'Lucky' Is The Saddest Word
Sermon
Living On The Edge
Sermons for Pentecost [Middle Third]
I race off to the convenience mart a few blocks from my home to pick up some milk for cereal for breakfast. I hurriedly go to the dairy case and snatch two plastic gallon jugs and turn for the checkout to pay for them.
Suddenly I am confronted by "The Machine." "The Machine" in this case isn't a machine at all. It's a huge display which overpowers everything else near the checkout, telling me that I can get all of the tickets for all of the state lottery games now at this store. All I have to do is hand over a buck or two of the change I will have anyway from the $10 bill I give the checkout lady and I am in business.
"The Machine," if there is one, and its accompanying displays always tell me how much I can win. A cool $6 million if I am lucky in the "Super Lotto" drawing. But there are hundreds of other prizes, from thousands of dollars to just another ticket of some kind to keep my habit going.
I have a hunch that preaching against the lottery and other games of chance like it is not a very popular subject today. All of us participate sometimes, even if we don't play the lottery. We take part when we purchase tickets for raffles held by various community groups, sometimes even churches.
I picked the subject because I believe that in a certain sense preaching against lotteries, raffles and games of chance is much like the message delivered by Jeremiah the prophet in our text for today.
Jeremiah delivered a message of judgment upon the people of Israel who had taken to worshiping other gods. They were so caught up in their way of life centering around this worship that they thought everything was going just fine and that God, if he really cared, must be quite satisfied with them. Nothing could have been much further from the truth.
So it was that Jeremiah brought a scathing word of judgment. It was meant to be so harsh that it might just shock the people into really taking a look at what they were doing.
But it didn't seem to work that way for most of the people. Rather than frightening the people, it brought them to great anger and they had Jeremiah locked up in the stocks where they could ridicule him all the day long.
It seemed so inappropriate to stir up all this trouble when life was moving along merrily and people were having so much fun.
Could the same be said to be true today concerning the lottery, raffles and other games of chance in which we partake? After all, many of them are so innocent and often they raise money for a good cause.
What we must understand is that there was a deeper reason for Jeremiah's heavy protestations than just trying to spoil the people's fun. Jeremiah spoke a word that the Lord had laid upon his heart. He says that it was a message like a "fire burning deep within me." He could see how their apostasy was leading them toward a situation where their good life would be destroyed and they would be led away into exile.
I believe it's time that we who claim Jesus as our Lord and Savior take another look at our participation in all kinds of games of chance. It has become a much deeper issue than one of simple morality -- that is, that it's sinful to gamble.
What is happening to our society is that we are stampeding toward a society where wealth and comfortable lifestyles rule for many at the expense of a larger segment of our people who underwrite the easy living for the rest of society.
Consider how lotteries, raffles and games of chance play into this style of life. There is the underlying idea that you can be "lucky" and gain a great prize which will give you much material wealth. But who is it that pays the price for the few lucky ones who win the top prize? Of course, all of the rest of us who purchase the other tickets.
The argument can be made that we purchase the tickets willingly. So we do, but often with the aid of our weaker nature which would rather take the easy way to a comfortable life rather than putting forth the effort to give some of ourselves for what we receive.
If the current trends continue, we are rushing toward more contests with huge prizes. The greater the prize, the more the players -- so the common wisdom goes. But with more big winners, we also have thousands, even millions of losers.
From a particular Christian perspective, all of this lust for being lucky discourages the Christian idea of stewardship. We are called to care for what God has given us, use what we need, but also to share with others so that we all may have a good life.
Just as Jeremiah spoke the word of the Lord to the unfaithful ones in his day, we need to hear it today from the heart of God's love.
God says to you and me, "You don't have to be lucky to live. Your being here is not a matter of chance. I chose and fashioned you in your mother's womb and I have a purpose for you far beyond being "lucky" or based on the value of your net worth. The life I have for you is a life to be shared in a community where people forgive, care for, and love one another. It has much deeper rewards than winning any prize will ever have."
It's time to ask: Where are you on this matter? Are you one who is sitting back now chuckling to yourself because the pastor got all worked up because people are having a little fun with legal games of chance? Or do you join me in my concern that the mass marketing of this way of life of the "lucky" is seriously masking the good news of our Lord Jesus?
I am convinced that we who follow Jesus need to lift up the whole sense of the care of creation and our own personal resources which we have come to know in the biblical way of faith. It is time to show that this stewardship begins with the giving of ourselves and the gifts we have been given and showing this as we reach out to help others and share what God has given us.
This message is from the heart of God. It is similar to the one Jeremiah tried to proclaim in his day. I hope that more people are willing to receive it and let it change their lives today than did in the time of Jeremiah. But even if few will receive it, still it is a word I feel compelled to proclaim as God's word burns within me. I hope you will find it to be so for you, too. Amen.
Suddenly I am confronted by "The Machine." "The Machine" in this case isn't a machine at all. It's a huge display which overpowers everything else near the checkout, telling me that I can get all of the tickets for all of the state lottery games now at this store. All I have to do is hand over a buck or two of the change I will have anyway from the $10 bill I give the checkout lady and I am in business.
"The Machine," if there is one, and its accompanying displays always tell me how much I can win. A cool $6 million if I am lucky in the "Super Lotto" drawing. But there are hundreds of other prizes, from thousands of dollars to just another ticket of some kind to keep my habit going.
I have a hunch that preaching against the lottery and other games of chance like it is not a very popular subject today. All of us participate sometimes, even if we don't play the lottery. We take part when we purchase tickets for raffles held by various community groups, sometimes even churches.
I picked the subject because I believe that in a certain sense preaching against lotteries, raffles and games of chance is much like the message delivered by Jeremiah the prophet in our text for today.
Jeremiah delivered a message of judgment upon the people of Israel who had taken to worshiping other gods. They were so caught up in their way of life centering around this worship that they thought everything was going just fine and that God, if he really cared, must be quite satisfied with them. Nothing could have been much further from the truth.
So it was that Jeremiah brought a scathing word of judgment. It was meant to be so harsh that it might just shock the people into really taking a look at what they were doing.
But it didn't seem to work that way for most of the people. Rather than frightening the people, it brought them to great anger and they had Jeremiah locked up in the stocks where they could ridicule him all the day long.
It seemed so inappropriate to stir up all this trouble when life was moving along merrily and people were having so much fun.
Could the same be said to be true today concerning the lottery, raffles and other games of chance in which we partake? After all, many of them are so innocent and often they raise money for a good cause.
What we must understand is that there was a deeper reason for Jeremiah's heavy protestations than just trying to spoil the people's fun. Jeremiah spoke a word that the Lord had laid upon his heart. He says that it was a message like a "fire burning deep within me." He could see how their apostasy was leading them toward a situation where their good life would be destroyed and they would be led away into exile.
I believe it's time that we who claim Jesus as our Lord and Savior take another look at our participation in all kinds of games of chance. It has become a much deeper issue than one of simple morality -- that is, that it's sinful to gamble.
What is happening to our society is that we are stampeding toward a society where wealth and comfortable lifestyles rule for many at the expense of a larger segment of our people who underwrite the easy living for the rest of society.
Consider how lotteries, raffles and games of chance play into this style of life. There is the underlying idea that you can be "lucky" and gain a great prize which will give you much material wealth. But who is it that pays the price for the few lucky ones who win the top prize? Of course, all of the rest of us who purchase the other tickets.
The argument can be made that we purchase the tickets willingly. So we do, but often with the aid of our weaker nature which would rather take the easy way to a comfortable life rather than putting forth the effort to give some of ourselves for what we receive.
If the current trends continue, we are rushing toward more contests with huge prizes. The greater the prize, the more the players -- so the common wisdom goes. But with more big winners, we also have thousands, even millions of losers.
From a particular Christian perspective, all of this lust for being lucky discourages the Christian idea of stewardship. We are called to care for what God has given us, use what we need, but also to share with others so that we all may have a good life.
Just as Jeremiah spoke the word of the Lord to the unfaithful ones in his day, we need to hear it today from the heart of God's love.
God says to you and me, "You don't have to be lucky to live. Your being here is not a matter of chance. I chose and fashioned you in your mother's womb and I have a purpose for you far beyond being "lucky" or based on the value of your net worth. The life I have for you is a life to be shared in a community where people forgive, care for, and love one another. It has much deeper rewards than winning any prize will ever have."
It's time to ask: Where are you on this matter? Are you one who is sitting back now chuckling to yourself because the pastor got all worked up because people are having a little fun with legal games of chance? Or do you join me in my concern that the mass marketing of this way of life of the "lucky" is seriously masking the good news of our Lord Jesus?
I am convinced that we who follow Jesus need to lift up the whole sense of the care of creation and our own personal resources which we have come to know in the biblical way of faith. It is time to show that this stewardship begins with the giving of ourselves and the gifts we have been given and showing this as we reach out to help others and share what God has given us.
This message is from the heart of God. It is similar to the one Jeremiah tried to proclaim in his day. I hope that more people are willing to receive it and let it change their lives today than did in the time of Jeremiah. But even if few will receive it, still it is a word I feel compelled to proclaim as God's word burns within me. I hope you will find it to be so for you, too. Amen.
