WHAT IS ENOUGH? Part 8 of You Are My Friends Nov. 15, 2015

Slide #2 INTRODUCTION: When you testify to something, you’re saying, “This is something which I, personally, have seen or experienced. I’m a witness to what’s going on here. I may not know everything, but this is something which I can never deny.” A spiritual testimony is also something personal; it’s something we have seen; it’s our response to something God has showed us.

I like to think of testimonies as coming from the grassroots up, rather than being dictated from the top down. For example, we, as Quaker Christians, may have a very strong group or corporate testimony about peace but the testimony of the group is based on the experiences and convictions of individuals.

What have we seen? What has God showed us? We share these experiences back and forth with each other and we listen to each other’s experiences with respect, and we share our own personal convictions with humility. What eventually emerges is a common statement or a corporate testimony.

What we have talked about in this series, over the last 8 weeks, is what some of the major Quaker testimonies (or distinctives) have historically been and how we try to live them out today. One question you can ask as we consider this subject matter is: “What’s your passion? What do you really care about?” Another way to talk about these testimonies or distinctives is to ask, “What are you passionate about? What really matters to you? When your spirituality and your everyday life intersect, where do you feel God’s passion? In what areas of life do you keep feeling God persistently leading you?”

Let me say this as an aside: We try to follow the leading of the Holy Spirit – not just in the way we feel, but also in the things we do every day. There are no rules. There’s no official list of things we should and shouldn’t do. And over the years, Quakers have found that God leads us by different paths from other Christians but in similar directions as all Christians.

Over the last 8 weeks, we’ve looked at some of the ways in which we believe God calls us to live. We’ve used a helpful acronym to guide our study: S-P-I-C-E-S or Scripture, Peace, Integrity, Community, Evangelism, and Stewardship. This week, we are going to look as the unique commitment to stewardship that Quakers have historically been known for which is SIMPLICITY.

Slides #3-4 WHAT IS SIMPLICITY? (“I want to be a Quaker” slide…)

One way to look at simplicity is suggested to us by listening to Jesus when he says, “I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children…” (Matt. 11:25). Jesus had a passion for spiritual simplicity. He wanted God’s message to be understood and lived by everyone, not just by specialists and super- heroes.

One of the major religious factions in Jesus’ time was the Pharisees who had a passion for observing every last detail of the Law of Moses. It took trained scholars to spell out and reconcile all of the hundreds of different requirements. It was beyond the power of most ordinary people to understand them let alone keep them.

Jesus didn’t despise scholarship but He wanted the Good News to be for everyone, and especially for people who were poor or sick or hurt or oppressed or marginalized. Jesus used ordinary examples in all his teaching and he wanted everyone to feel that following God’s way was possible, that it was exciting, that it would heal them and inspire them

READ Matt. 11:25-30:

Slide #5 We try to follow Jesus’ example… we too have a passion for spiritual simplicity! We don’t want faith to be impossible to understand. If traditional creeds or traditional statements of faith don’t make sense to us, we’ll go with something simpler. If church practices and ceremonies have added on too many layers over the years, we’ll discard them.

What we want is a simple faith and practice which any Christian can understand and which people of faith can follow. That may leave us with what seems like a stripped-down faith to some people, but that’s what matters to us. If it slows us down, get rid of it. If it clanks or rattles, ditch it. And if it destroys peoples’ faith, then we ask if that’s what God really means or wants.

Quakers have gotten along just fine without a creed for almost 400 years. We get along without physical sacraments. We get along without priests or bishops. We get along without a complicated theology that says that women can’t be ministers. We get along without a lot of things, and we do it just fine. But simplicity expresses itself in other ways.

Choose the “better way”: In the old days, 120 or 150 years ago, Quakers were a lot more concerned about the clothes they wore. Most Quakers wore very plain clothes – nothing fancy, no ornaments or extras, no fancy ribbons for women or lapels and collars for

1 WHAT IS ENOUGH? Part 8 of You Are My Friends Nov. 15, 2015 men. Quakers were not big supporters of the fashion industry. Most Quaker clothes were gray or black or brown. As I’ve said previously, you could pretty well spot a Quaker a mile away by the clothes they wore.

Historical Example: Before the Civil War, Quakers were also very careful not to wear clothes which had been made by slave labor. That meant cotton (which was picked by slaves) and clothes dyed blue with indigo (which was made by slaves). A lot of Quaker Christians today have similar concerns about clothing and other products made in developing countries or other places where the workers aren’t paid fairly or are treated badly (e.g. we try not to purchase clothes made in Bangladesh; we try not to invest in companies that make weapons; we do try to buy products from companies that give back to 3rd world countries, such as Tom’s Shoes). Many Quakers go to a lot of trouble and extra expense not to buy clothing or other products which trouble their consciences. It’s not always easy in today’s world, but for many Quakers, it’s a life-long practice.

The thing about simplicity is that it applies everywhere. In the early, early days of Friends, the focus was on how people dressed and spoke. Being plain was one of the outstanding Quaker virtues. And the passion for plainness almost became an idol for Friends. (who became ’s wife later in her life after her husband, Judge Fell, died), one of the early leaders of the Quaker movement, was very wise. She lived the testimony of simplicity and she suffered for it, but she also saw the danger in Friends passion for simplicity turning into a mistaken passion for uniformity: “Let us beware of this, of separating or looking upon ourselves to be more holy, than in deed and in truth we are. . . Away with these whimsical, narrow imaginations, and let the spirit of God which he hath given us, lead us and guide us; and let us stand fast in that liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free. . . This narrowness and strictness is entering in, that many cannot tell what to do, or not to do. Poor Friends is mangled in their minds, that they know not what to do. . . But Christ Jesus saith, that we must take no thought what we shall eat, or what we shall drink, or what we shall put on; but bids us consider the lilies how they grow in more royalty than Solomon. But contrary to this, [some] say we must look at no colours, nor make anything that is changeable colours as the hills are, nor sell them nor wear them. But we must be all in one dress, and one colour. This is a silly poor Gospel. It is more fit for us to be covered with God’s eternal spirit, and clothed with his eternal Light, which leads us and guides us into righteousness and to live righteously and justly and holily in this present evil world” (Epistle against Uniform Quaker costume, 1700).

Quakers gave up having everyone wear the same color and style of clothing around 150 years ago. I still think that most Quakers are concerned about living and dressing more simply, and we take that concern very seriously. But the focus is less on strictness and uniformity, and more on each of us deciding how to live that concern for ourselves.

Bland “meeting houses”: By the way, you will also notice that our places of worship are usually very simple, even plain. We go in for a minimum of decoration, even for what might seem like religiously appropriate decoration. We like our worship spaces, and our worship gatherings, to be simple. Even the place of the facility doesn’t matter to Quaker Christians. The real riches are always inside us!

That’s one aspect of simplicity – live more simply. Don’t be a slave to fashion. Don’t let your lifestyle hurt other people. Don’t be ostentatious in any way. But there are other ways to think about simplicity.

Embrace freedom: The world we live in has grown very complex. There are times when we feel like we’re drowning in all the things our society seems to require. We’re drowning in paper. We’re drowning in information. We’re drowning in responsibilities of many kinds. We live in one of the most prosperous societies in history. And a lot of the time, our lifestyle feels like a burden.

Personal Example: Deep down, many of us feel that a lot of the stuff that surrounds us isn’t really necessary. We remember times in our lives when we weren’t so burdened, when we had more freedom: I remember when I went to college (GFC), my parents moved me down from my home in Bothell WA and we were able to fit all my worldly possessions (NOTE: I did leave stuff behind for my parents to eventually sort out) in the back of our van and it wasn’t even full! I think I had the equivalent of 2 suitcases of clothes, I had a stereo and my record collection, I had a little tiny B&W TV and a box of books... that was it. I could fit everything I owned into the back of my mom and dad’s van when I moved. I have a lot more stuff now. And it feels as if each additional thing I own, carries extra responsibility with it. Sometimes it feels as if I don’t own my stuff – my stuff owns me!

What matters is that our hearts and minds are turned to God. What matters is that we listen. And really taking that discovery to heart, sets us free. Simplicity should be freeing, not constricting. We should feel, as Jesus said, that heavy burdens are being lifted from us. We should feel rest and relief and freedom, when we’re truly following God. So, on that level, simplicity is a desire to be free again… to be able to travel, to move, to start over, and to change jobs, to be unburdened. Simplicity means freedom.

Concern for self, others, creation: , a Quaker Christian who lived from 1720 to 1772, had a great concern for living more simply. Woolman started out life as a shopkeeper and at first he spent his life in business. He was honest and fair, and his business grew rapidly. There was nothing wrong in anything he was doing but he felt that he was spending so much time on his 2 WHAT IS ENOUGH? Part 8 of You Are My Friends Nov. 15, 2015 business, that it was taking away time that he felt he should be spending on following God. He said, “The increase of business became my burden. I believed that truth required me to live more free from outward cumbers; and there was a strife in my mind between the two.”

He gave up being a shopkeeper. He helped his customers find other reliable sources. And he worked as a tailor, which for a Quaker was a simple and uncomplicated business. In his spare time, he kept a nursery of apple trees, which he thought was a healthy way to make a living.

Personal Example: When I visit folks from our church, I observe that we are a people who are mindful of being good stewards and that includes not living ostentatiously. Of course, we are all unique in our own way of living our lives, ordering our homes, and nobody’s the same. We all work out our own answers and choices. But good stewardship is a real concern for many people here in our church and I see it in the commitment to : I know people in our church family who choose to live without a computer, or email, or cable/satellite, or even a TV. There’s nothing wrong with all those things. But people who deliberately choose to live without them feel they’re living more with less.

I also know people in our church family, who receive good income, but who choose to live more economically because they want to be able to give away more money. The early Quaker , who was a very wealthy man, told his children, “Cast up your incomes and live on half – if you can, one third – reserving the rest for charities. . .” That’s a very different way to live than most of us manage.

So, there’s simplicity as a concern for others. And there’s simplicity as a concern for oneself. But there’s also simplicity as concern for our world and all that is in it.

Personal Example: Nadine likes walking. It’s good exercise. It’s really good for our dogs too. She enjoys experiencing the weather and the seasons. She likes to be outside and observe the wildlife and hear the birds and feel the wind. She likes to see what’s going on around her. Every week, she endeavors to walk with two very special friends in Newberg and they hope to do that routine for years to come. Though she has to drive a car to get there (she spends a lot of time in her car what with her daily commute to Vancouver, and we need our car for all our errands and other business… can’t do without our car) but it is in the walking that she feels alive and refreshed. It’s good for her body. It’s good for her soul. It’s good for our pets.

Slide #6 Faithful to living the Good News message: One of the major features of Jesus’ life and teaching was its simplicity. When Jesus sent his friends out, he didn’t give them a lot of complicated instructions. He told them to do the same things he did [READ Matt. 10:7-13]

That’s about as simple a recipe for outreach as I’ve ever heard of. I wonder what our church would be like if we lived more that way. He also said [READ Matt. 6:28-33]

CONCLUSION: So, the question that was posed at the beginning, “What is simplicity?” Simplicity is about life choices. Simplicity is about freedom, and justice, and health and charity. But simplicity is also about faith. Simplicity is learning to trust God every day, and it’s about being a messenger of the Good News that Jesus shared. It’s not about having less—it’s about living more.

“For our boast is this, the testimony of our conscience, that we behaved in the world with simplicity and godly sincerity, not by earthly wisdom but by the grace of God, and supremely so toward you” (2 Cor. 1:12 ESV). Simplicity doesn’t mean that the world around us is bad. 20th C. author and professor says that Quakers aren’t ascetics. We don’t reject the physical world around us as evil. But we recognize that living faithfully often means living more simply.

And I’ll say this about simplicity, as well as all of the other ways we live our faith and testify to God’s life and power. The focus should never be on you should, but rather on I must. A testimony isn’t a rule that everyone has to obey; it’s a witness to what we feel God has showed to us. The core of a testimony is saying, “Being faithful means that I must do this,” or saying, “Being faithful means I have to face up to this issue, today.” And it’s not saying, “You’re wrong, and I’m right!” It is saying: “This is where I think God is leading me. I am a new person, and Christ has made me new. This is how I have to live now.”

Slides #7-8 QUERIES: Instead of laying down guidelines, Quakers like to ask questions. Instead of saying, “You must,” Quakers tend to ask, “Have you thought about this area of life?”

These aren’t questions you can answer with a yes or no. They make us think. They make us search our lives. They’re not meant to make us feel guilty but rather to encourage us to think, and to grow.

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> DO WE observe simplicity and honesty in our manner of living? Do we resist the pressure of excessive activity which may interfere with our health or spiritual growth? > IN CHOOSING occupations, Friends should give preference to those which give the fullest opportunity for the use of their talents in the service of God and humanity. > IS RECREATION chosen which adds to the fullness of life, and do we avoid that which may be useless or harmful to ourselves and others? > WHAT ARE we doing about our use of the world’s irreplaceable resources, out of all proportion to our moral right to them? (Source: Discipline of Iowa of Friends - Conservative)

Rich wants to acknowledge that many people have made a significant contribution to his thoughts and spiritual formation through the years. Ideas gained from friends, books, periodicals, tapes and colleagues have given Rich’s preaching inspiration and insights that have been invaluable in the development of his teaching and preaching ministry. Specifically, with regards to this message manuscript, Rich wishes to acknowledge the following resources: Street Corner Society: www.strecorsoc.org, Let’s Be Friends/Becoming Friends by Dorothy Barrett, Why Friends Are Friends by Jack Willcuts, Rich Heritage of Quakerism by Walter Williams, Why Am I A Quaker by Paul W. Barnett, George Fox’s Journal, Meet the Friends, 3rd Ed. by Paul Anderson, and resources from various Friends/Quaker meetings.

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