Sermons Online ...
Sermon - The Concept of Gambling - 30th September 2007
St Alban's Epping 7:00 am, 8.00 am and 10:00 am
Readings: Jeremiah 32:1-3a, 6-15 Psalm 91:1-6, 14-16, 1 Timothy 6:6-19, Luke 16:19-31
I was a recalcitrant Synod representative this year. I told the Archbishop that I had some other more pressing activities to which I had to attend. Elisa's wedding was far more important than sitting in Synod for five days. It was more than I could stand being harangued by the rampant Puritans who now control Synod and who do not allow democratic rules of debate and have a very narrow view of what it means to be an Anglican Christian. I congratulate Bill Woodman and Doug Pearson for their commitment and perseverance in attending on our behalf.
In the Sydney Morning Herald last Thursday, it was reported that as a result of a decision at Synod on Monday, the Diocese "is seeking to ban raffles for fund-raising in their own parishes". It also railed against the State Government's reliance on gambling to raise revenue. I have no problem with that; I too think that it is unjust; raising revenue from those whom can leat afford it. However classifying raffles as the same as that sort of gambling is certainly drawing a long bow and is very petty.
I quote in part;
"Sydney Anglicans have condemned the State Government's reliance on gaming revenue and voted to practise what they preach by seeking to ban raffles for fund-raising in their own parishes.
A motion calling on churches to oppose raffles and other games of chance was carried by the Sydney diocese's annual synod last night with a warning that gaming was "a sin against charity".
The synod called on ministers to preach the dangers of gambling and the destructive effects of prosperity without pain, and of not being content to trust God to provide. The motions have moral rather than legal force.
.The sponsor of the motion opposing raffles, Richard Lambert, said the synod had last debated the suitability of games of chance on church premises in 1936, and it was time to once again underline its opposition to gambling.
He quoted from a text on God and Mammon, saying that gambling was a sin against charity. "You can only profit from your neighbour's loss, so it's the precise opposite of loving your neighbour as yourself."
Mr Lambert said he was prompted by the case of an Anglican parish, which he did not name, found selling raffle tickets from a shopping centre stall.
The Reverend Philip Wheeler, of Christ Church Gladesville, told the synod gambling was destructive, stirred discontent and a lack of satisfaction in one's lot and displayed a distinct lack of trust in God's ability to provide for all needs.
Society was struggling to deal with 300,000 problem gamblers, with gambling commonly regarded as yet another form of entertainment. "We are entertaining ourselves to death," he said.
There was a role for ministers to educate their congregations on the dangers of gambling and to promote and encourage charitable generosity.
Mr Wheeler said he never bought raffle tickets but instead returned tickets with a donation. 1
This is just another example of Puritanism being only concerned with the outward things how one speaks, how one dresses and how one relates to those who are different. Remember it was the Puritans who in the 17 th Century burned women as witches because they were different.
Today's reading from the prophet Jeremiah sits strangely with the concept of gambling. It seems that the text is about betting on the future, which belongs to the expectations, the appearance, the discipline of the community of faith, those who believe. The story of Israel and of the church is constantly one of people being called to bet on the future. However, that is never guesswork, not even intelligent guesswork, like investing in the stock market after careful analysis. The stock market analogy is not inappropriate, because the bet on the future in this reading is expressed in very concrete, economic terms. Note how the word "buy" is repeatedly used. The promise offered here is no generalised hope for better times. It is a call for putting one's money down now, for risking hard cash in the most speculative stock on the market at that time, a bankrupt company going under, as it appeared Israel was.
Betting on the future is an act of trust and hope, a risky act. It is that element of trust that means the hope is not merely keeping one's fingers crossed. Christian hope is always tied to promise. Christian hope has often been against good sense, against the tides in human affairs, but it is always in relation to the promise of God who shapes the future in specific ways. So this reading cultivates trust. Trust is a constant in the Christian life, but there are occasions when such trust is set in the midst of adversity and misfortune and so it is lifted to another level. The promise may not be as clear to us today, but it is well grounded in the story of salvation history, both as recorded in Scripture and as experienced by our mothers and fathers of long ago and of more recent times down to our own experience. We need to turn to such a reading as this to get some clue about the future when the "Babylonians" of our age are at our gate. They have often been there besieging us and will be there again. Misfortune, whether it is seen as the judgment of God or brought on us by our own or the actions of others, including those from which we pray for God's deliverance and help is most often encompassed by promise. The biblical words let us know that there are occasions when that does not seem to be the case and may indeed not be the case. None-the-less, the nature of the Lord of Israel and the creator of the universe is towards keeping promises. If Scripture is reliable, then that tendency can be trusted; and faith bets against the future, because it knows that God controls that future and has let us know it is one of hope, of rebuilding, of fruitfulness and of recovery. It is not a risky bet!
The whole of this chapter from where this morning's reading comes is also about the marvellous power of God to bring about a surprising future, a mix of power and grace at work to bring about a radical reversal of present reality. The God who makes covenants with humanity can break out of all conventions and overcome what appears to constrain, including those of the Lord's own actions, to bring about a new reality, to turn punishment into redemption, devastation into good, danger and oppression into safety and security. The reading does not use the term "grace," but the promise of God is precisely what the New Testament and later theology understands grace to mean: the unmerited, free act of God to effect in our hearts a new spirit, a new life, a new way, to draw us to the fear of the Lord when we have been unwilling to go that way ourselves. The power that means nothing is too difficult for this God, is not simply the power through and over the Babylonian, and other, armies that inflict themselves upon our lives, but the power through and over hard hearts and unbelieving souls. It is a power for good. That part is not new. It is just always being rediscovered.
The question, "Is anything too difficult, too wonderful for the Lord?" is found in Genesis and so functions as a kind of theme, particularly when we pay attention to the context in which it is found. The first occurrence is when Sarah laughs at the suggestion that a woman as old as she will bear a child, to which the Lord responds with those words. They are similar to Jeremiah's implied question about the apparent insanity of buying fields in a devastated land. The impossibility not only becomes possible but also opens up the whole story of God's blessing for all humankind, even as the same rhetorical question in Jeremiah 32 opens up a whole new future for a people who were crying out, "Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are cut off completely" as we read in Ezekiel. This question is heard yet again, this time as a declaration by the angelic messenger to Mary, the handmaid of the Lord: "For nothing will be impossible with God." At just those critical points when the future seems utterly restricted and without new possibilities, with darkness all around us, the God of wonders breaks out of what we assume to be constraints to create a future of blessing and hope, of restoration and good, of Immanuel and Jesus.
The chapter ends with the theme sounded at the beginning of this section of the book of Jeremiah: the restoration of fortunes for the people of God. By now it is evident that such restoration is rich and full-bodied, complex in every way, comprising economic and moral renewals, new hearts and different modes of life. What is not too hard for this God is also not simple. It is a restoration that knows renewal and transformation cannot be confined to one sphere of life. Thus hope is kept from being too simple and participation in God's renewal and restoration knows that it includes all the complexities of life. Here again, the Old Testament reminds us of what it takes and all that is involved in God's new order.
God's new order is not about rules and regulations as the Diocesan synod would seem to wish to institute, but about loving God and others as ourselves. It is about bringing light not darkness. It is about freeing not restricting. Jesus said, "The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly". May our lives be always governed by Jesus' words. The future maybe uncertain but we know that it will be well worth the gamble. 2
1. Linda Morris Religious Affairs Reporter September 25, 2007 SMH
2. This sermon constructed using The New Interpreter's Bible, Vol VI, Abingdon, Nashville, 2001.