Sunday 9 October 2016

October 9, 2016 sermon - A Lemonade Recipe

These are the words of the letter that the prophet Jeremiah sent from Jerusalem to the remaining elders among the exiles, and to the priests, the prophets, and all the people, whom Nebuchadnezzar had taken into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon. ... Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat what they produce. Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not decrease. But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.
(Jeremiah 29:1 & 4-7)

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     I think that I'm on pretty safe ground in assuming that most of you have probably never heard of Marshall P. Wilder.

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Today he's largely unknown. But in the 1890's and early 1900's, Marshall P. Wilder was one of the most famous men in the world. He was a very successful actor. He began his career by performing one man comedy monologues, and eventually branched out into vaudeville and the stage and finally became a significant figure in the very early days of motion pictures. Wilder made several world tours, and regularly performed in London. He was a favourite of the British royal family and became a close personal friend of the then Prince of Wales, who would become King Edward VII. He was also a successful author who wrote several books. At the height of his career, Wilder had an annual income in the five figures – and while that doesn't sound like very much today, by the standards of that day it was an astronomical amount of money. But the most astonishing thing about Marshall P. Wilder was that he shouldn't have been that successful. You see, to use the language of that day, Marshall P. Wilder was a dwarf.

 Image result for marshall p. wilder

He also had a severe spinal deformity. In that era, the most Wilder should have been able to expect out of a career in entertainment was a place in a carnival freakshow. In fact, he was offered such a position by no less a figure than P.T. Barnum. But Wilder was determined to overcome the odds against him, and in 1907 the Syracuse Herald wrote of one of his performances that “his pathos, his humor, his indescribable droll and uplifting optimism keeps bubbling forth all through the evening.” A few years later, the Washington Post wrote that “Wilder coaxed the frown of adverse fortune into a smile,” a line that was illustrated in ths 1905 pictorial from Theatre Magazine, called “The Evolution Of A Smile.”

 Image result for marshall p. wilder

Another of Wilder's friends was a Christian writer named Elbert Hubbard, and writing of his friend, Hubbard wrote in 1915 that “he picked up the lemons that fate had sent him, and started a lemonade-stand.” That's the first known version of the now familiar proverb that advises us “when life hands you a lemon, turn it into lemonade.” Many others have used variations on the phrase. Julius Rosenwald, who was part owner of Sears Roebuck and Dale Carnegie. Eminem and Beyonce have incorporated it into songs. Tammy Faye Baaker used the phrase. But I like Hubbard's version because it speaks of a lemonade stand, reminding us that whatever positive we create out of the adversity of life is meant not only for ourselves, but also to make a positive difference in the lives of others.

     It was after his death that Elbert Hubbard coined that earliest version of the now well known saying when, in an obituary, he wrote it of Wilder, “He picked up the lemons that fate had sent him and started a lemonade stand.” In other words, life handed Marshall P. Wilder lemons, and Marshall P. Wilder turned them into lemonade. I thought about that as I read the passage from the prophet Jeremiah this week.

     It's not your typical Thanksgiving reading. In fact, there's not a single message here about giving thanks to anyone, never mind giving thanks to God. To be honest, there was very little reason for thanksgiving among God's people at the time. A little context is necessary. As Jeremiah writes these words he's reflecting upon the fact that God's people – Israel and Judah – have been conquered by Babylon. The land was laid waste, the temple was destroyed, the people were in exile. Nothing was as it had been. Life had handed the people of God a huge lemon. When you get that kind of lemon handed to you there are a lot of possible responses. Just think about it.

     Some people will fall into never-ending despair over what they've lost. Some people will simply become angry about what they can't have. Some people will spend their time lamenting what they don't have. None of those options are good ways of making lemonade out of lemons. If anything they just make the lemon more bitter. Grieving what we've lost is understandable, but to fall into despair is to be trapped in the past and unable to move on. Lamenting what we don't have is to give up on possibilities and to simply settle for things the way they are. To be angry about the things we can't have (because none of us can have everything) is to fall into covetousness – and covetousness in some ways is that foundation of every bad behaviour in existence, because others have something that we want. In all those cases, there's a loss of hope, and life gets sapped of its vibrancy. God's people had to deal with those options after the war with Babylon. They had lost everything, and there was no guarantee that they were going to get any of it back.

     God's people fell into all three of the camps I just spoke about. Some fell into inconsolable despair, some into endless lamentation and some into barely controlled anger. And so Jeremiah the prophet wrote a letter to the exiles to tell them that they were going to be in Babylon for quite a while and so they would have to learn to simply get on with life:

Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat what they produce. Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not decrease. But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.

     You're going to be here for a while, he said. Quite a while. (Seventy years, actually, history tells us.) So you have to make the best of it. Don't despair, don't lament, don't lash out – make the best of it. Those words from Jeremiah offer a simple but powerful message for not only how to make the best of it, but actually to start to appreciate what you have. And if we're talking about making lemonade from lemons, that's really the recipe. Because if we can learn to appreciate what we have, we can also become thankful – as Paul said, in any and all circumstances. That's the recipe for making lemonade from lemons. That's how we prevent disappointment and lamentation and anger from taking over. We add a little appreciation and a little thankfulness and – before you know – it, we're leading a life in which we can marvel at little things and express wonder at simple things and be joyful over everyday things. If we can live with that kind of attitude then life can throw lemons at us. It won't matter. We can make lemonade of it – just as God's people made lemonade thousands of years ago. They were defeated and exiled, tossed out of their homes and taken away from everything familiar, but the prophet Jeremiah told them to make a home out of where they were.

     We all face times when giving thanks doesn't seem to be a reasonable thing to do – times when, perhaps, it seems that simply being thankful for what we have is impossible. I have no doubt that there are some here today who for one reason or another don't feel especially thankful. And it's especially hard at Thanksgiving, when we're not only faced with the Christian ideal of being thankful at all times and in all circumstances, but when we're told by the season that we should be thankful. So, we learn from Jeremiah that whatever our circumstances are and as unfair as they may seem we have to engage in the process of taking those circumstances and turning them around and continuing to live life to the full – being thankful for what we have rather than despairing over what we've lost, lamenting what we don't have or being angry about what we can't have.

     I started by reflecting on the life of Marshall P. Wilder, who overcame what at the time would have been insurmountable obstacles that could have confined him to a pitiful and miserable life as a side show freak and became a respected author and actor. In 1940, The Rotarian published this poem, which was written as a testimony to Wilder on the 25th anniversary of his death:

Life handed him a lemon,
As Life sometimes will do.
His friends looked on in pity,
Assuming he was through.
They came upon him later,
Reclining in the shade
In calm contentment, drinking
A glass of lemonade.

     For all the challenges he faced, Wilder was thankful. For all the challenges they faced, the people of God learned to be thankful. May we, on this Thanksgiving weekend, learn the secret of turning lemons into lemonade, and may we, as God's people, be truly thankful, in whatever circumstances we may find ourselves.

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