There is an ancient Chinese story of an old farmer who had
an old horse for tilling his fields. One day the horse escaped
into the hills and when all the farmer's neighbors sympathized
with the old man over his bad luck, the farmer replied, "Bad
luck? Good luck? Who knows?"
A week later the horse returned with a herd of wild horses
from the hills and this time the neighbors congratulated the
farmer on his good luck. His reply was, "Good luck? Bad luck?
Who knows?"
Then, when the farmer's son was attempting to tame one of
the wild horses, he fell off its back and broke his leg.
Everyone thought this very bad luck. Not the farmer, whose only
reaction was, "Bad luck? Good luck? Who knows?"
Some weeks later the army marched into the village and
conscripted every able-bodied youth they found there. When they
saw the farmer's son with his broken leg they let him off. Now
was that good luck? Bad luck? Who knows?(1)
Luck. Sometime ago, Christian therapist Wayne Oates wrote a
book entitled Luck, A Secular Faith,(2) in which he claimed that modern people no longer believe in a purposeful, intervening,
directing God. What we believe in is luck. Luck has become our
way of explaining ourselves and what comes our way.
Do you remember Harold Kushner's phenomenally popular, When
Bad Things Happen to Good People?(3) Rabbi Kushner says that in
life, God does not WILL bad things to happen to people. When bad
happens, it is the result of lousy luck. The world is a great
spinning roulette wheel. When your number is up, it is up, for
good or ill. Nothing is meant by either one. It is mostly a
matter of chance.
Most folks (at least people of faith) are not willing to go
quite that far, but they will go along for a bit of the ride. No
doubt that accounts for the phenomenal upsurge of the gambling
industry around the world. Regularly we hear about lottery
prizes that reach astonishing figures, hundreds of millions, for
one winner. And the lotteries continue to grow. Despite the
ridiculous odds against winning (something on the order of
getting struck by lightning...5,000 times), millions play them,
all hoping for the chance to get something for nothing. Teachers
support lotteries as a way to finance schools, though only a tiny
portion of the money goes for any good. Politicians support
lotteries as a way to raise needed funds, though most of the
funds do not meet those needs. Week after week intelligent
Pennsylvanians play numbers based on their wedding anniversary,
their children's birthdays, or the ages of their dogs when they
died. All very "scientific," don't you think?
Speaking of science, Paschal noted that while science shows
that there is "probability," there is nothing in nature that
could be called chance. Chance - luck - is only what appears
when we observe circumstances at close range. But with
observation over time, we discern probability. Flip a coin a
hundred times, it will not be by luck that half the time it will
come up heads and half it will come up tails. No doubt this is
part of what was behind Einstein's statement, "I don't believe
that God plays dice with the universe."
God and luck. Did you know that the word "luck" never
appears anywhere in the scriptures? Odd, in a way, since it was
a popular concept in the ancient world. Pagans were always
ascribing things to the Fates, those women who sat at their
spinning wheel in the heavens and, when their thread broke, so
did the lives of some poor mortals here on earth. Our lives,
said Homer, are mere playthings of the gods. It is all a matter
of luck, fate, chance. And what can anybody do? Sounds like
Rabbi Kushner.
Sometime back, the National Safety Council urged news
organizations to stop speaking of "accidents" on our highways.
Rather, they thought it more accurate to speak of "crashes." If
you are doing ninety on Route 6 and have a wreck, is this really
an "accident?"
Perhaps that is one of the reasons why luck has become so
popular - if "It was just bad luck," we are absolved of
responsibility for our lives. If it is all up to good or bad
luck, the Fates, well, why bother? Roll the dice and take your
chances.
There are several stories in scripture that sound like they
fit right in with that mindset. In Joshua 18, land distribution
is determined by casting lots; in Nehemiah 11, they cast lots to
see who would be the first settlers in Jerusalem after the exile;
then there is the story in Acts 1 about the apostles casting lots -
rolling the dice, drawing straws - to choose a successor to
Judas. They all sound very much like a reliance on luck. But,
in each case, in fact, it was just the opposite - the "gamblers"
were counting on God making the divine will known through the way
the lot would fall. These were not gambles at all, instead they
were a demonstration of supreme faith, faith that God would
intervene.
Of course, these are not the only stories in scripture that
lead us to understand God's intimate involvement with our lives.
From the story of creation in Genesis to the consummation in
Revelation the message is clear. In fact, story after story says
that, not only is God involved, God makes mid-course adjustments
to bring things to a proper outcome.
The brief passage we heard earlier from the book of Genesis
is the climax of one of those stories. It was called to my
attention many years ago by that great old Methodist preacher,
Clovis Chappell. He said that someday he was going to preach a
sermon entitled "But God..." It would be based on the text in
Genesis, chapter 50, as Joseph says to his brothers in venerable
King James English, "But as for you, ye thought evil against me;
but God meant it unto good." Dr. Chappell said he wanted to
count all the places in scripture where the phrase "but God"
appeared and use them to teach divine providence, even in the
face of monstrous malevolence. As far as I know, Dr. Chappell
never did that research or preached that sermon, but, the idea
was a good one, so I followed up. In Dr. Chappell's King James
Bible, the phrase "but God" appears 43 times. Over and over it
comes as God responds to some failure or folly and instead works
a blessed outcome.
In the Hebrew Bible, the story of Joseph is as good as any.
By the time we encounter "but God," Joseph is nearing the end of
a most fascinating life. As you recall from your Sunday School
lessons, young Joey was his father's favorite son, a bitter
enough pill for his brothers to swallow, but the boy did
everything he could to rub their faces in it, and the result was
that his fed-up siblings took matters into their own hands and
sold him into slavery (and you thought YOU had a dysfunctional
family).
The Midianites who bought the boy were on their way to Egypt
where they would soon sell Joseph once more, this time to a man
named Potiphar, the head of Pharaoh's security force. Joseph did
well, under the circumstances, eventually being placed in charge
of Potiphar's entire household, an incredible honor for a slave.
But Potiphar's wife had her own ideas about honor - she tried to
seduce the young man, and when he refused her advances, she
yelled RAPE!!!
Now Joseph is in jail, once again the victim. But here
again he prospers, gaining the respect of fellow prisoners and
guards. Eventually two of the Pharaoh's servants find themselves
behind the same bars where they all become friends, a scenario
that (after a few dream interpretations) would eventually lead to
Joseph's release.
To make a long story short, the Pharaoh had an eye for
talent and made our Hebrew hero the Prime Minister of Egypt -
from the jail house to the penthouse. Not bad for a bratty kid
who had been sold into slavery by his brothers!
Now a famine settles on the Near East. Jacob tells his sons
to go to Egypt to buy some grain. They do and in the process
meet Joseph -- only they do not know it is Joseph. It happens
twice. Finally, Joseph reveals his true identity. The brothers
are shocked and rightly scared - PAYBACK time! But Joseph does
not do that. In fact, he stuns them with these words:
And now, do not be distressed and do not be angry with
yourselves for selling me here, because it was to save
lives that God sent me ahead of you. For two years now
there has been famine in the land, and for the next
five years there will not be plowing and reaping. But
God sent me ahead of you to preserve for you a remnant
on earth and to save your lives by a great deliverance.
So then, it was not you who sent me here, BUT GOD.(4)
The story goes on. The brothers go back to Canaan and tell
their aged father that Joseph is still alive. He cannot believe
it, but eventually they convince him to come to Egypt with them.
He makes the trip and is reunited with the son he had given up
for dead so many years ago. Then he meets the Pharaoh who offers
to let Joseph's family settle in for as long as they like. The
family moves to Egypt and lives in peace there for many years.
Finally Jacob dies at the ripe old age of 147.
Now it is just Joseph and his brothers. Again they fear
retribution - with Jacob gone, brother Joe will be free to take
his revenge. So they tell Joseph, "Oh, by the way, before Dad
died he told us to tell you to treat us kindly." Uh huh.
Listen again to Joseph's gracious response. These are the
words of a man who understands the providence of God: "Don't be
afraid. Am I in the place of God? You intended to harm me, BUT
GOD intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done,
the saving of many lives."
All the while his brothers thought they were doing Joseph
in. But theirs' was not the only doing. God was working behind
the scenes weaving even their evil into good purposes.
Can you think of other stories from scripture that
demonstrate the same thing? Of course, you can. The most famous
of all is the one we celebrate in Christian churches over and
over and over again. We gather on the first day of the week for
worship because we recall another first day of the week, another
"BUT GOD" event. Listen to the way Peter describes it in his
sermon in Jerusalem on Pentecost:
"[People] of Israel, listen to this: Jesus of Nazareth
was a man accredited by God to you by miracles, wonders
and signs, which God did among you through him, as you
yourselves know. This man was handed over to you by
God's set purpose and foreknowledge; and you, with the
help of wicked men, put him to death by nailing him to
the cross. BUT GOD raised him from the dead, freeing
him from the agony of death, because it was impossible
for death to keep its hold on him.(5)
One more "BUT GOD" story. A story about providence, about
the unseen, but majestic hand of the Almighty working history
when we thought it was all up to us.
To be sure, the story of Jesus, the cross and the tomb, say
very loudly, despite our belief in God's providence, that
everything that happens is not good. Not at all. Horrible
things happen - babies die, mothers get cancer, parents abuse
children; we have Baghdad, Kabul, Chechnya, Auschwitz.
Everyday's news has a story. But our faith has the REST of the
story: in the words of the apostle Paul: "We know that all things
[...even the terrible things...] work together for good for those
who love God, who are called according to God's purpose."(6)
There is no such thing as luck. What there is, is
"providence," that care and guidance of God over God's creatures.
We can see that providence in our lives, but usually only in the
rearview mirror - it is difficult to speak of God's guidance in
terms of what happens to us at this moment or what will happen to
us tomorrow, but, with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight, we are
more able to discern the loving hand of the Lord in that which
has happened to us in the past.
Augustine described it this way: when you first consider
your life, it looks like nothing but a bunch of chicken tracks in
the mud of a barnyard, going this way and that. But through the
eyes of faith, we begin to discern pattern, meaning, direction.
Providence.
As you leave here from week to week, you know I do not wish
you "Good luck." Rather, I try to remind you of God's providence
and presence in your life. We say "Goodbye" - simple shorthand
for "God be with you," or adieu in French or adios in Spanish,
which as you language scholars well know are both "God be with
you." Remember this if you remember noting else about this day:
as you go out into the world, you do not go alone; you go with
each other, and your God goes with you. Vaya con Dios.
Amen.
1. Anthony de Mello, Sadhana: A Way to God: Christian Exercises in Eastern Form, (St.
Louis: Institute of Jesuit Sources, 1979), 134 in Homiletics, J/S, 94, p. 5
2. Louisville, Ky. : Westminster John Knox Press, 1995
3. Boston, Mass. : G. K. Hall, 1981
4. Genesis 45:5-8a
5. Acts 2:22-24
6. Romans 8:28
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