Ill-booten gotty?

...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.
 (Mark 4:19 ESV)

I remember a chilly, gray Saturday morning in Indiana about four years ago. Every possible media outlet, from the TV news to Twitter was lit up with the current Powerball jackpot of about a billion dollars. Hopeful souls across the country were 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 10^th 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)? 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 known 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?

In the meantime, Temptation holds my place in line...  ;)

With much love,

Pastor E.B.