This should be my last blog about Steve Jobs for a while, but today, CNN has collected a group of writers to consider the question, “Is Steve Jobs a saint.” But perhaps the first question should have been what is a saint.
The definition of saint used by most of the writers is synonymous with fame and celebrity. My problem here is not the elevation of celebrity, but the devaluation of faith and its objects.
What does the word “saint” mean? For many, it means a really good person. Someone better than you. Someone who God needs to sit up and take notice of. For others, it represents dead people who lived such good lives before God that they now have God’s ear. They now have spiritual leverage, so you want them on your side. This second definition implies that God, himself, is distant and aloof.
The Bible has another definition altogether. A saint is a follower of Jesus. A saint is special because Jesus has made them special. As saints grow, they don’t revel in their perfection, but they understand their falleness, and how short they fall when compared against Christ (the only comparison that matters). As they understand their shortcomings, they begin to understand God’s gift better. “God made him who had no sin (Jesus) to be sin for us, so that we might become the righteousness of God.”
Everyone who has responded to Jesus’ call to follow him is a saint because of God’s grace displayed and bestowed to us through Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection. It all points back to God.
That’s my problem with our use of saint today. It’s too casual, and it points the wrong way. When sainthood is equated with celebrity it points back to us. There is nothing wrong with being a fan. But hero worship and true devotion are in a completely different league.
My main concern is not with hero worship in itself, but the trend to pull our admiration for Jesus down to the same level. In Kevin Smith’s film, Dogma, the church is worried about young people leaving the church, so a new advertising campaign is initiated. Throw out all the seriousness, commitment, and call to serve. Instead, a new “Buddy Jesus” image is presented. A more relatable, “he’s just one of us,” happy go lucky, celebrity Jesus.
Jesus is not a celebrity. He is God, and that puts him in a completely different class.
I am a fan of Star Wars and Star Trek and Farscape. The inner geek in me rejoices. I am not a fan of Jesus. I’m a devotee of Jesus. I have given my life to Jesus. I’ll give Star Wars a bit of my time, but I’ll never give my life to it.
Saints are not marked first by innovation, how charismatic they are, or the recognition of others. None of that is bad. We should work hard and set our sights high. A saint is marked by his or her devotion to God, by obedience, by embracing God’s love and sharing it in a life of service.
Don’t market God as though he were Steve Jobs, Jonny Depp, or a new deodorant. Promote him as the Lord of Life, the Creator, the Beginning and the End, as God. He doesn’t want fans. He wants devotion.
We don’t make Saints. We don’t decide who becomes a saint. It’s a gift of God that raises us beyond the trivialities of fandom into a new life as a new creation. Only God makes a saint. Celebrities follow the trends. Saints follow Jesus.
GOOD
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