0219 GOING VIRAL

GOING VIRAL

Yesterday we read again about the healing of the leper, also found in Matthew 8 and Mark 1. Luke describes the same healing, but provides a new small detail that is worth its own study. 

But let me start here, with this question: Would you rather be famous or be rich? If you had to choose one or the other, but not both, which would you choose? And no fair saying, “I don’t know. Try giving me both and I’ll tell you which one I don’t like!”

Too much of a good thing is no longer a good thing.

You know what the Bible says about having a lot of money? Two problems: 1) You can no longer have true friends, because everyone now knows you could bail them out any time you wanted. Ecclesiastes 5:11 says, “When prosperity increases, those who consume it increase. So its owner gains nothing, except to see his wealth before it is spent.” and 2) Jesus says it’s impossible to enter the kingdom of heaven with money! He said, “How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God! Indeed, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.” So, if you choose riches, you invite problems into your life, as well as all the positives.

But fame has its own set of problems. Being an ambitious young man who worked in music and academia, I longed for the Big Break that would make me famous. The upside of fame is that I would be respected by strangers. However, I had plenty of front row seats to see what a little fame does to a person, and I knew I would be especially susceptible to the bad side of it. I kept a running page in my spiritual journal that I titled, WHY FAME IS BAD FOR ME. Over the years, I had five reasons listed: 1) “Woe to you when all men speak well of you…” Fame is often the sign of an impure or unclear message. 2) The crowds often follow for the wrong reason, bringing grief to the leader, not joy. 3) “Love seeks not its own, is not puffed up…” “Consider others better than yourself…” Often godly character is not promoted by what it takes to become famous. 4) “Some think godliness is a means to financial gain, but…” Godliness should never become the means to an end, but rather purely and simply THE end goal. 5) “If anyone does not provide for his own family…children must believe…(to qualify as an elder)” The family often suffers under those whose ministry is so widespread that they are gone or drained.

Jesus had the challenge of FAME without MONEY. This is why I ask the question.

Here is what happened to Jesus at the end of the healing of that one leperous man in chapter 5: “And he charged him to tell no one,  . . . But now even more the report about him went abroad, and great crowds gathered to hear him and to be healed of their infirmities.”

And by chapter 6, we see more results: “...a great crowd of his disciples and a great multitude of people from all Judea and Jerusalem and the seacoast of Tyre and Sidon, who came to hear him and to be healed of their diseases. And those who were troubled with unclean spirits were cured. And all the crowd sought to touch him, for power came out from him and healed them all.”

Remember how Jesus and the others had no time to eat? And how his family concluded that Jesus had gone crazy? You can imagine what the daily pressure was for Jesus at this point in his life. And it all started because one guy whose life was changed couldn’t shut up about it. Goes to show, No good deed goes unpunished.

How did Jesus cope with the challenges of constant attention and requests for help? He was committed to a disciplined spiritual practice to stay balanced and Spirit-led. The end of Luke’s paragraph about how busy Jesus was, says, “But he would withdraw to desolate places and pray.” Elsewhere we know it was his regular practice to get up early before the sunrise to go alone and pray. Especially after feeding the multitudes, when they wanted to make him king by force, Jesus made his disciples get into the boat and go away, and he sent the crowds away, then he went up the mountain to be alone and pray. 

Too much of a good thing is no longer a good thing. It took Jesus spiritual discipline and wisdom to overcome. May we follow in his steps.