life through His resurrection. To those who believe, we should have broken hearts for those who are exposed, but also should serve as a warning not to forget where we come from. To those who do not believe in Jesus, it is a call to see that your life is not perfect, no matter what you hide, God still knows about your sin. Yet how much more did Jesus pay it all.
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