• Do more of the things that we already do.
• Do less of the things we already do.
• Start doing new things.
• Stop doing things altogether.
If you think about it, these are the only options we have when we want to make changes in our lives: we can do more, do less, do new things or stop doing things all together. Most of the time when we think about making changes to improve our lives we tend to think about doing more of certain things or adding new practices and routines. For ex,, last week we talked about the spiritual discipline of study and one of the next steps we talked about was taking time everyday to read a chapter from the gospel of Mark. For all of us, this would be doing more of something we already do, or doing something new, and most of the time we talk about improving our lives this is what we talk about, but today I want to challenge that idea and talk about improving our lives by doing less or stop doing things altogether.
I think we would all agree that the world has become and continues to become an increasingly complex place. The amount of information accessible to us continues to increase exponentially. We have the ability to interact with the entire world, technology is advancing faster than we can keep up with and the result of all this complexity is that we actually hunger for simplicity. People respond well to the simple and if you want evidence of this look at the company Apple, maker of the iphone and ipad.. When you look at the Apple iphone / itouch or ipad what you see is a very simple machine. They have one image on the back, an apple, and one big button the front that turns it on, that’s all. It’s simple and the popularity of these machines tell us that people want what’s simple.
Google understands the power of simplicity. If you want to search for something on the internet Google makes it simple. When you go to their home page to search - this is what you find, a simple almost blank page for you to type in your search word or phrase and Google is the #1 search engine in the world. It’s simple and people today want what is simple. As the world becomes more complex, we hunger for simplicity and this is nothing new. Jesus knew people wanted and needed simplicity. Again, the spiritual discipline of simplicity is something we need to pay attention to and embrace in our lives because we learn it from Jesus.
In Jesus day there were 613 laws that the Jewish people had to follow. Now originally God gave just 10 commandments, but then in telling the people how to follow those 10 commandments, hundreds of other laws were written. But the rabbi’s couldn’t keep it to 613 laws, they had to explain in great detail how to follow those 613 laws so they created hundreds of more laws to help the people follow those 613 and we find those laws in a book called the Mishna. So by the time of Jesus, those original 10 commandments had become a vast network of laws that every good Jewish person had to not only know but follow. Things had not only become complex they had become out of control and this is the scene when one of the teachers of the law, someone who would have known all 613 laws plus all the added laws, comes up to Jesus and asks him which of all of these laws is the most important, Mathew 22:37-40.
So Jesus takes the law and instead of making it more complex, he works to make things simple. Jesus says forget the thousands of laws on the books, forget the 613 laws and in some way forget the 10 and focus on the 2. Jesus didn’t call his followers to a complicated faith of intricate laws, but to a simple way of love. Look at Matthew 11:28-30.
Now the yoke of a rabbi that Jesus is talking about here was the teaching that they gave to their followers to obey and while many rabbis were calling their people to follow more and more complicated laws in order to be faithful to God, Jesus called his followers to simplicity. His yoke was easy, there weren’t a lot of laws to know and follow, there was really just one – love. If you loved God and if loved your neighbor then you would fulfill all the laws and grow stronger in your relationship with the living God.
Jesus not only taught about simplicity but he felt so passionately about people living simple lives of faith that we see him go to great lengths to call people to simplicity. One day when Jesus entered the Temple, specifically when he entered into the court of the gentiles which was to be a place of prayer, he saw a very busy and complex marketplace where people were exchanging currency and selling doves so that others could make their offerings to God. Not only was there business going on in this place of prayer, but the Temple had also become a short-cut through the city of Jerusalem, so as Jesus looks around he sees all kinds of people carrying merchandise through the Temple to get where they wanted to go. What Jesus saw in the Temple that day was clutter, a web of activity in a place of prayer and all that business and busyness kept people’s attention and focus away from God. When Jesus drives everyone out of the Temple he is making a pretty bold statement that we need to simplify our lives so that we can get our focus back on God, and this is why we need to take seriously the spiritual discipline of simplicity – we need to simplify our lives so we can get our focus back on God.
This really is the whole point of simplicity; it’s about getting the right priorities and keeping the right focus. When we have too much activity going on in our lives it’s hard to keep our eyes on God and when we have a lot of stuff, literally a lot of possessions and belongings that we have to worry about and take care of, it’s hard to keep our hearts on God. I think this is what Jesus was concerned about when he entered the Temple. He saw people more interested in their businesses and their possessions and their activity instead of their relationship with God. I wonder how Jesus feels about all of our busyness and all of the clutter in our lives. I wonder what Jesus would cleanse from our hearts and what he would drive out of our schedules if he were to enter into the temple of our lives today. I also wonder what God would want to cleanse from us as a church if he entered here today. We are a busy church and sometimes I worry about all of our activity – I wonder at times if all of our activity keeps us from simple devotion to God. Does all our activity – as good and important as it all is – does all our activity keep us from prayer and worship? These spiritual disciplines aren’t just for our personal lives, they have something to say to us as a church and we need to make these disciplines part of our life together if we want to be the church God is calling us to be.
So we need to take seriously the discipline of simplicity because simplicity helps us get our focus on God, but what specifically are we talking about when we talk about living a simple life. Well, we are not talking about returning to 1950’s Mayberry, and we aren’t talking about letting go of all of our responsibilities and activities and getting rid of all our belongings, simplicity shouldn’t start by looking at all that is going on outside of us, it needs to start by looking inside and working to get the right focus and perspective.
A few weeks ago we were looking at Jesus Sermon on the Mount and in that sermon Jesus said, seek first the kingdom of God and this is where the spiritual discipline of simplicity needs to begin. We need to start by putting God back into the center of our lives because if God is not the center then we will try to fill that void with either activity or belongings. In his book, Celebration of Discipline, Richard Foster says, because we lack a divine center our need for security leads us into an insane attachment to things. When God isn’t the center of our lives we are going to fill our lives with bigger, better, faster and newer things in order to feel happy or secure, or else we are going to spin ourselves out of control with activity to help us feel important or significant. When God isn’t the center of lives we will fill our homes with more stuff, our schedules with more activity, our heads with more information and our hearts with more entertainment and it all leads nowhere. When we work to simplify our lives and homes and schedules, however, space is created for us to experience a deeper relationship with God.
So what will simplicity look like in our lives? Like all disciplines, how we live them out will be different. For some of us the problem might be our schedules and so simplicity might mean saying no to some things - so that we have time for God. There were many times Jesus said no to some very good things like healing and helping people so that he could stay focused on God’s plan. Saying no can be a good thing but only if we will then use our time the way God is calling us to. It is difficult to say no when the demands of our jobs or family are so strong, which is why we need to ask God for wisdom and guidance which may only come through the study of God’s word. You see, these disciplines are all interconnected.
For some people, simplicity may mean evaluating our schedules, but others it may call us to take a good hard look at our possessions. We live in a world where everyday we are bombarded with messages that tell us that for a better life we need more things, or new things and so it is easy for us to accumulate a lot of stuff without thinking about how all these things not only take up space in our homes, but in our hearts as well. In Matthew 6:24 Jesus said you can’t serve both God and money, but the word for money goes well beyond cash, it’s the word mammon which means wealth, not only money but possessions, belongings and even a desire for more. When we accumulate more and more in this world we run the risk of having all our possessions begin to possess us which causes us to lose our focus on God, but if we can simplify our lives, literally get rid of some of our things or work to accumulate less, then maybe we can begin to get our focus back on God, so here are three steps we can take to simplify our lives when it comes to our possessions.
When we buy things we need to ask ourselves if we buying them for need and usefulness or for style and status? If we buy something because it is stylish and we think it will elevate our status then we are going to have to keep on buying things because styles change and in order to keep up with the Jones we have to keep buying newer and better things. So when we buy something we need to ask ourselves if we really need it and if it will useful in helping keep our lives simple.
A second question to ask is if we can enjoy things without owning them. I must confess that this something that I need to work on. When I want to read a book my first thought is to go to Amazon.com and buy it, I seem to forget that there is this place called a library where I can check out and read a book without having to own it. You will be glad to know I just got a library card so I can work on this. Not only do we need to work on enjoying things we don’t need to own, but we also need to be willing to share what we have with others so they can enjoy it without owning it themselves. Which leads us to this third question…
Can we give things away? Richard Foster says if we find ourselves becoming attached to our belongings, we might find it liberating to simply give them away. For a number of years before my grandmother died she didn’t buy any Christmas gifts for the family, she simply gave us things that she knew we wanted. I have to say that those gifts are the ones I cherish the most today. As we think about doing some spring cleaning, why not really clean out some clutter and begin to give things away. Give items to the FaithCentre so they can help others, or give away items to the Habitat restore or Centrepeace to help build and furnish homes for those in need. Give things away on freecycle.com to help people who don’t have the money to buy things they need, but work at giving things away and freeing up not just space in our homes, but space in our heart and life for God.
Simplicity may start by putting God at the center of our lives and then allowing God to give shaped to all of our choices, or it may start by making the choice to simplify our lives so that God can return to the center. Either way simplicity is a discipline that needs to become both an inward reality and an outward lifestyle. So I invite you this week to not add more to your schedule, don’t add more to your life, do less and give things away and create space and time to see and hear and experience the presence of God.
