Trick or Triskaidekaphobia?

Homily preached at Eltham College on Friday 13th November 2009, based on Acts xvii.22-31 and Romans viii.28.

It’s Friday 13th!

Your alarm-clock fails to go off
at the correct time
causing you to oversleep
by half an hour.

You leap out of bed
only to find that
the cat’s been sick on your school shirt
and the only clean one you have
isn’t technically clean
but has been lying under your bed
for the past week
where it has been discarded
after a very overactive game
of Wii tennis and has acquired
a smell that can curdle milk
at three metres.

You race downstairs only to find
that your sister has eaten
the last of the Coco Pops,
the milk has curdled having been
in close proximity to your shirt,
leaving you only with toast
which you have to eat quickly
because you’re late for the coach.

You hurtle to the coach stop
only to see it disappear
into the distance as you arrive.

When you finally get to school,
you find that you’ve left at home
the Latin homework
due in to the Headmaster today
without fail.

And here you are now,
sitting here listening
to a catalogue of your woes on Friday 13th,
worrying about
just how the day has it in for you.

What are you going to do
about all the bad luck that lies in store today?

[PAUSE]

Perhaps you try to ward it off.

Make sure that you don’t walk under a ladder.
Check your Horoscope.
Hope that you’ve packed your lucky rabbit’s foot.

Mug a horse for its shoe.

How do these things really affect your luck
for good or bad?

[PAUSE]

It is possible that there is
some Harry Potter magical connection
between a rabbit’s foot
and having good luck,
but let’s be frank:
it wasn’t terribly lucky for the rabbit,
was it?


A horseshoe may bring good luck,
but not if it falls off the wall
and bounces off of your head.

In our culture today,
there seem to be many
of these superstitions
that still exist.
People are frightened by Friday 13th,
others knock on wood,
or cringe when they cross on the stairs,
others are afraid to tread on the cracks
in the pavement
and so wend their way down the street
skittering about like a sparrow with fleas.

Literally the word “superstition”
means “standing over”
and describes the sense of foreboding
that we get when we know
that something’s not quite right
but cannot put our finger on it.

So, you see,
all superstition has its root in fear,
especially fear of the unknown.

Those who have problems with Friday 13th
are associating a particular day with bad luck
because they have a fear of the unknown future.

It’s true to say to a certain extent
that Friday 13th is statistically unluckier
than other days for the simple reason
that people expect it to be unluckier
than other days.
They engineer their own bad luck,
just as you did when you forgot
to set your alarm last night,
or take your clean shirt off of the floor
out of the way
of a fur-ball ridden moggy.


At the heart of every superstition
lies a great paralysing fear
that can seize control over our lives,
cause us to behave irrationally
and make life less enjoyable for us.

Let’s face it,
we’re going to have some days when things go well,
and days when everything seems to go wrong.

That’s what life is like,
and we cannot escape it.

The best thing we can do
is to look rationally about what we can do
to make the best of the bad times.


We are all afraid of the unknown
– that’s natural.
But think of the fears you’ve already conquered.

Arriving here at Eltham College for the first time,
meeting new faces,
and most chilling of all,
coming face to face with Mr Roberts.

But you got over them,
and you did not need a lucky horseshoe
to get you through them.

[PAUSE]

Sometimes,
life’s bad luck can get very hard,
and lots of people turn to God for guidance.

It’s true that some people think that
if we please God,
then we’ll get good luck.

However,
Christian worship of God is not about
trying to gain His good favour
like some kind of grovelling little toady,
but rather it is about entering into
an active relationship with God.

Christians believe that
because the Lord Jesus has died on our behalf,
there is no need to appease God.

We are already in His good books
if we truly work at a
committed,
sincere
and loving relationship with Him.

However,
that doesn’t mean we escape
bad luck in this life.

There is nothing wrong
in praying to God for good fortune,
but it may be more important for our benefit
that we do not receive what we want in life.

We do not pray to God
just to get our own way
and in order to avoid the bad things
that happen to us.

We do not get good luck
just because we have been good,
or bad luck when we’ve been bad.

God is not a genie,
and our belief in Him has evolved
from this primitive idea.


Christians know that in all things
God works for the good of those who love Him.

This means that even the worst luck
has the potential for making us happy
by making us better people.

It hurts,
but so does having an injection at the dentist.

[PAUSE]

It is Friday 13th today.

Is today really going to be unlucky for you?