In recent years, the face...
Illustration
In recent years, the face of American television has changed. Viewers have come to experience (some would say, "have been afflicted with") those programs known as "reality TV." The first of these -- and still around in one spun-off incarnation or another -- is the show known as Survivor.
Survivor rapidly became a part of the national consciousness. The key to success, on that first Survivor show, was to achieve an intricate balance between civility and callousness. Participants had to be enough of a "people person" to broker his or her alliances, but at the end of the day had to be able to cut comrades off with ruthless abandon. Each had to be a member of the "tribe," but also had to stand alone as an individual. It even helped to go naked from time to time.
The Survivor show rewarded behavior that would have been called antisocial in any other place and time. Maybe that was the secret of its popular appeal. It was a brief respite from the strictures of civilization.
Contrast Survivor to Jesus' parable of the wicked tenants. As in the television program, in Jesus' story all the characters gang up against one, the son of the landowner. They "vote him off the island." But there the similarities end.
In Jesus' parable, we hear no protest from the landowner's son. In the words of Isaiah 53:7, he is "like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent." This man is the exact opposite of the victorious television "survivor": rather than plotting and scheming to be the last one standing, he humbly submits himself to death.
When he was raised high upon a cross 2,000 years ago, Jesus Christ was "voted off the island" -- the little blue-green sphere, spinning in space, that is planet earth. His own rejected him. Roman soldiers beat and brutalized him as a form of entertainment. In the last, desperate hours of his life, he was even subjected to something like a tribal vote, with Pontius Pilate presiding as the all-powerful network executive. Yet in the end, "the stone that the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone."
Survivor rapidly became a part of the national consciousness. The key to success, on that first Survivor show, was to achieve an intricate balance between civility and callousness. Participants had to be enough of a "people person" to broker his or her alliances, but at the end of the day had to be able to cut comrades off with ruthless abandon. Each had to be a member of the "tribe," but also had to stand alone as an individual. It even helped to go naked from time to time.
The Survivor show rewarded behavior that would have been called antisocial in any other place and time. Maybe that was the secret of its popular appeal. It was a brief respite from the strictures of civilization.
Contrast Survivor to Jesus' parable of the wicked tenants. As in the television program, in Jesus' story all the characters gang up against one, the son of the landowner. They "vote him off the island." But there the similarities end.
In Jesus' parable, we hear no protest from the landowner's son. In the words of Isaiah 53:7, he is "like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent." This man is the exact opposite of the victorious television "survivor": rather than plotting and scheming to be the last one standing, he humbly submits himself to death.
When he was raised high upon a cross 2,000 years ago, Jesus Christ was "voted off the island" -- the little blue-green sphere, spinning in space, that is planet earth. His own rejected him. Roman soldiers beat and brutalized him as a form of entertainment. In the last, desperate hours of his life, he was even subjected to something like a tribal vote, with Pontius Pilate presiding as the all-powerful network executive. Yet in the end, "the stone that the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone."
