This morning’s newspaper carried an interesting article that has me ruminating. It was a story of a man who was cleaning out a cookie jar in which he had always stashed his lottery tickets. His wife was obviously in a spring cleaning mode and told him to throw them away if they weren’t worth anything. Not ready to part with them yet(sound familiar?) he took them to the local 7-Eleven to make sure none were winners. He found that most were not, one reaped the grand total of $3.00 and the other gave him……. $4.85 million dollars.

To this all I can say is “Wow!” The story went on to tell that just a few months before he had appeared in court because his house was to be foreclosed. The judge had given him three more months to find a place to move and then the bank would take the house. Now he found himself not only able to keep his house but a millionaire. As the man told the story he said these words: “This is how God works.”

This is how God works. Here we have one of the central complexities of what it means to be a human and particularly a human who claims a faith life, a belief in a Higher Power with whom we are in some kind of relationship. For this man, the set of circumstances that unfolded in his life was an affirmation of the presence and action of the Holy in his life.

Frankly, I am not so sure of God’s movement in the lottery or football or any other game of chance. I do have an understanding of the breathing presence of Spirit in the gifts of those who use mind and body who participate in a sport, an artistic endeavor and the mundane and heroic tasks of any day. Whether or not the use of these gifts results in a win is another thing for me. The idea of God’s intervention in the winning of such a sum of money does not fit my own personal theology. My sense is this man and his family may have a deeper chance of understanding ‘how God works’ now that they are millionaires. But this is simply my lens and not everyone’s and does not speak to the lens of the Sacred.

This Sunday we will celebrate Pentecost, the time when the followers of Jesus had an extreme visitation of the Spirit, and went on to become the church. That is a simple definition of this day we call the birthday of the church. For these ancients, God ‘worked’ by filling them with an unquenchable fire for following in the Way of their friend who threw around the gifts of presence, compassion, justice, and humility like it was confetti at a New Year’s celebration. One of the winnings of the day was they were said to have been able to understand one another though they were speaking in different languages. And couldn’t we use more of that? We barely understand one another when we are speaking the same language!

Over time we have come to struggle and triumph as people who try to figure out how God works. We have called this place of challenge and healing, the church. Gathering together we bring stories of how we have seen God working in our own lives, in our communities, in the world. Mostly they are stories of ordinary people doing very ordinary things. Washing feet. Feeding those who are hungry. Standing up for those whose homes are the margins. Visiting prisons. Singing. Praying. Laughing. Crying. Offering whatever gifts we have for some greater good we often don’t have words for and can’t completely imagine.

Nearly every day we dig into a cookie jar that does not hold a winning ticket. Out of it we pull the best we have to offer…..ourselves. We ask God to work in us in whatever ways are possible. As tickets, I believe, we are priceless. To the world and to God.