Running On Empty

“We buy books because we believe we are buying the time to read them.”

–Warren Zevon paraphrasing Schopenhauer



I’m a music guy. Actually, I’m a music, movies, books, and entertainment guy. I’m the guy that read Nick Hornby’s High Fidelity 5 times and then saw the movie 10 times simply because I related so well to the musical minutiae that the characters consumed (and because the Boss had a cameo). I would have purchased the soundtrack if I hadn’t already had almost every song on some other album. I used to spend hours quoting movie lines with college buddies in a movie club (yes, we had a movie club and a very specific set of rules) and am still likely to list Dylan among my favorite poets (though most would mean Thomas and I would mean Bob). So, it isn’t surprising for me to be inspired by a songwriter and find wisdom in his words. Unless those words happen to come from the mouth of Marilyn Manson. Imagine my surprise then, when I heard Manson make the following statement about the state of our society; “(American entertainment and media) is a campaign of fear and consumption. And that’s what I think it’s all based on: it’s the idea that (you) keep everyone afraid and they’ll consume.” The truth of Manson’s words can’t be denied. The advertising classes I took in college support it. The billboards and commercials that we are inundated with bear it out. The idea is to “never let ‘em see you sweat.” Fear drives so much of what we do and almost all of what we consume.

As I work on a daily basis with teens, I’m reminded of a quote from well-known comedian, Dennis Miller; “many of our kids are having sex like there’s no tomorrow, maybe because we’ve convinced them that there isn’t one.” We have what St. Augustine referred to as a “God-shaped hole” and in the absence of a gospel message, many of us are attempting to fill it with whatever we can get our hands on or whatever a consumer culture is willing to put in our hands. Even more disturbing is the way in which those of us who have received the gospel message are responding. We have books that are bestsellers in Christian bookstores whose core message is that we no longer have to feel bad for building bigger barns. We should ask God for more stuff and expect that, like a cosmic Claus, he will grant our every wish and whim.

John DeGraaf’s book “Affluenza” addresses this problem from a purely secular perspective and comes up with one fundamental truth for Americans in the new millennium, we are both richer and unhappier than we have ever been. It is an unhappiness born of anger, an anger born of fear, and a fear born of emptiness; an emptiness than we are trying to fill with all the wrong things and in all the wrong places.

Manson isn’t the only musician who speaks to this problem. One of this year’s rock n’ roll hall of fame inductees (and one of my personal favorites) Jackson Browne, has been speaking to this problem for years. In his song, “Running on Empty”, he lays out his life as a parable for others who find themselves flying down life’s highway. Perhaps his most compelling (and disturbing) line is found toward the end of the song: “Look around for the friends that I used to turn to to pull me through, looking into their eyes I see them running too.” It is a predicament almost as old as the world itself and a road that started with the first step out of Eden. Humanity feels empty and wants to get full.

This desire isn’t a bad one. It’s the prodigal’s empty stomach and empty life that gets him on the road back home. Our problem comes in how we try to fill that emptiness. If we are imitators of Christ, then we are imitators of the one who emptied himself for the sake of other, refusing to grasp that which he had a right to. Instead, American Christians are as concerned with our rights as we have ever been; an idea that is very American, but not always Christian. Recently I read an article about a Christian lawyer who has begun suing on behalf of students who were being ridiculed at school because of their Christian beliefs. One of his clients was an elementary school student who was forced to endure taunts of “Jesus freak” at recess. Instead of taking a golden opportunity to teach their son about the persecution we might face as Christians, instead of pointing to the one who endured persecution for us, they hired a lawyer. Because that’s what Jesus would do.

How did we get from expecting persecution to suing over name calling? Do we really think this is going to fulfill us? The fact is that we want what we want whether it’s our rights, our stuff, or our right to our stuff. In a culture of lawyers, guns and money people will sue who they have to sue and kill who they have to kill to get what they want to get. But why are Christians embracing this culture? Why don’t we resist this culture instead of buying in? Haven’t we been given a better way? Why would we return to the law of the land instead of the law that God commanded to be written on our hearts?

The problem started innocently enough. It’s the problem Christianity faces any time it is embraced by the culture, the natural instinct is to embrace back. Instead of heeding the warning to “beware when others speak well of you” we ate up the fact that society seemed to be on board with everything we believed. After all, we are a people told to anticipate persecution, so doesn’t it feel nice when we don’t have to? Being in the world is so much easier when the world isn’t trying to lock you up or kill you. But being of the world gets a lot easier too.

The situation makes me think about how my mom used to encourage me to label my toy cars anytime I was going to play with a group of friends. At first, it’s easy to remember what belongs to whom, but after a few hours the labels come in pretty handy. The absence of a clear marker can make retrieval a lot more confusing when its time to go home. A similar problem faces us culturally. We mix in with the world around us, but forget to keep Christ’s mark clearly on us and on everything that is ours. What happens when Christ calls us home and we can’t remember what goes where? What happens when we have to face the fact that we’re a lot more “of the world” than we ever intended to be? The same thing that happens when the salt loses its saltiness, it becomes worthless. The conscience that the church is called to be is no longer there to keep the world honest. Instead of going back to Christ to get back what we lost, many of us simply give in. We’ve lived so long under a culture that validated our beliefs that we’re allowing our beliefs to reflect our culture. The world made us feel at home in a place that was never our home and, somewhere along the way, we started playing by the home court rules.

But what happens when this world isn’t making us feel as at home as it did in the 1950s? What happens when the culture doesn’t reflect our beliefs the way it used to? Some of us simply give in. The culture overcomes us and we can’t tell the difference between our political party and our religious affiliation. Instead of facing the fact that we’ve lost our anchor, we float along with the latest trend, tossed about by whatever the latest pop philosophy might be. We form political coalitions that will speak on our behalf. Others of us pull away in fear. We want things how they used to be –or how we remember them being- prayer in schools and the Ten Commandments in a courthouse. But the answer isn’t prayer in schools, it’s prayer in homes. It isn’t the Ten Commandments outside a courtroom, it’s the Ten Commandments inside our bedrooms and living rooms. We point to pop icons like Eminem and Britney Spears to pin our problems on. But the fault, dear reader, lies not in the stars but in ourselves.

G.K. Chesterton is famous for stating that “the Christian faith has not been tried and found wanting, it has been found difficult and left untried.” No matter how difficult the rat race might be, the race the apostle Paul ran seems harder. Even though it might be hard earn cash, it’s even harder to learn contentment. Christ showed us that it may be difficult to follow the rules, but it’s even harder to follow him. So we look to those who would sell us the latest palliative or bookstore remedy and then are surprised when we are still as empty and fearful and angry as ever. In our attempts to accumulate more stuff we find ourselves possessed by those things which we would possess.

So, that’s the bad news, but is there any good news? Our response to the world around us should be a resounding “yes”. We have a gospel to offer to those who are running on empty, those good friends who are good people, but not God’s people. The Jones’ built a pretty house and were surprised when it didn’t make them happy. We know that the wise man was wise, not because of the house he built, but because of the rock he built his house upon. We have something to offer the Jones’, if we have the faith to put our weight down on the rock and to ask them to do the same. The only way to stop running scared is to repent in the most literal sense of the word, to change direction and begin running towards the only one who can truly fulfill us and calm our fears. The good news is where it has always been, in the gospel itself, the only message that has rightful claim to being “good news”; the gospel of the love of Christ, the perfect love that casts out fear. It brings with it a life of sacrifice that runs counter to everything the world is selling, but allows us to be possessed by Christ and, because of that, to cease being possessed by anything else. This good news forces us to face the truth that nothing we posses can fill that emptiness. Only God can provide the fulfillment we need. Only His “grace is sufficient.”

When we embrace the true gospel once again, we will find a great burden lifted off of our shoulders. It’s true that we are called to take up a cross, but we are called to put down everything else in the process. We cannot carry both. Comedian Steven Wright puts it this way, “You can’t have everything, where would you put it?” We can carry the world on our shoulders or we can carry the cross. We cannot do both. As we take up our crosses daily, we will find that they are light compared to the burdens we were carrying. Ultimately, we will discover that we are truly free and truly full for the first time.