Paparazzi 3: Celebrity

"It's all about the money shot!"

Well, at least to the thousands of Paparazzi that flood to every celebrity sighting around the world.

The money shot is exactly what it sounds like:

A photograph which captures a celebrity in a pose, position, or predicament that one or more of the gossip mags will pay millions to get their hands on.

You know, the magazines that are as thick as wallpaper by every checkout line in every grocery store in the country. The magazines that teens read religiously, almost devouring their fashion tips swallowing whole the magazines world-view.


The whole gossip industry builds up celebrities, so that it can tear them back down, all the while profiting on both their rise and their fall. But there is an ugly underbelly to all these dreams of fame and fortune. Young students buy the lifestyle even more often than they buy the magazines. While they joke about the train-wrecks that Britney, Paris, Lindsay, Nichole, Tara, and others have become, they also idolize and imitate them.

I am always amazed by what people will do to get famous...

Our obsession with celebrities, is just an extreme demonstration of our everyday tendency toward favoritism. I mean, Miley Cyrus is cool... but she is not worthy of worship.

Only God is.


Here's the thing...


While we are focused on the greatest, but God is unaffected by human greatness.

He is in the least.

The cultural obsession with worshiping pretty people is a direct result of them not worshipping God.

Once we stop plunging in to the worship of physical beauty, we are free to see true beauty and interact with it...


We begin to notice Jesus in the invisible spaces of our lives, families, and schools.


Matthew 25:34“Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. 35For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, 36I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’ 37“Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? 38When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? 39When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’ 40“The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’