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Just where did the summer go? What happened? School is ready to start. Labor Day is here. And, it seems as if we should be starting the summer! This Labor Day, I want to talk briefly about work—labor—and the difference between “living to work” and “working to live.” We don’t oftentimes think the difference between those concepts because many of us are so caught up in the former—living to work—that we forget the latter—working to live—which enables us to put labor into its proper context in terms of our limited number of days. Sadly, we can labor and labor and labor away—and many of us do—and never live one day, as God intends. At 87 years of age, Oseola McCarty gave the University of Southern Mississippi in 1995 a gift of $150,000 to finance scholarships for poor and needy students. It really wasn’t much of a gift if only because $150,000 isn’t capable of generating enough interest to pay one year of tuition for one student. Now, in contrast to Oseola McCarty’s gift to the University of Southern Mississippi, consider these gifts which constitute the 15 largest gifts to the nation’s universities since 1980: · The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation gave $1 billion dollars in 1999. · The Ingram Charitable Fund gave $300 million in stock in 1998 to Vanderbilt University. · In 1996, Emory University received from the Lettie Pate Evans, Joseph B. Whitehead, and Robert W. Woodruff Foundations $295 million in stock. · The University of California at San Francisco in 1998 received from the estate of Larry L. Hillblom, up to $240 million in stock, land, and other assets to establish the Larry L. Hillblom Foundation, which supports medical research at the university and to be of benefit to other charities. · In 1994, New York University received from Sir Harold Acton a 57-acre Italian estate, a collection of Renaissance art with a value estimated by the university to be more than $125 million and perhaps as much as $500 million, along with at least $25 million in cash. · In 1997, the Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering received from the F.W. Olin Foundation at least $200 million in cash to establish the college. · James H. Clark gave Stanford University $150 million of undisclosed assets in 1999. · In 1998, Mildred Topp Othmer gave the University of Nebraska $125 million cash and, in 1998, Mildred and her husband, Donald, followed that gift up with another gift of $144.2 million in cash to Polytechnic University. · In 1997, DePauw University received from Ruth Clark and Philip Forbes Holton $128 million in stock. · Claude B. (Doc) Pennington gave Louisiana State University $125 million in stock and gas-and-oil royalties in 1981. · In 1993, Walter H. Annenberg gave the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Southern California $120 million cash each.
·
The
University of Southern California received $110 million in cash from the
W.M. Keck Foundation in 1999. Now, those are some “serious” donations! And, in comparison to those 15 gifts to some of the nation’s most prestigious universities, Oseola McCarty’s gift to the University of Southern Mississippi certainly was meager if not paltry and hardly worth a mention. But, upon closer inspection, Oseola McCarty’s gift reveals something very important about Oseola McCarty that none of those other 15 gifts could ever reveal about their donors. You see, Oseola McCarty earned the money that eventually would become her gift to the University of Southern Mississippi over seven and one-half decades of work as a laundress for the “somebodies” of this world. Her “gift” was a true gift, one representing how Oseola McCarty worked to live and her generous nature. How many people do you know who have far more prestigious jobs and spend many, many hours living to work yet are more concerned with “getting for themselves” than being truly generous with the “fruit of their labors”? Because her aunt became ill when Oseola McCarty was 11 years old, Oseola wasn’t able to go to school beyond sixth grade. She had to help her family make ends meet. Once working, Oseola McCarty was never able to return to school. And so, for the next 75 years, Oseola McCarty worked as a laundress, first beside her grandmother, who died in 1944; then beside her mother, who died in 1964; and lastly, with her aunt, who died three years later in 1967. Alone since 1967, Oseola McCarty continued to wash the laundry of the somebodies of this world until 1996, when at 86 years of age, arthritis forced her to retire. All through her life, Oseola McCarty took great pride in what many others (and many of us!) might characterize as her meager work, possessed deep faith in God, and saved what little money she had. Oseola McCarty describes her philosophy of work, faith, and life in her book, Simple Wisdom for Rich Living. Oseola always believed in hard work. She says, “There is time enough for all the things that a person really wants to do. When I was working, I got only three or four hours of sleep each night. Sometimes I worked straight through for two or three days. I had goals I was working toward. That motivated me and I was able to push hard.” How did she save so much money? Oseola began saving as a little girl. Her motive at the time was to have candy money. She then started saving for her future by going to the bank once a month. She would keep just enough to cover living expenses and place the remainder into a savings account. Oseola says, “Every month I’d save the same and put it away. I was consistent.” There’s a difference between “wanting and needing,” she was fond of saying. “I was happy with what I had.” Her belief in the Bible is unwavering. She states that the Bible “means the same today that it meant yesterday....Everything that is happening now was going on then. It can still tell us how we should live.” And what about herself and her gift to the University of Southern Mississippi? “I am nobody special,” Oseola McCarty maintains. “I am a plain, common person...no better than anybody else...I don't want to be put up on a pedestal; I want to stay right here on the ground.” In 1999, Oseola McCarty died of cancer at the age of 91. All of her life, Oseola McCarty was a “nobody” and for her labor, Oseola McCarty was paid a nobody’s salary. She never squandered her paltry earnings but, instead, after providing for her needs and those of her family, Oseola put away what little she could. Then, by the time Oseola was 87, she had saved $150,000. And, what did she do? Oseola gave it away so that poor and needy students could receive some financial assistance to attend the University of Southern Mississippi. In our highly competitive, win-at-all costs culture, the temptation is to “live to work” because we use money, homes, cars, and other such trophies and possessions to measure not only how successful we are in comparison to others but also to measure our self-worth. The bigger the bank account, the larger the home, the greater the number of cars, and being able to sport the latest and greatest of trinkets and baubles makes us feel successful in the eyes of the somebodies and proud of ourselves. That’s a spiritual disease, one which forces us “to live to work” rather than “to work to live.” We then end up wanting more than we need, we become greedy and covetous rather than generous, and we never really live one single day because we spend all of our days living to work. And, of course, then we die. To what end? It didn’t take making a generous gift to the University of Southern Mississippi to make Oseola McCarty a “somebody.” What we tend to forget because we are too busy living to work so that we can become a somebody in the eyes of this world is that Oseola McCarty and every other nobody has always been “somebody” where it counts most, namely, in God’s eyes. These somebodies worked to live and lived full days. Yes, they worked very hard. Yes, they didn’t make a lot of money. Yes, they didn’t have everything they wanted. But, in their hearts, these somebodies in God’s eyes were generous not greedy and covetous, happy with what they had and not wanting more than they needed. And they died having lived full days, as God intends. Honest, God-fearing, and hardworking people of meager means aren’t likely to garner much media attention and, the truth be told, these people—like Oseola McCarty—aren’t much interested in receiving media attention. They work to live and they don’t view themselves as special. No, they view themselves as no better than everybody else because, for them, being somebody in God’s eyes is all that is truly necessary to live full days—however few or many they may be—in this life. On this Labor Day, we need to ponder carefully the wisdom of Oseola McCarty as well as the words of scripture, of which Oseola McCarty said they mean the same thing today that they meant yesterday. “My child, conduct your affairs with humility, and you will be loved more than a giver of gifts….and you will find favor with God,” Sirach wrote perhaps 2500 years ago. And to his disciples, Jesus said almost 2000 years ago: “For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.” Why is humility so important to our growth as spiritual beings and why is pride so destructive? It may just well be that in our culture only a humble person is able to work to live and so to be able to give generously of one’s time, talent, and treasure to the point what is given is a true gift. Viewed from the perspective of scripture, it wasn’t generosity that made those 15 gifts to the nation’s universities possible. No, it was material affluence that was the by-product of people who lived to work. And, now, the donors could savor all of those feelings of pride that come with being recognized as somebodies in the eyes of this world. In the end, however, those extremely large gifts weren’t true gifts revealing humble and generous souls. No, only Oseola McCarty’s paltry gift of $150,000 to the University of Southern Mississippi evidenced a truly humble and generous woman. Oseola McCarty worked to live because she was content simply with being recognized as a somebody in God’s eyes.
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HOMILY
