AT ALL POINTS ALONG THE WAY Proverbs 30:21-23 August 19, 2012

When I was growing up my Granddaddy used to say to me all the time: “Life is pretty much what you make it.” And I used to wonder how can that be? You can’t control whether you are born into a rich family or a poor family. You can’t control whether you get sick or stay healthy. You can’t even really control who your friends are. They either like you or they don’t. But as I got older it began to occur to me that actually Granddaddy was right. Because, no we can’t control whether we get sick or not, but we can control how we react to that sickness: whether we fight to keep on living our lives as much as we can or whether we give in to a “poor pitiful me” attitude. And no, we can’t control whether the oven blows up right in the middle of cooking Thanksgiving dinner with 15 people in the living room. But we can control how we react to it. Whether we will react in such a way that years later when someone says “remember that Thanksgiving when the oven blew up and we had to eat baloney and cheese out of the refrigerator?” And everybody laughs and says “you know, that was probably my favorite Thanksgiving of all”. Or - Everybody shudders and says “glory, don’t even mention that. That was horrible. I thought we were going to have to take Mama to the emergency room.” It’s all in the way we react to life as it happens. So, no, we can’t control what happens to us, but yes, we can control how we react to what happens. And therefore, yes – life is pretty much what we make it. The choices we make – how we respond to life – determines if we become forgiving and gracious people or angry and bitter people – patient and hopeful or vengeful and violent – someone others love and trust or someone others avoid at all costs. Now, its tempting to blame our shortfalls and failings on things that happen to us: I was born with a bad temper. So I have no choice but to blow up now and again. Or If I hadn’t lost my job I wouldn’t have treated my kids so badly - or If my teachers had been better in school, I would have made better grades and could have got a better job. But sooner or later those things become clear for what they are: excuses – excuses for the bad ways we react to what life brings. Because in the end what defines us as people is not what happens to us in life, but how we react to what happens to us. Life is pretty much what we make it. Every time I come across this short proverb I have shared with you today from the thick book of ancient Easter-Mediterranean wisdom we call Proverbs, I think of my Granddaddy. Because the point of this Proverb is to introduce us to four moments in life – four situations when the potential exists to drastically effect our whole lives, by how we react to the circumstances we find ourselves in. Life is what we make it – and what will we make it when a slave becomes a King? When a fool is filled with food. A maid succeeds her mistress? Or an unloved woman marries?

So what happens when a slave becomes a King? We can’t always control how other people treat us – by power of violence or unjust law enslave us, but we can control how we treat other people, whether we are a slave or a king. Frederick Douglass was born into slavery in the American South in the 1820’s.

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Ghengis Khan was captured in a raid by a neighboring tribe at the age of 7 in Mongolia in the year 1162. Frederick Douglass wore deep thick scars on his back all his life from being whipped with a leather bull whip. Ghengis Khan saw his father murdered before his seven year old eyes and then grew up with a heavy wooden yoke chained around his neck. Both men lived to escape slavery. Both men lived lives in response to what had happened to them as slaves. Ghengis Khan became very powerful. He was brilliant, but his memory of slavery drove him to conquer other people so he would never be a slave again. He created the largest war machine ever to cross Central Asia, conquering China and territories of Persia, Russia, and India. He was brutal and ruled by terror – destroying life viciously and brutally in order to control it. Frederick Douglass became a powerful man as well – a United States Ambassador, an advisor to Presidents – called by Abraham Lincoln “the most meritorious man of the 19th century”. Because where Ghengis Khan became like – and worse than – the evil done to him, Frederick Douglass devoted his life to making sure no one would have to suffer what he had suffered. He worked nonstop to end slavery in the United States, crying out from all platforms for justice. But when John Brown led a slave uprising in Harper’s Ferry, taking up guns to fight, Frederick Douglass stood against him. “We will not give in to violence. We must resist doing what was done to us because then we become like them.” Two men – same situation. One reacted to his situation to become violent and filled with hatred. One became determined to fight oppression without becoming an oppressor.

The book, The Help by Katharyn Stockett is fiction, but describes in wonderful detail what we all

know to be true about life in the American South in the 1960’s. When a generation of black women found themselves with options other than working as maids in white households. So what happens when a maid succeeds her mistress? Well some maids became racist themselves – believing and teaching their children that all white people are evil and must be avoided at all costs. Others extended themselves past the racial divide, determined to hold on to a vision of united humanity of all colors. You and I, we can’t control that most of us were born into the racist culture of the American South, but we can control how we react to that culture. We can choose not to use language we hear others use that is derogatory towards another race. We can choose not to join clubs or organizations that are racially exclusive and we can examine the sociological constructs passed to us by other generations to see if they make sense. Years ago while I was still in school I was a counselor at CYF Conference at Camp Caroline and my co-counselor was blind. It was a challenging week as we all learned to do what we needed to do to include someone with this kind of handicap into our community. But we all quickly learned to love him. His name was James and he was a student at the Morehead School for the Blind in Raleigh. He was also African American. Towards the end of the week, he was telling us about his wife – someone he had met at the School for the Blind and we asked him did he have a picture. And he did – he couldn’t see the picture, but we could. He showed it to us and she was just as blonde and white as she could be. Later I heard my girls talking. “I can’t believe he married a white girl.” “Why not? He can’t see her!” “ You know somebody told them he was black and she was white.” “So what if they did? They don’t know the difference. They can’t see!”

-3- Later, I thought, “you know Jesus had something to say about our eyes. When they cause us to sin, pluck them out.” Maybe, when it comes to the sin of racism, we’d all be better off if we were blind.

We can’t control the circumstances of our lives, but we can control how we react to

those circumstances.

Next, the Proverb says “A fool when he becomes full of food?” The way I see it a fool who suddenly strikes it rich, has essentially two choices – either be grateful and share what he has with those who are still poor or feel entitled – adopt the idea that somehow he is special and worthy of this sudden blessing. “I’m wealthy. You are not. So I must be better than you. I deserve what I have.” I have often heard that you’re probably better off financially not to win the lottery because many people who do, lose it all and more in a few years. So I thought I’d check it out and I goggled “Lottery Winners”. Sure enough, story after story of people who ended up destitute after winning the lottery. One website – Journal Star – estimated as high as 70% of lottery winners lose all their winnings in three years or less.. Why do lottery winners quit their jobs and start buying things they can’t afford? (Because there are things even millionaires can’t afford). Who knows. But it is striking to me that in the stories I read there is a noticeable lack of any sense of accountability. No sense that “I have been blessed with this money, therefore I have the responsibility to bless others with it.” Instead, more of a sense of “I got this money because I’m lucky. I’m special. Therefore I deserve it and deserve what I can get with it.”

You know, every person in this room has more financial advantages than the majority of other humans on the planet. Yet, none of us earned the privilege of being born in America. We just got lucky. Now, will we use our blessing to bless others - or will we squander it because we believe we somehow are special and personally deserve it? We can’t control the circumstances of our lives, but we can control how

we react to them.

Under three things the earth trembles; A slave when he becomes a king, And a fool when he is filled with food; An unloved woman when she gets a husband, And a maid when she succeeds her mistress. Years ago when I was a student at Atlantic Christian, one of my favorite professors was a Disciples minister and philosophy professor, Eugene Purcell. Mr. Purcell was a great story- teller and I loved to hear him tell stories. And one he told was about a student he had taught when he first started teaching at AC. She was an older student, coming back as a second career student. Very shy. Very soft spoken. Got lost in the rush in the halls – someone you just glanced over the top of while teaching. “Mousy”, he said. “Nice, very polite, but just sort of bland.”

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But one day, Mr. Purcell was lecturing along and he happened to look at her and he was struck that something looked different. Not her hair – same color. Not new clothes – same tan sweater. Not new classes – but it was something about her eyes – they were sorta sparkling like a radiance coming from inside her. And he noticed it the next day and the next and it was growing. She wasn’t changing her hair or her clothes, but right in front of his eyes she was changing into one of the most beautiful women he had ever seen. And she was speaking out in class – talking to people in the halls – laughing and smiling. So one day, he asked her “What is going on in your life. You are different than you were at the first of the year.” And she laughed this wonderful laugh and said “well, I have fallen in love and he has asked me to marry him.” “That’s it” Mr. Purcell said. But he wasn’t talking about just a woman and a man. You know the church is the Bride of Christ. And you and I are members of the Bride. That means each one of us here today – despite our sin – our mistakes – our bad attitudes – our ugly natures – are loved deeply and completely by the God who created us, from our heads down to our toes. This means we are the ugly, sinful, unlovable person who now is deeply and completely loved. The only question, therefore, is simply this: How will we react to this love? How will this love effect our lives? How will we let love change us? We can’t control the circumstances of our lives but we can control how we react to them. The circumstance of our lives is God’s great love. How will we react? It’s the only thing that matters. Because when it’s all said and done Life is – pretty much – what we make it.

Thanks be to God, Amen