A few weeks back the Mega-Millions lottery jackpot was up to 6.7 gazillion dollars or thereabouts (I know so little about the lottery) before 3 winners finally matched all the numbers on the blow-the-ball-up-the-tube machine. They each will receive 2.2 gazillion dollars (or thereabouts) paid out in installments over 168 years, or a lump-sum payment of $373.48 after taxes. Now I must confess I think the lottery is evil – that it is just a way for The Man (the “powers that be” for you non-hipsters) to exploit the poor. The amount of money a community spends on lottery tickets is inversely proportionate to the prosperity of that community. Rich folks might buy a ticket or two on a lark, but poor folks tend to buy handfuls. To me, the lottery is a way to harvest more revenue from the poorest neighborhoods without actually taxing those neighborhoods. One might argue that no one is forced to buy lottery tickets, and that folks should practice impulse control. One might also argue the same about crystal methamphetamine, or prostitution – and one would be thrice wrong. If we want good schools we should pay for good schools, and should not be enticed to gamble to pay for them.
The fun thing about the lottery is all those statistics the news guys throw at you to illustrate how unlikely it is you will win. “Well, Jim, you have a greater chance of getting hit by lightning twice on the same day a year apart as you are of winning the lottery,” they say or “You are more likely to get killed on the way to buy a lottery ticket than you are of actually winning,” or “There’s a better chance that Dick Cheney will dance the tarantella on your front porch dressed as Josephine Baker than there is that you will pick the winning numbers – back to you Ted.” Try getting that image out of your head.
I am a lottery winner – of sorts – and so are many of you. Of the 7 billion people on this planet, roughly 1 in 20 resides in the United States. Of that number only about one third was raised in a home with two parents. Of that third, how many were raised in a home that valued a relationship with God? Of that fraction, how many knew the truth? Let us do the math another way. Of the 7 billion people on the planet only 2 billion wear Jesus’ name. Half of those are Roman Catholics. If we cull from that other half those who respond to the specific Gospel preached in Acts 2 – how many would we have?
Every soul is from God (Ecclesiastes 12.7). Every human gets her DNA from her parents, but her spiritual/eternal self from God. All souls are equally valuable to God (John 3.16, Acts 10.34). A child born to Christian parents is of no more value than a child born to Shinto parents. My point is this – my soul was given to a Christian mother and father who enjoyed a middle class life in the United States of America, who stayed together till death parted them, and who took us to worship at least three times a week. There is a less than one in 10 million chance that I would have ended up in such a home. What if I had ended up being born to a couple of hunter-gatherer tribesmen in Borneo? What chance would I have had to know the truth about Jesus?
My point is that I should take my advantages into account. I should be eternally thankful and humbled by them. I should never assume superiority over those who haven’t been given the same advantages. I should understand deeply my responsibility to others, because of the advantages I have enjoyed.
As each has received a gift, employ it in serving one another, as good stewards of the varied grace of God. 1 Peter 4.10
The great sin of the rich fool (Luke 12.13-21) was that he somehow thought his blessings were his to enjoy, that he somehow owned them for himself, that he perhaps deserved them. God responded severely and immediately to such hubris. May we not be guilty of the same.
