Wake Up, Look Up

Hello, everyone. Thanks for listening to Wake Up Look Up, a podcast where we connect events happening in real time to the gospel of Jesus Christ. I'm Zach Weirock. In today's episode, we're talking about bad TV, and we're asking the question, is wealth the new porn? Now this is prompted by an interesting article I read in the Atlantic by Sophie Gilbert called money is ruining television.

And her central argument is this, more and more so called prestige television in combination with reality television is filling our minds and our minutes and our hours with wealth as entertainment, creating fictional shows or showing so called realistic depictions of wealthy people, of their lives, of their decisions, of their extravagance. Shows like White Lotus or Mountain Head make as their central figures the idea of what would it be like to live in a world where money is not an option and you have the best of everything. Reality TV is showing us windows into so called real people who live those kinds of lives. What, miss Gilbert points out is this is indicative of a society that has a deepening obsession with wealth that is finding it fun to escape the average middle class or lower middle class reality for an hour or thirty minutes of living vicariously through the wealthy. What's interesting about this is what it does to us because studies are showing that the more and more we consume entertainment built around wealth, the more anxious we feel, the more materialistic we become, and the less supportive of initiatives to care for the poor we are.

In short, we might think we're detached from what we're watching, but actually what we're watching is changing us at our very core. So as Christians, how should we think about WealthTV? Is it something we should engage in or something we should reject? Well, simplistic answers like that are not what we do on wake up, look up. But I do wanna challenge you to think critically about what you're watching because I think watching these kinds of things does actually cause potentially spiritual problems, at least if we're not discerning.

Jesus says it this way in Matthew six twenty four, you cannot love both God and money. He talks about how it's impossible to have two masters. I've always found it interesting that the one rival to God he puts up in the gospels is money. He doesn't say you can't serve work and God, although you can. He doesn't even say you can't serve family and God, although you can't.

He says, no. No. No. It's money. It's money that wants to be the God in your life.

That's because money offers us, at least we think, all the things we want from God. It can solve our problems. It can secure our future. It can help us find genuine rest. And Jesus says, hey.

Look. If you look to money for that, then you're not going to look to God for that. And, of course, the problem is money can't ultimately provide that. And if you doubt that, take a look at these shows. Do these wealthy people seem happy?

Are they in healthy relationships? Well, no. That's because money doesn't fix what's really going on with us, but God can. But money will take our eyes off of him. It's a reminder too that coveting is a sin.

And, of course, sin means not that it breaks some cosmic rule, but that it actually causes our withering. Of course, it's a kind of quiet sin. I mean, it's in the 10 commandments, Exodus twenty seventeen. God says don't covet. He's telling us that a life of longing for what other people have will actually hurt us and hurt those around us.

One of the ways you know that is when these shows end, you probably look at what you have with a little bit of a side eye. Right? You probably find yourself scrolling on Amazon a little more, being a little quicker to justify that purchase on a credit card. That's because these shows are drawing us into thinking that maybe if I just looked like that, enjoyed that, had that, I would be happier. It's also interesting that studies are showing that watching this kind of wealth weakens our compassion for the poor.

Remember that Philippians two four tells us that we're to care for others, including the poor, shows that depict wealth as the key to happiness, challenge generosity because they say giving won't give you what getting will. But, of course, Jesus said, whoever wants to gain his life should lose it, but whoever seeks his life will actually lose it. Getting ruins you. Giving is the path to genuine life. Wealth also can distract us from eternal purpose.

John reminds us in John two that the world and its desires pass away. That show that you're watching is depicting a fleeting moment in a fleeting life. And the idea that wealth gives you long term or even eternal satisfaction, of course, is crazy. It doesn't do that. Only Jesus can.

Look, I guess my point is this. When Christians think about what we should watch or not, we tend to think about things like sex or language or violence, and it's good for us to think about those things. But when Philippians four says, think about whatever's noble, whatever's good, whatever's just, maybe it's not just thinking about those things, but entertainment that makes us want more than God has given us. Entertainment that takes our eyes off of God, not with the sins we think about, but with the coveting that quietly slips in. Consider where your watching is taking you.

And if it's not somewhere you wanna go, turn it off. Hey. Thanks for watching this episode of Wake Up Look Up. If you enjoyed it, please help us get the word out by sharing it with someone you think might benefit from it. And while you're here, make sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel to get further content or even download the CCC app where you'll find even more resources to help you grow in your faith and relationship with Jesus Christ.