Lucky Seven

Lucky Seven is a bingo term for a jackpot of money won when a player who has bingo after only seven numbers are called… bingo is big here on the Coast. How big? Very! Travel hundreds of kilometers on skidoo to some big bingos is the norm for many; so very much bigger than one humble priest who sees the inherent evil of this form of so-called stewardship.

In St. Paul’s River both the Roman and Anglican churches have weekly bingo to raise stipend, the local youth programs hold them and yes even the schools dabble to raise funds; children even have it as well. This week our church’s lucky seven is at $2000 with well over 70 people attending… I might even venture to say 100. It took a fair number of weeks to get to this stage as the pot is raised each week it isn’t won by around $100. When it's low, like around $300, only the few regulars show up and each church makes a little more than it spends. At present it is pulling in close to $800 per night.

Our congregation Sunday morning was seven, not our usual 35. In Old Fort this evening only seven people came out for service as well… not their 27: what a lucky seven indeed!!!

I preached on Bishop Hockin’s recent article in this month’s Anglican Journal where he shows the discrepancy between daily faith and commitment to Christ… how wonderful that this service was prepared for the day we were down in our congregations by over 70%.

My sermons are always dynamic, at least I try, but this day was special considering the circumstances. I wondered aloud if I offered a lucky seven after communion if I could get the numbers bingo does. Now to be fair there was a dart tournament this weekend, which ran well into the late hours of the night, the Lord forbid we should get up for a 10:00Am and 7:00Pm service, and of course we had some rain which made the driving a bit slippy… though this has never deterred the dart or bingo crowd.

What is the worth of our saviour who died for us? Does our faith in the resurrection, our future resurrection, truly turn us to a daily relationship with our God? How sad that Anglicans here, and apparently throughout Canada, don’t seem to have a daily relationship with their Lord and take for granted the sacrifice for them.

But with all that said, the “lucky seven” were the ones in church yesterday, for each heard the message of the resurrection of Lazarus and of the story of the dry bones in Ezekiel coming back to life (NRCL).

Though we are having a rough time in our church, and like the Lord in front of the tomb of Lazarus, we too have shed many tears, we are a church bound not to tradition, reason, or scripture alone, but to our Lord Jesus Christ and we shall raise him up on the last day. I think the most appropriate response to this sadness of so few being in church this past Sunday, and to the whole problem seen in the organized church these past decades, is to quote Shakespeare in “Henry the Fifth;” “We few, we happy few, we band of bothers [and of course sisters]….”

It is a privilege to be called to weep at the tomb, but even moreso to see the resurrection! Trust that God has called this very church, embattled and limping, to greater works of glory for his Name: this is our Grace, this is our Hope, this is his Body.

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