It’s a chilly, gray
Saturday morning here in my neck of the woods. Every possible media outlet,
from the tv news to Twitter is lit up with the current Powerball jackpot ($800
million at last glance). Hopeful souls across the country are braving, in some
cases, weather worse than mine to stand in line for a 1-in-292,201,338 chance
at hitting the mother lode—we’ve all heard the rags to riches stories (father
of four lost his wife and his job and his car and spent his last dollar on the
lottery…now his children have new clothes, he’s got a new Maserati, and no
doubt lots of new friends and a new wife) (okay that was way too cynical, I
admit, but is that not what tempts us to rub the lamp and hope a genie pops out?).
Popular consensus speaks
to God’s silence on gambling, in general; yet I would file this Powerball
business neatly under the 10th Commandment; popular contemporary
Christian consensus snorts and mumbles something about how Old Testament that kind of thinking is… Christ fulfilled
the Law, didn’t he? So what’s the problem? The problem is coveting, which,
along with the other 9 thoushaltnots
didn’t disappear or become obsolete in the shadow (better, the Light) of the
New Testament. Jesus himself makes this very clear in Matthew 22:36-40.
So how does a
Christian solve a problem like the lottery? To run with the herd or to get trampled
in the stampede, that is the question. But what about playing the stock market
(I have two retirement accounts tied up in mutual funds myself, and will likely
add another when I start church work)? Both involve ROI, right? And both bring
up the question of “properly placed faith” with arguments for and against… Consider
the fantastical find of a buried treasure chest filled with some pirate’s
ill-gotten booty; we would instantly invoke the finders-keepers rule and now
one person’s ill-gotten booty becomes our ill-booten
gotty (a Hawkeye-ism from a M*A*S*H episode), not stolen, really…more serendipitous
than felonious. Beauty, riches, and coveting are all in the eyes of the
beholder.
It’s a sticky wicket.
But could God not use any investment apparatus (from a $2 Powerball ticket to a
hedge fund in a retirement account) whether or not it pays out as the investor intended? Of course.
So could—and does-- Satan. And there
is the true power behind our coveting (and we all do it). I don’t have the
answer, but Jesus tells his disciples in Mark (4:19 ESV): “...but the cares of
the world and the deceitfulness of riches and the desires for other things
enter in and choke the word, and it proves unfruitful.” Will a purchase of a
Powerball ticket choke the Word of God and prove unfruitful? That question surely gives the Christian in that long
line something to think about while waiting…
I think God is the
Great Philanthropist, too, when the mood suits Him or the time seems right. His
Church has been gifted financially in many ways, many times (through
benefactors know and unknown). Often God's hand is indiscernible in such a frenetic world like the one we live in today, and sometimes what appears to be God's hand may be something wholly and woefully different. Take this example I found in a Mental_Floss magazine article:
As she was nearing graduation from UCLA, Carol Burnett and several
fellow drama students were invited to a departing professor’s house to perform
at his bon voyage party. She performed a scene from the musical Annie
Get Your Gun and later that evening, while she was standing in the
buffet line, a man she’d never seen before approached her and complimented her
performance. He then inquired what she planned to do with her life. She
confessed that she dreamed of going to New York one day for a career on the
stage, but seeing that she barely had enough gas money to drive back to Los
Angeles that evening, it would be a very long time before she’d make it to
Broadway. The man told her he’d be happy to lend her $1000 to get her started,
with three conditions: that she repay him without interest in five years, that
she was never to reveal his identity, and that once she was successful she must
pass a similar kindness along to another person in need. (After pondering the
offer over the weekend and consulting her mother and grandmother—who advised
her to steer clear of the strange man who was probably involved in human
trafficking or something worse—she took a chance and accepted his check.)
Think of similar acts of anonymous beneficence to be committed with
nearly a billion dollars, no matter where it came from, as long as it’s not
ill-gotten booty…but even then…well, let’s just call it ill-booten gotty, shall
we?
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.