Luke 9:51-62
Lottery Ticket
Faith
James Sledge June
26, 2022
Nevertheless, state after state has passed a lottery, and the state gambling racket continues to grow and multiply. Lotteries have become a part of the American landscape, and even those Presbyterians who ardently worked against their continued spread probably can’t resist the temptation to buy a ticket now and then.
Official Presbyterian policy calls on church members to boycott lotteries and gambling as an article of faith, a matter of principle. Such action is unlikely to change anything, and not many of us are gambling addicts who are personally endangered by lotteries and such. At least I hope that most of you are not the sort of who fill the lottery coffers by buying hundreds of dollars in tickets. Surely not many of you think of the lottery as a good investment. Anyone counting on lottery winnings to get the kids through college, to pay for your retirement, to help you buy your first home, to pay off student loans? It might be wonderful to win one, but most of us wouldn’t think of entrusting our future to the lottery. And if you do, you have a problem.
Not many of us are going to cash in the life insurance policy, empty the savings account, forego retirement planning or college savings, and bet it all on the lottery. Lottery tickets are something we buy with discretionary money.
I think it is possible to approach faith a little like a lottery ticket. We’ll buy a few tickets and hope for a big payoff. Some of us have a little more hope in faith than in the Mega Million, but we’re not sure we want to totally trust ourselves to the faith lottery either.
Just as we don’t bet the ranch on the Mega Million, we hedge our bets on faith as well. We’ll believe in God and hope for something good, but we’re not likely to be all in when Jesus tells us to trust him totally, that he has all we need for full and abundant life.
We have all sorts of good reasons not to get too carried away with this faith thing. We have lots of other worries and concerns, ones that people of Jesus’ day couldn’t have even imagined. Surely Jesus doesn’t mean for faith to be all that hard, all that difficult a thing.
Then we hear Jesus’ words in our reading this morning. Jesus sets his face towards Jerusalem. He devotes himself entirely to the calling he has, a calling that takes him to the cross. Nothing will deflect him from it, not Samaritans offended that he isn’t paying enough attention to their needs and not his own disciples in their misguided desire to call down vengeance on the Samaritans.
And Jesus demands that same single-minded devotion from would be followers. Some have legitimate things to take care of, burying a father, saying goodbye to a family. But Jesus says there can be no, “I’ll follow you after I take care of things.”
Jesus, I’ll start tithing after we get the house paid for, or the children through college, or the college loans paid off. Jesus, I’ll be more regular in worship after soccer season, or swimming season, or some other season is over. Jesus, I’ll participate in the work of the church after things slow down at the office, or my class schedule is a little less hectic, or the kids leave for college. But Jesus rejects even the most pressing of reasons that would deflect someone from absolute devotion to him.
I’m not sure if it’s true in Roman Catholic or Orthodox circles, but we Protestants seem to have gotten the idea somewhere along the way that being a Christian is supposed to be easy. Perhaps this arose from our focus on salvation by faith rather than works, even though people like Martin Luther and John Calvin, who authored such ideas, never thought that being saved by grace through faith made Christianity easy. They thought the Christian life required the greatest discipline and effort, but we have decided that it should be easy. All we need do is believe. It’s as simple as picking up a lottery ticket while we’re picking up a cup of coffee.
But Jesus insists otherwise. Jesus says that the encounter with God’s good news and grace in him places an overwhelming demand on us, a fact that much modern, feel-good Christianity has forgotten. As G. K. Chesterton once famously said, “The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult; and left untried.”
When Jesus says, “No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God,” he makes an allusion to an episode from the Old Testament. That story tells how the prophet Elijah calls Elisha, who is plowing, to become his disciple and successor. Elisha responds, “Let me kiss my father and mother, and then I will follow you.” And Elijah permits it. Apparently Jesus expects greater devotion and loyalty from would-be disciples than that of the great prophet Elisha.
This is one of those times when I’m glad to
know that the Bible loves to engage in hyperbole. I’m pretty sure Jesus would
be okay with taking care of some pressing matter before following him, but he
is clear that he expects to be the number one priority in his followers’ lives,
something that most of us struggle with.
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Recently I attended the wedding of family friends’ daughter. At the reception, the father of the bride got up to do a speech, and he spoke of how being a parent was one of the greatest joys of his life. I suspect that a lot of parents might echo his thoughts. I won’t take much of the credit for it, but one of the things I’m the most proud of in my life is seeing the wonderful young women that our daughters turned out to be. And I expect that there are a lot of parents who feel similarly.
But although many parents find great joy in that role, although it is a source of great pride for many, I doubt there are many who say that it was easy, that it didn’t take effort and devotion and reprioritizing and even a bit of sacrifice. Parenting is full of joys and sorrows, fond memories and regrets, triumphs and tragedies. It is hard work sometimes done well and sometimes done poorly, but rare is the parent who wishes they had never become one.
I wonder if following Jesus isn’t a little like being a parent. It is not easy. It asks a person to reprioritize their life, to commit a great deal of energy, devotion, money, and resources to the work of being a disciple, of living in ways that share God’s love and help reveal the shape of God’s dream for the world. Being a disciple is hard work sometimes done well and sometimes done poorly, but I don’t think very many dedicated disciples ever think it was time and energy misspent.
I’m not sure I ever learned that in the church of my childhood and youth. I grew up in an era that is rapidly fading away, an era when people were expected to belong to and attend a church, but being a disciple was optional.
I think that one of the reasons so many people think of the Church as an inconsequential and insignificant anachronism is that for so long it focused on members rather than disciples. It sold an easy membership that required a few beliefs and little else, and now an ever-growing number of Americans see the Church as pointless, as mattering little if at all.
But difficult and costly discipleship matters. Like parenting, it has its share of tears and heartbreak to go with its joys and successes, but it provides a send of purpose and meaning and accomplishment that can be found nowhere else.
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“Follow me,” says Jesus.
“Well you know, Jesus, I’m kind of busy. What if I just go to church once in a while?”
“Follow me,” says Jesus. “Push aside all that gets in the way, and discover your true calling, your true life, as my disciple.”
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