The Discipline of Simplicity

Bienhome Muivah *

MBC Centre Church, Imphal in November 2013 :: Pix - Gnet

When we are truly in this interior simplicity our whole appearance is Franker, more natural. This true simplicity … makes us conscious of a certain openness, gentleness, innocence, gaiety, and serenity, which is charming when we see it near to and continually, with pure eyes. O, how amiable this simplicity is! Who will give it to me? I leave all for this. It is the pearl of the Gospel.
Francois Fenelon

Simplicity is freedom. Duplicity is bondage. Simplicity brings joy and balance. Duplicity brings anxiety and fear. The preacher of Ecclesiastes observes that "This only have I found: God made mankind upright, but men have gone in search of many schemes" (Ecclesiastes 7:29). Because many of us are experiencing the liberation God brings through simplicity we are once again singing and old shaker hymn:
Tis the gift to be simple,
Tis the gift to be free,
Tis the gift to come down where you ought to be,
And when we find ourselves in the place just right,
Twill be in the valley of love and delight.

The Christian discipline of simplicity is an inward reality that results in an outward life-style. Both the inward and the outward aspects of simplicity are essential. We deceive ourselves if we believe we can possess the inward reality without its having a profound effect on how we live. To attempt, to arrange an outward life-style of simplicity without the inward reality leads to deadly legalism.

Simplicity begins in inward focus and unity. It means to live out of what Thomas Kelly calls "The Divine centre."

Experiencing the inward reality liberated us outwardly. Speech becomes truthful and honest. The lust for status and position is gone because we no longer need status and position. We cease from showy extravaganza, not on the grounds of principle, our goods becomes available to others. We join the experience that Richard E. Byrd, after months alone in the barren Arctic recorded in his journal, "I am leaving … that man can live profoundly without masses of things."

Contemporary culture lacks both the inward reality and the outward life-style of simplicity. We live in the modern world, and we are affected by its fractured and fragmented state. We are trapped in a maze of competing attachments. One moment we make decisions on the basis of sound reason and the next moment out of fear of what others will think of us. We have no unity or focus around which our lives are oriented. Because we lack a divine centre, our need for security has led us into an insane attachment to things. We really must understand that the lust for affluence in contemporary society is psychotic. It is psychotic because it has completely lost touch with reality. We crave things we neither need nor enjoy.

Where planned obsolescence leave off, psychological obsolescence takes over. We are made to feel ashamed to wear clothes or drive cars until they are worn out. The mass media have convened us that to be out of step with fashion is to be out of step with reality. It is time we awaken to the fact that conformity to a sick society is to be sick. Until we see how unbalanced our culture has become at this point, we will not be able to deal with the mammon spirit within ourselves nor will we desire Christian simplicity.

This psychosis permeates even our mythology. The modern hero is the poor boy who voluntarily becomes rich rather than the rich boy who voluntarily becomes poor. Covetousness we call ambition. Hoarding we call prudence. Greed we call industry.

Further, it is important to understand that the modern counter culture is hardly an improvement. It is a superficial change in life style without dealing seriously with the root problems of a consumer society. Because the counter culture has always locked a positive centre, it has inevitably degenerated into trivia.

Courageously, we need to articulate new, more human ways to live. We should take exception to the modern psychosis that defines by how much they can produce or what they earn. We should experiment with bold new alternatives to the present death-giving system. The spiritual discipline of simplicity is not a lost dream, but a recurrent vision throughout history. It can be recaptured today. It must be.

The Bible and Simplicity: Before attempting to forge a Christian view of simplicity it is necessary to destroy the prevailing notion that the Bible is ambiguous about economic issues. Often it is felt that our response to wealth in an individual matter. The Bible's teaching in this area is said to be strictly a matter of private interpretation. We try to believe that Jesus did not address himself to practical economic questions.

No serious reading of scripture can substantiate such a view. The Biblical injunctions against the expectation of the poor and the accumulation of wealth are clear and straight forward. The Bible challenges nearly every economic value of contemporary society. For example, the Old Testament takes exception to the popular notion of an absolute right to private property. The earth belongs to God, says scripture, and therefore cannot be held perpetually (Lev. 25:23).

The Old Testament legislation of the year of Jubilee stipulated that all land was to revert back to its original owner. In fact, the Bible declares that wealth itself belongs to God, and one purpose of the year of Jubilee was to provide a regular redistribution of wealth, such a radical view of economic flies in the face of nearly all contemporary belief and practice. Had Israel faithfully observed the Jubilee, it would have dealt a death to the perennial problem of the rich becoming richer and the poor becoming poorer.

Constantly the Bible deals decisively with the inner spirit of slavery that an idolatrous attachment to wealth brings, 'If riches increase, set not your heart on them, counsels the psalmist. The tenth commandment is against covetousness, the inner lust to have, which leads to stealing and oppression. The wise sage understood that "Whoever trusts in his riches will fall, but the righteous will thrive like a green leaf" (Pro. 11:28).

Jesus declared war on the materialism of His day. The Aramaic term for wealth is 'mammon' and Jesus condemns it as a rival God: "No servant can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money" (Lk.16:13). He speaks frequently and ambiguously to economic issues. He says, "Blessed are you who are poor, for your is the kingdom of God' but woe to you who are rich, for you have already received your comfort" Lk. (6:20,24).

He graphically depicts the difficulty of the wealthy entering the Kingdom of God to be like a camel walking through the eye of a needle (Mt.19:24). With God, of course, all things are possible, but Jesus clearly understood the difficulty. He saw the grip that wealth can have on a person. He knew that 'where your treasure is, there your heart will be also,' which is precisely why he commanded his followers: Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth' (Mt. 6: 19-21). He is not saying that the heart should or should not be where the treasure is. He is stating the plain fact that wherever you find the treasure, you will find the heart.

He exhorted the rich young ruler not just to have an inner attitude of detachment from his possessions, but literally to get rid of his possessions if he wanted the Kingdom of God (Mt. 19: 16-22). He says, "Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; a man's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions" (Lk. 12:15).

He counseled people who came seeking God, "Sell your possessions and give to the poor. Provide purses for yourselves that will not wear out, a treasure in heaven that will not be exhausted, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys" (Lk. 12:33).

He told the parable of the rich farmer whose life centered in hoarding-we would call him prudent; Jesus called him a fool (Lk. 12: 16-21). "Again, the Kingdom of heaven is like a merchant looking for fine pearls. When he found one of great value, he went away and sold everything he had and bought it" (Mt. 13:45,46). He called all who would follow him to a joyful life of carefree unconcerned for possessions: "Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back" (Lk. 6:30).

Jesus speaks the question of economics more than any other single social issue. If, in a comparatively simple society, our Lord lays such strong emphasis upon the spiritual dangers of wealth, how much more should we who live in a highly affluent culture take seriously the economic question.

The epistles reflect the same concern. Paul says, "People who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge men into ruin and destruction" (I Tim. 6:9). Spiritual leader is not to be 'a lover of money' (I Tim. 3:3). They should not to be 'greedy for gain' (I Tim. 3:8). The writer to the Hebrews counsels, "Keep your lives free from love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said, "Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you" (Heb. 13:5).

Having said all these, there should be a clarification that God intends that we should have adequate material provision. There is misery today from a simple lack of provision just as there is misery when people try to make a life out of provision. Forced poverty is evil and should be renounced. Nor does the Bible condone an extreme asceticism. Scripture declares consistently and forcefully that the creation is good and to be enjoyed. Asceticism and simplicity are mutually incompatible. Occasional superficial similarities in practice must never obscure the radical difference between the two.

Asceticism renounces possessions. Simplicity rejoices in this gracious provision from the hand of God. Asceticism finds contentment only when it is abased. Simplicity knows contentment in both abasement and abounding. Simplicity is the only thing that sufficiently reorients our lives so that possessions can be genuinely enjoyed without destroying us. Without simplicity we will either capitulate to the mammon spirit of this present evil age, or we will fall into an un-Christian legalistic asceticism. Both leads to idolatry. Both are spiritually lethal.

The spiritual discipline of simplicity provides the needed perspective. Simplicity sets us free to receive the provision of God as a gift that is not ours to keep and can be freely shared with others. Once we recognize that the Bible denounces the materialist and the ascetic with equal vigour, we are prepared to turn our attention to the framing of a Christian understanding of simplicity.

Live a carefree simple life!