Today’s find: Click-bait

Went to a basketball game the other evening, and a scuffle broke out.

It was a dispiriting conclusion to an otherwise enthralling contest: My beloved Billikens defeated one of their biggest rivals … turning a 14-point deficit into a 13-point win. In the process, SLU secured a firm grip on the top spot in the conference.

But with just a couple of seconds left in the game, one of the visitors decided to take out his frustrations by pulling a thoroughly bush-league move: attempting a steal during a “mercy dribble,” designed to do nothing more than run out the clock (and spare the losers a bit more humiliation). 

In a flash, that ill-advised move led to a foul … then a shove … then another shove … before players from both benches flooded the court to get in on the action. 

Thing is, there really wasn’t much action. It wasn’t a fight – more like a kerfuffle. But you wouldn’t know that if you’d scanned the sports headlines in the New York Post the next day. 

“Brawl” screamed the headline. And sure enough, I clicked. 

No good reason to click, really. After all, I was there in person. I saw with my own eyes how inconsequential the dust-up had been. And I don’t even read the New York Post regularly. I would never have known about the sensationalized story had not a friend sent me the link.

But click I did. And in so doing, I came very close to breaking a fast I’d begun just four days before. Sounds nuts, I know: giving up “Billikens social media” for Lent. It’s not a disordered affection for most people, but it is for me. I tend to waste a LOT of time on b-ball message boards, especially as March Madness draws near. 

Something tells me, Satan knows this about me. The Accuser knows precisely what kind of click-bait to dangle in front of my eyes. He knows, too, how to make the bait even more appealing: “You certainly will not die!’  he hisses, “if you head over to the message boards just this one time.”

So often, it seems, this is precisely how the spiritual battle is engaged: We resolve to embrace the grace of this holy season … to sweep our spiritual houses clean. Then in comes the Beguiler, sprinkling just enough dust around the place to obscure our good intentions and distort our perceptions. Satan doesn’t want us to believe what we’ve seen with our own eyes: that we are (even in our brokenness) the beloved children of God.

Praise the Lord, then, that Jesus shows us a different Way in this week’s gospel passage. Even from the depths of his hunger, he finds sure strength against the Devil’s click-bait: “One does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes forth from the mouth of God.”

Let us pause now…to recall that we are in the presence of the Holy & Merciful One.

IHS