A Sermon by Pastor Tom Lacey . . .
winning the lotto—jesus style
Luke 5:1-11, Preached at Congregational
Two blonde friends, Jenny and Jane, went together to play the slot
machines at a casino. They agreed that whoever finished their allotted gambling
money first would sit on the beach and wait for the other to get done. Jane
quickly lost all of her money and left. She waited and waited and waited and
waited. After what seemed an eternity, she saw her friend Jenny coming toward
her carrying a huge sack of coins! “Hey, Jenny,” said Jane, “how’d you do?”
“Boy, did I find a good slot machine!” said Jenny. “It’s way in the back. I’ll
show it to you, you can’t lose. Every time you put in a dollar four quarters
come out!”
In August 1989 then President George Bush and family were vacationing at
Finally, President Bush turned to prayer. Within an hour after worshiping at the
Congregational Church, President Bush landed a two-foot, ten-pound bluefish to
put an end to his 19 day-long jinx. Reporters and Secret Service agents in boats
began honking their horns and cheering. It was victory at sea. Paul Bedard, A
Washington Times reporter, said that this was “like the end of a war.” When
the Fidelity returned to dock, the mood was as wild as election night.
Barbara Bush thrust her fist high in the air in celebration. Relatives shouted
for joy. Grandchildren kissed him. And President Bush cleaned the 10-pound
bluefish with gusto on a rock ledge in front of his house.
(Nash and Zullo, The
Fishing Hall of Shame, NY: Bantam, Doubleday, Dell, 1991).
Looks like prayer really does help, in lots of different ways.
Now you know how Peter, Andrew, James and John must have felt in our text when
Jesus comes along and answers their prayers. However unlike President Bush’s
experience, Simon Peter, Andrew, James and John were not vacationing. For them,
fishing was a tough, exhausting profession. It was a livelihood that forced them
out onto the lake in the wee hours of the night and kept them busy all day.
There was much to do in repairing nets and boats. They were able to scrape by
most of the time but to a great extent their livelihood was dependent on luck.
Sometimes, despite all their hard work they, like the President, were
skunked—but skunked for them meant empty purses and bellies.
Then, Jesus comes on the scene and the foursome hit pay dirt. They caught more
fish in that one haul than all year combined. Jackpot! They won the Lotto!
If this were where that story ended, it would be an interesting but
inconsequential little miracle. It might feed our desires for a gospel of
success in business and good grades in school, but it would hardly be worthy of
our Lord Jesus Christ. The truth is, a person can have full nets, a ton of
bluefish, but still have an empty life.
Picture this: You’re standing in the courtesy counter line at Publix Super
Market to buy a Lotto ticket and you see a vision of Jesus who gives you six
numbers. You ask the clerk for those numbers. That night, those numbers are the
winning numbers. You learn you’ve won half a million dollars. Then, that same
vision of Jesus appears and tells you not to cash in that lotto ticket but to
follow him. What would you do? If you were Peter, Andrew, James and John what
would you have done? First, Jesus gives you a fortune in fish, and then he tells
you to leave it rot and follow him in a new enterprise. Is this smart? Is this
reasonable? Could you turn your back on so such a winning? That’s exactly what
the boys did. The Bible says, “They left everything and followed him.” They left
that winning lotto ticket on the shore for any passerby to find. But they are
the ones remembered thousands of years later. They went for the real treasure.
Now I’m not saying we’re all going to be remembered if we choose something
better over something we desire; it’s just that sometimes we’re not looking at
things the right way. In his 1970 book The Harried Leisure Class, Staffan
Linder challenged the notion that time equals money. More money, he said, means
more shopping and therefore less time. More recently, Juliet Schor argued in
The Overworked American that the American workweek has been getting longer
since the 1950’s—that we are a harried working class. Whether harried from
working or from shopping, we buy our homes in the suburbs to "get away from it
all," which increases our commute. As a reward for the long hours at work, we
build homes that are on average twice as large as those built fifty years ago,
only to find they require double the cleaning and yard work, or we have to pay
someone else thousand of dollars a year to clean it, which puts in more of a
financial bind. We buy labor-saving appliances and then feel the need to enroll
in the local fitness club, and spend time there. The cycle of consumption leaves
us rich in things but poor in time.
We’re searching but not finding; spinning wheels but only going a little way.
We’re winning, but how come we don’t feel we’ve gained much? The truth is people
are in search of God, of the ultimate winner, and will write or read endless
numbers of books telling one how to find God, how to find the good life,
how to be happy, how to win at life. And many churches have adopted the slogan,
“Catch the Spirit.” But this is backwards. We are not to set our sights on
catching or getting, because when it comes to winning and God, the rules change.
It’s not our plans that come first; it’s not our designs that matter. God isn’t
our first mate on the fishing boat of life. The Lord is supposed to tell us
where to fish.
The truth is that we cannot find God, but there are places we can go and things
we can do where God can find us! We are invited to be caught by a spirit that
helps us bring some sanity and clarity to our harrying and hurrying life. Susan
Lawley was a vice president at Goldman Sachs, with a six-figure salary, a fine
husband, a delightful 11-year-old son, two houses, and European vacations.
Driving home one night from work, she began to cry. She pulled over. Later, she
reflected, “I realized that night, as usual, I’d miss seeing my son because he
was already in bed. I realized that life is too short to live like that.” She
quit her job and became a consultant working out of her home. It’s so hard for
us to be caught by the Spirit when we are caught by a job that takes us away
from all things important. I may be touching a nerve of some who were raised on
the Protestant work ethic. We think, without me, without my sacrifices, where
would my company or business be? But, the hard truth is that no success or
corporate title can replace those times when your son leaned his head on your
chest and fell asleep. No limousine or private jet makes up for not being there
when your daughter is growing from a child into a young lady. Time spent with
your child isn’t a distraction from the main event. It is the main
event. These are family values that value families.
Today, people want a religion that gives them stuff. We want to feel good all
over. And so some preachers like to show just certain parts of God, the easy
parts, the nice parts, the fun parts. God forgives us and loves us are very
marketable phrases. But that’s not the whole story. Peter saw beyond that vast
catch of fish to see God’s power over all of life including a million fish, over
his life as it had been lived up to that point, of how much losing he had been
doing. When Jesus asked him to come with him, Peter realized this was his chance
to win truly, to do well, to be good. But he never gained anything. Peter never
won anything after that. He ended up walking barefoot, wearing the only clothes
he owned, going house to house, asking for food, lodging, and a chance to speak
about God's kingdom. Man, he was brave. Now I'm sure he didn't quite comprehend
what he had gotten himself into, and the gospels reveal a man overly
self-confident in himself and misunderstanding Jesus' message. But with Jesus,
Peter had touched something on fire, something powerful, someone truly good.
Above all the mundane activities of his existence, beyond all the doubts of the
significance of his life, past all the cruelties and injustices of his actions
toward others, Peter found God, the Lord who, looking at him straight in the
eyes, said, "You are the one, the right one. I need you." To his eternal credit,
he took his chances.
About a century ago, James J. Hill bought up the stock of the
What often looks wrong turns out right; what looks foolish in the eyes of the
world is God’s handiwork; what some think is losing is winning and winning big.
I do hope you win the Lotto some day, if you play. I also hope you will give to
the church. But I hope even more, much more, that you let God win you, and you
give your life to God. That’s winning, Jesus style.
Return to Sermons (table of contents)
Return to Homepage of the Congregational Church of Boca Raton