Michael Jackson and Everyman

I heard it multiple times yesterday by a variety of different people. They all said the same thing:  I had to get out of the house to get away from all the Michael Jackson hoopla on TV. I had fled to the same place for much the same reason. I'm a news junkie, and like many of my friends who work from home, the news is always on playing in the background as I work. 

But yesterday I couldn't take it anymore. I had to get out of the house. So I went to my favorite cigar store to work where I found many other acquaintances doing the same thing. We turned on sports center to play in the background as we worked. Interestingly, though, every time someone walked into the store we all kept talking about Michael Jackson. What's the fascination? Why is it that even people who were trying to get away from all the Michael madness found themselves talking about him? 

Well, for one thing, we all have more in common with Michael then you might think (or more than we want to believe). The typical schtick on Michael Jackson is that he was strange, bizarre, weird, waco, sicko. The truth is Michael was normal. When I say normal, I don't mean that he was a typical guy, or an average Joe. I mean he was, in a sense, everyman. 

During the Middle Ages a new genre of allegorical literature emerged called the morality play. The most famous of these was Everyman. The title of the play is based on the leading character Everyman who personifies each person's journey from birth to death encouraging a moral way of life. 

In this sense, Michael Jackson is everyman. Hence our fascination with his life and death. In a rather perverse way he represents all of us. 

He wore a mask. That is, he hid his true identity. Whether this was from self-love or self-loathing doesn't really matter. We wear masks too. We all have secret lives we are trying to hide from everyone else. We all want makeovers. There is something in us that doesn't like the way God made us. 

He anathematized himself. Michael was obviously a man in pain. He was hurting deeply. In order to cope he not only took drugs, he took anesthesia (a word by the way that means without sensation). To be sure, most of us don't take such drastic measures, but we all try and dull the pain. Perhaps I don't use anesthesia, but I do use distractions. Indeed, as a culture we have overdosed on distractions. It's as if the pain of life is too great so we anathematize ourselves with distractions.

 

He lived in a make-believe world. Michael lived in the now infamous Neverland--an amusement park/ranch of sorts. He seemed stuck in childhood, and he created a make-believe world in which to live. The message seems to be that Michael couldn't cope with the real world. So he built a world of his own to which he could escape. Again, we are not all that different. We have built our own little worlds too. Perhaps they are not as extravagant as Neverland, but they are every bit as fictional and utopian. 

He practiced religious multiple choice. It is almost comic to hear people talk about Michael's religious views. He has at one time or another been a Jehovah's Witness, Muslim, Christian, and Jew. Like so many others in our time Michael's approach to spiritual things was a religious smorgasbord. It was religion by multiple choice. It too is the American way. 

In all of these ways, Michael Jackson is not as strange as he first seems. We are more like him than we may want to believe. He is Everyman, and that's why everyone is so fascinated by his life and death--even those of us who tried to get away from it all yesterday.

However, no matter how much we want to get away from it all, we can't escape the reality that we have more in common with Michael Jackson than we do with Jesus (the ultimate Everyman).

Jesus wore no mask. He unveiled the true identity of God. He showed us the truth about God, ourselves, and our world. And he told us the truth about salvation.

Jesus didn't anathematize himself. He who was without sin took all our sin and misery upon himself being subjected to great physical and psychological suffering. He endured the Father's wrath, anger, judgment, and justice which was poured out upon him on our behalf while he hung on the cross.  

Jesus didn't live in a make-believe world. He was a real person in the real world. Heaven is no fairly tale or utopian fantasy. It is the real world. 

Jesus didn't practice religious multiple choice. He showed us that there was only one way to the Father, namely, through him.

It's a scary thought, that we might actually have more in common with Michael Jackson than we do with Jesus. But what else could explain the trajectory of our culture, the impotence of the church, and our fascination with ourselves vicariously through celebrities like Jackson?