Matthew 6:25-34 Disciplines of Discipleship - Simplicity Sermon preached March 17, 2013 Introduction Heres a little test for

you. Printed right in your bulletin. Goes like this: You get home early. No one else is there. Youve got half an hour all to yourself. What do you do with it? A) Take advantage of the extra time to make a few more business calls. B) Get cracking on some of those household chores. C) Turn on the television D) All of the above. What would you do? Well, Ill bet most of us if were honest, would say D - some combination of all of the above. There is no correct answer to this quiz, says the writer. But there is a better answer: E) Get out your harmonica, sit yourself down on the back steps and play, Turkey in the Straw. Where we are and how we got here We are a multi-tasking, over-programmed, over-stressed, hurry-up-and-get-to-the-nextthing kind of people. Our lives our over-stuffed with commitments and things that demand our time. Our minds can sometimes hardly focus on whats right in front of us because we know we have seventeen other things on our to-do-list. And worst of all, our souls are being starved by our stand-in-front-of-the-microwave-andyell-hurry-up lifestyles. Because our lifestyles, its like they are designed precisely to crowd out the possibility of a real and vital relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ. So what I have here, is a sermon on simplicity. On why and how we can simplify our 1

lives and find greater joy and peace, how we can become more effective in our families and at work, and most of all, how we can grow deeper in love for the Lord Jesus Christ. And Im calling simplicity a discipline of discipleship - one, because we cant effectively serve our Lord unless we simplify our lives; and two, because its a discipline, its hard and takes work. So whats the way out? Well, its not time management. It can be useful but usually just allows us to cram more stuff into the day. The way to simplicity is finding an organizing principle for our lives that helps us discern what is important and whats not. Well, Ive got that organizing principle for you this morning - from our scripture reading. Organizing principle sounds so - clinical - its better than that - its a whole new vision of life that Jesus gives us The passage from Matthew we read is part of the longest block of teaching that Jesus gave, and its known as the Sermon on the Mount. And in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus is painting a picture of how human life is meant to be when lived under the loving rule of God - what Jesus called the Kingdom of God. Now, nowhere does Jesus define in a neat little sentence what the Kingdom is. Its too big for that. Flannery OConnor, the great southern writer, was once asked to summarize the meaning of one of her stories in a sentence or two - boil it down - and she said, If I could summarize it in a sentence or two, I wouldnt have had to write the story. And Jesus - he described the Kingdom of God using stories that we call parables, and he used similes - the Kingdom of God is like...a mustard seed that grew into a tree where the birds of the air perch in its branches. Scholars say that the simile of the Kingdom of God being like a tree had huge meaning to Jesus hearers. \ God created human beings to be in relationship with him and we were built to flourish in his presence - and the Garden of Eden story describes paradise as being in the presence of God - but human beings rebelled against God so we could be our own masters - and the presence of God withdrew and heaven became remote from earth. And everything unraveled - violence, war, the rich abusing the poor, men dominating women, slavery, everything that is wrong with the world is because we rejected God and God, respecting our wishes, withdrew. And without Gods presence, we as individuals suffer emotional, spiritual, psychological 2

disintegration. But theres still a God-shaped emptiness within us - and to fill that empty place we stuff our lives full of obligations and activities and things - but it never satisfies us and we end up more miserable and depressed. As one writer put it, were like fish flopping about in puddles, barely kept alive because the things we give our lives to, are too small for us. But the prophets foresaw a day when heaven and earth would be reconnected. And they saw this in the image of a great tree - the tree of life - God would come and plant a tree and that symbolized that God was re-planting the Garden that we left, and that we would be in Gods presence again - and the tree would provide shelter and food for all Gods creatures - thats what Jesus meant by saying the Kingdom of God starts small like a mustard seed but grows into this great tree in which the birds perch. And the astounding thing is that Jesus said, that Kingdom is here with me. Jesus was saying, I am Gods presence, invading the world to bring you back into the presence of God. All your hopes and dreams and needs, the deepest things inside you, are fulfilled in me. And thats what Jesus was calling people to - to know God personally through him and to give ourselves to building that Kingdom so earth and heaven are reconnected and all the mess of this world is healed. Seek first Gods kingdom and his righteousness, said Jesus - make that your first priority, your main goal, and you will find everything your heart craves. How this works What we have to do, is make seeking Gods kingdom the first priority in our lives around which we organize our lives. Thats the way to simplicity. Heres the first way it works. Helping us choose which commitments to make and which to let go. Lets say its 7:30 and youve just finished cleaning up after dinner and the phone rings. Its someone calling to ask you to serve on a committee to put together an event to raise money for a charity. Or to help coach a youth baseball team. Or work on a candidates political campaign. They are all good and worthy things. But if you said yes to all those kinds of phone calls, youd be a wreck. Lots of times, though, we say yes, to all of it.

The result? Someone once defined stress as what happens when your gut says no and your mouth says, Of course, Id be glad to. Now, why do we do that? Sometimes its because we want people to like us. Sometimes its because we have a hard time saying no. But C.S. Lewis pointed out that we are often seduced into serving on committees and whatever by the promise of entering the inner circle that shows you are a person that matters - It is tiring and unhealthy to lose your Saturday afternoons, but to have them free because you don't matter, that is much worse.1 But to be a Christian is to be enlisted in Gods great project of reclaiming and healing the world. To be a Christian is to know that you matter to God, that God looks at you with a million times more love than you felt when you first held your newborn child. You matter to God, and God has given you the greatest mission of all time. Who cares if other people think you matter? Using the Kingdom Test And heres how you learn to prioritize and to say No. Give your optional responsibilities the kingdom test. When these demands come at you, you sit in meditative prayer and ask God, Is this going to advance your kingdom? Sometimes youll know that it really doesnt - and so you can let it go. And it you have a number of opportunities that actually do pass the kingdom test, then you ask yourself, which one will best use my gifts and talents, within the time I have, to advance Gods kingdom? Ok, then do the Kingdom test with your current obligations. Be ruthless, and cut things out that dont pass the test. And finally, do the Kingdom test with the activities that our children can participate in do they really need to do all this stuff and is it really going to help them love Jesus Christ and build his kingdom as they grow - or are we acting out of our parental anxiety that if we dont we are depriving our children? Step Two - Trust God to Provide Ok, heres the second move towards simplicity. Trust God to provide. Jesus said, seek first Gods kingdom and righteousness and everything else will be added to you as well. Sometimes part of the reason for our frantic busyness and overstuffed lives is anxiety - that I have to work harder to make more money to secure the future, that 4

I have to do more to be a worthwhile person or parent. But Jesus says, make the Kingdom your first priority and everything you need God will give you. Its like biblical scholar Dale Brunner wrote, While disciples seek Gods kingdom in the front or living room of their lives, possessions are brought in the back door (by God) and deposited in the kitchen...the Father has a special delivery service that brings to the back door the very things for which the secular world spends its whole time shopping.2 And we can trust in this because of who God is. \ There is a great Hebrew word used in the Old Testament for Gods love - Hesed which is usually translated loving-kindness. But its a hard word to translate with one English word. Hesed refers to Gods love; his reliable, permanent, enduring love that is always with us. Because of Gods hesed love, Jesus can tell us to have no anxiety about anything because God will provide for us. God can be trusted - with our fears, with our futures, with our needs, and God will not let us down. Gods hesed love is something like the story the writer Tim Hansel tells In his book Holy Sweat. Hansel was climbing around in some cliffs in the country with his son Zack. Suddenly Hansel heard a voice from above him yell, Hey Dad! Catch me! Hansel turned around to see Zack joyfully jumping off a rock straight at him, having jumped first and yelled to his dad second. Hansel said he felt like an instant circus act, catching his son. They both fell to the ground in a heap. With the wind knocked out of him Hansel finally managed to gasp out, Zack! Can you give me one good reason why you did that? Zack replied, Sure! Because youre my dad!3 You and I can trust God like that boy. And if you and I center our lives around Gods hesed love, and trust God to provide, we can begin simplifying our overstuffed lives, and find some of the peace God wishes for us. Third step - pare it down And finally, the way to simplicity is to pare down all this stuff in our lives. To talk about this, Im going to have to say a very bad four-letter word. It is perhaps the foulest and most dangerous four-letter word in the English language. Im not doing this for shock value, but to make a point, a very important point. And Im sorry if it offends you, but I must say this four-letter word. Here it is - more. More! 5

Because the other main reason our lives are so over-stuffed is that we have too much stuff. And the more stuff we have, the more complicated our lives become. Thats because our possessions - our homes, cars, appliances, gadgets, toys, tools - all require our care and attention and maintenance; they have a way of cluttering up our lives and robbing us of time and energy. In a study published last year titled Life at Home in the Twenty-First Century, researchers at U.C.L.A. observed 32 middle-class Los Angeles families and found that all of the mothers stress hormones spiked during the time they spent dealing with their belongings. Seventy-five percent of the families involved in the study couldnt park their cars in their garages because they were too jammed with things.4 Now, as a preacher-man, I have had in the past the conceit that I live simply because I, being the spiritual type, am not seduced by the false promises of consumerism - that more stuff equals more happiness. That conceit was punctured again during our move here. We got rid of stuff for months - even if we werent going to move we knew we had to downsize - I gave away hundreds of books, armloads of clothes - we went through the whole house and ruthlessly got rid of stuff - and then the movers arrived - and still it took two 26-foot and one 16-foot truck to haul our stuff to Chambersburg. Heres a couple of radical ideas. When we think we want to buy something, ask ourselves, is that really a good use of the money God has entrusted to us, and is that thing going to make our lives easier or more complicated? And then take a look at what you own now. If some of our things are making our lives more complicated than they are helping us, get rid of them. If we have too much stuff to keep track of and its bursting out of our garages and we have to have a storage unit to hold it, get rid of some of it. Its like George Carlin said, a house is just a place for your stuff. And when you get more stuff, time to move to a bigger house. How about our homes being homes for us to live in rather than store stuff that we dont need? And heres something else from my own experience. Another way we tried to live simply was by driving older cars. But they were breaking down all the time and costing me time and money to keep them running. Sometimes cheaper, older things make your life more complicated, not less. Our lives would be simpler if we had fewer, higher quality things. Closing Well, in closing, the writer Kathleen Norris, whose books I commend to you, is a 6

Presbyterian elder who visits a Benedictine monastery from time to time to recharge her spiritual batteries. In her book Cloister Walk she tells of the time she visited with a Benedictine sister who, next to a shelf that held socks, underwear and a sweater, had all the clothing she owned hung on several pegs - her spare habit, made of plain denim, a simple kerchief she wore as a veil, a long winter cloak and a lightweight one for spring and fall. Norris says, it took her breath away, and some words from St. Teresa of Avila popped into her mind: Thank God for the things I do not own. She goes on to comment, I could suddenly grasp that not having to think about what to wear was freedom, that a drastic stripping down to essentials...might also be a drastic enrichment of ones ability to focus on more important things.5 Might be something to that. Amen. Endnotes 1. C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory, in A Chorus of Witnesses, Thomas G. Long and Cornelius Plantinga Jr., editors, p. 227. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995. 2. Dale Bruner, Matthew: Volume 1 The Christbook, p. 269. Dallas: Word Publishing, 1987. 3. Dynamic Preaching, Jan-Feb-March 2000, p. 50. 4. Graham Hill, Living With Less - A Lot Less, in The New York Times, March 9, 2013. 5. Kathleen Norris, Cloister Walk, pp. 327-328. New York: Riverhead Books, 1996.