Influencers!

In recent days, weeks, or years, I’d occasionally come across mention of this new phenomenon that mostly had passed me by. Often I’d see it in actual headlines like this: Beauty Influencer Ethan Supreme dies aged 17. 

Tragic! But what’s a “beauty influencer”? And how could someone 17 years old be one?

Here’s a headline from this week: Social Media 'Kid Influencers' Are Promoting Junk Foods.

What are “kid influencers”? And how could they be using social media to promote junk food? And why? What was I missing? What’s an influencer?

I finally had to look it up. As explained in the online magazine WIRED, “The term [influencer] is shorthand for someone (or something) with the power to affect the … habits or … actions of others by uploading some form of original—often sponsored—content to social media platforms like Instagram, YouTube, Snapchat, or, god forbid, LinkedIn.”

Aha! So that’s what the young Ethan Supreme and the nameless “kid influencers” were doing! They were using social media to affect the habits or actions of others!

The article goes on. “Be it moody photos, cheeky video reviews, meandering blogs, or blurry soon-to-disappear stories, the value of the content in question is derived from the perceived authority—and, most importantly, authenticity—of its creator.”

Apparently, whether you’re 17 or 77 an influencer is an influencer because people—or, I suppose we could say, “fans”—perceive them as having authority or authenticity over whatever they post on social media.

In other words, this person is either so cool, or so fit, or so beautiful that they use social media to “influence” you to do what they do. To look like they look. Or, more to the point, to buy what they buy.

They’re influencers! …

In the Church, however, we don’t have influencers. We have something better. We have saints.

But get this! Rather than using them to influence how we look or what to buy, we use saints to influence how to be! We look to them as role models and guides. They are, in a word, our true influencers. And today is their day!

Last Sunday I mentioned that the Spiritual Reading Group is making our way through Luke Timothy Johnson’s classic Living Jesus: Learning the Heart of the Gospel. 

In it, Johnson reminds us that there are ways in daily life that we are guaranteed to encounter—to meet—the Living Jesus. Those guaranteed ways are: Meal, Word, Saint, and Stranger. Guaranteed!

The first two should come as no surprise to us. Lutherans have long been taught to seek and encounter God through Word and Sacrament. Or, to use Luke Johnson’s language, through Meal and Word.

Jesus promises himself to us through the meal of Holy Communion. That’s Meal. We receive Jesus’ body and blood in the Eucharist, and so, are incorporated into his Living and Risen Body! Jesus also encounters us as we search for him in the scriptures. That’s Word. 

No surprises there, then. Or, at least, there shouldn’t be surprises! That’s what we teach and believe.

But it’s the next two ways that Johnson describes that may surprise us: Saint and Stranger! On a daily basis we can—and do!—encounter the Living Jesus in and through Saint and Stranger.

Both are solidly Biblical. As to finding the Living Jesus in the Stranger, that’s something we’ll encounter on Christ the King Sunday in a couple of weeks. Jesus will say, "I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me,” and the saints will answer, “Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink?” 

The Lord will answer, “Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.”

So, yes! On a daily basis, we can—and do!—encounter the Living Jesus in and through the Stranger: the poor, the weak, the powerless. 

But we can wait until Christ the King Sunday to talk more about that. Today, however, is All Saints Day. And today is the time to talk about how we can—and do!—encounter the Living Jesus in and through saints.

Today, our so-called cultural Influencers use social media to amass large numbers of followers whom they try to influence to buy what they buy, dress like they dress, and do—or want to do—what they do. The power of their influence comes from “the perceived authority—and, most importantly, authenticity—of its creator.”

In the ancient world, people also looked to exemplars—Influencers—who, by their perceived authority and authenticity, could show people the right way to live. And in the Church and the Bible, those people are called Saints.

Throughout his writing, Paul reminds us that we are all called to be saints. That is, he says, we are to use the Spirit that God gives us in baptism to shape or conform our lives to be like Christ’s. 

In Luke Johnson’s words, “The pattern of Jesus’ character—the way he ‘loved me and gave himself for me’ … is now to be the pattern of the Christian’s life …” Because Christ lives in us, our calling is to let our life be shaped by his life. His values are to be our values. The way we love and the sacrifices we make are to resemble the way the Living Jesus loves and the sacrifices he makes.

And, for that, we need—and have role models. We have influencers.

We have saints.

While all of us are called to be saints, as we’ve said, each of us can—and should—identify people in our lives or people in history who have embodied for us the love, the sacrifice, and service of the Living Jesus himself.

They don’t have to be famous! And they most certainly don’t have to have died! But all of us need people to whom we can look for inspiration for following Jesus. We need role models who, in the words of the prophet Micah show us how to do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with our God.

In a word, we need influencers! Luke Johnson is right. Each and every day the Living Jesus seeks to encounter us; to move us; to nourish and feed us. On a daily basis Jesus does this through Meal, Word, Saint, and Stranger.

On this All Saints Day, identify and thank God for the people in your life—living or dead; famous or known only to you—who have inspired you by the way the shape of their lives follows the pattern of Jesus’ own! 

If they’re dead, remember them in prayer, thanking them for their witness and importance to you.

If they’re alive, tell them! Them that by the authority and authenticity of their lives, they are your influencers! 

In Jesus’ name. Amen!