Tis a Gift to be Simple?

sermon by Torin Eikler
Luke 12:22-34, Philippians 4:11-13
Heritage Series 4: Simplicity

Throughout their history, both the Mennonite Church and the Church of the Brethren have held simplicity as one of their goals – no more than a goal … perhaps ideal is a better world. It has been a theme running through the lives of our spiritual ancestors and it grows from the teachings of Christ in the verses we have heard today as well as others. Its touch can be seen in many areas of their lives and the traditions that have been passed down to us.

But, what is simplicity?

The first thing that comes to my mind whenever I begin to dwell on the idea of simplicity is the hymn “Simple Gifts.” Somehow, that hymn has not made it into our hymnal or any of the three supplements that have been published between the two denominations. But, I remember singing it a church camp, and it was a favorite among the Quakers Bethany’s sister seminary in Richmond. You all heard the choir sing a version of this hymn earlier in the service, but I want to repeat the words so you can hear them on their own…
Tis a gift to be simple.
Tis a gift to be free.
Tis a gift to come down where we aught to be.
And when we find ourselves in the place that’s right,
it will be in the valley of love and delight.

When true simplicity is gained;
to bow and to bend we shan’t be ashamed,
to turn, turn will be our delight …
till by turning, turning we come ‘round right.

It’s a beautiful hymn, and its poetic lines and lovely imagery speak very eloquently – if very unclearly – about the joy of the simple life of discipleship. But, it doesn’t offer much insight as to the nature of simplicity and how it applies to daily life. So … what does it mean to live simply?


At one time, we believed that to live simply meant to dress simply, and so we wore “plain clothes” and avoided conforming to social styles. That is to say, we wore modest clothing that we made out of sturdy, dark cloth with buttons and ties. Women wore their hair in buns or braids which they kept covered, and men sported bowl cuts parted in the middle with long beards and no mustaches. We shunned worldly things like zippers, neckties, and showy hats.

Some – in both traditions - still keep these traditions alive, but most of us have moved on for better or worse. For myself, I find it hard to believe that a suit of “plain clothes” (which would cost about $200 these days) is a particularly simple addition to any wardrobe. It seems much more appropriate to wear a pair of jeans and a t-shirt. That would only run about $70 – less if you got them from a thrift store.

Is that what it’s all about then? Is simple living about spending money or having fewer things? That’s certainly what I was taught as I grew up. And it makes sense. Spending a lot on clothes or technology or cars or houses – keeping up with the Jones – certainly doesn’t qualify for simple living. And didn’t Jesus say, “Why worry about what you will wear… If God so clothes the grass of the field …, how much more will he clothe you…?”

Yet, as I grew older and learned more about what is going on the world today, I realized – as many before me – that jeans and t-shirts, TVs and radios come cheap for a reason. The cost of my righteous simple living was born by thousands of people around the world. They spent long hours in factories with bad conditions, forced birth control, and horribly low wages in order to bring pants to the shelves and then to my wardrobe at the low, low price of $20. Low-cost electronics, too, come with a price - not only to the people who make them, but also to the environment. Hazardous waste, chemical spills, open pit strip mining that leaves radioactive tailing behind to seep into ground water and ruin farmland and forests are just the beginning of the damage to the creation we are called to care for. … Sweat shops, environmental destruction, and who knows how many other dangerous, unhealthy, and maybe even unholy things - where is the justice in that?

I don’t think Christ would have us serve the ideal of simplicity at the cost of compassion and love for our neighbors or good stewardship of the natural world that supports and sustains the lilies of the field and the birds of the air.


So, where do we go from there? Is environmentalism the answer? Is it paying attention to the justice issues behind everything we buy or use? Should we return to the example of our Amish, Mennonite, and Old Order Brethren brothers and sisters – avoiding technology and conforming not to the society around us as we work toward self-sufficiency within our own communities? Do we give up entirely? As our Simplicity Circle study group has been discovering – and as anyone who has spent much time thinking about simple living knows – these questions spin outward into a wide and sticky web that quickly becomes too complex to understand. (And there is a rueful irony there.)


There is a story, a parable of sorts, about a young man – probably about my age, I’d guess. The man had lived a successful life. He had a good job that kept him busy and brought in a good pay check. He had many friends and he enjoyed the time he spent hiking and skiing and doing everything else that he did.
Then one day, he heard the story of an ancient temple in the east. The temple had been resplendent, made of marble with beautiful carvings and a thousand bells tuned perfectly so that when they all rang anyone who heard them reached a higher level of consciousness. Many people made pilgrimages to the temple to find answers to their deepest questions.

Hundreds of years ago, the temple – which was built on pilings just off the coast – sank into the water during an earthquake. But, people still made pilgrimages to the spot. And, it was said that in the right conditions, a person sitting on the shore could still hear the bells ring as they moved with the ebb and flow of the tide.

The story intrigued the young man, and the more he thought about it, the more he realized that while his life was a good one, something was missing. So, he decided that he would make a pilgrimage of sorts himself in search of a deeper meaning to his life. If, he thought, he could just listen to the bells, perhaps he would find the answer to all the questions that had been growing in his mind since he heard the legend.

So, he arranged to take all the vacation time he could and travel to the remote coast where the temple had been (… still was). He packed everything he would need for his stay, and when he arrived, he went to stand at the water’s edge, listening with all the concentration he could muster.

He heard nothing the first day or the second, but he was a tenacious man and undeterred. For a week and then two weeks he went every day to listen and heard nothing. He tried standing and sitting, lying down with his ear to the sand and walking back and forth. He faced the seaward and landward and even stood in the water. He was there for sunrises and sunsets and even spent a few nights standing on the sand. He stood there on calm, brilliant days. He sat through lashing wind and rain. So intent on listening was he that all of it passed by him unnoticed, and he became something of a legend himself among other pilgrims who came for just a day or two.

Finally, after a month of unsuccessful visits to the beach, the day came for him to leave. He was deeply disappointed, but he reasoned with himself that he had done his best. Maybe it was just the wrong time of year. Besides, he thought, his life was a good one, and the legend was probably just that. Who ever heard of magic bells that brought enlightenment anyway?
With a chuckle at his own foolishness, he packed his bags and prepared to go. Then, he decided to visit the beach just to see the place he had spent so many days and nights one last time.

He stepped onto the sand and looked around, really seeing for the first time. It was a beautiful place, he decided, and he went to sit in the shade under a tree and enjoy the last hour of his vacation. As he sat there, with the warmth and the susurrating slide of surf on sand relaxing his body, he leaned his head back against the trunk and closed his eyes…. And soon he realized that he heard something different - musical. He heard bells, and as the realization hit him, he jumped to his feet and ran to the water’s edge and stood listening for some time. Then, with a smile, he turned, collected his bags and went home.


If we let ourselves, we can get caught up in all the complexities and all the questions the swirl around the topic of simplicity and the ideal of simple living. We can try to focus all our concentration on each detail, finding a way to arrange each part of our lives and moving on to another in an endless struggle to reach perfection. And, perhaps the answer does lie within some or all of the possibilities we discover along the way, but it seems to me that the teachings of Jesus point toward a simplicity somehow deeper and more obvious that any of those things – a bigger picture that we miss if we don’t sit back, look around us, and listen for guidance.


When we hear the familiar verses from Luke, we are drawn to the imagery within in – the birds of the air, the lilies of the field. And we sometimes get stuck in the ideas they illustrate because they are foreign to our experience, just as they would have been foreign to the crowds Jesus was teaching. Of course we need to think about what we will eat and what we will wear. We simply cannot live on insects like the birds, and we can’t really survive without something to wear when it gets too cold or too hot. But, those are the details that all too often leave us on the beach straining for something that is already there all around us.

“Do not worry about your life, what you will eat, or about your body, what you will wear. For life is more that food, and the body is more than clothing… Instead, strive for [the kingdom].” Or – as Matthew puts it – “seek first the Kingdom of God and its righteousness.”


Maybe that’s the key to simple living. Maybe all our rules about plain clothes, accumulation of wealth and things, environmental stewardship, and social justice - have grown from that search. Maybe our ideas about simplicity have drawn our gaze from the simple ideal of focusing on God – of listening for God’s guiding voice, of seeking God’s way and its righteousness.

If we can let go of all the particulars we try to legislate and step back into the calm center of the whirling world – into the embrace of God, then we might find that life becomes simpler and more fulfilling. We might find that our values shift to embrace those things that are essential to life in the world and life in Christ while our fascination with other things falls away. Perhaps we will find ourselves able to echo Paul’s words, “I have learned to be content with whatever I have [for] I can do all things through him who strengthens me.”

May it be so.