We live in a consumer society where the “American Dream” reigns supreme. In a sociology class I took as an undergraduate I remember learning that the “American Dream” is always 25% more than you currently have. I don’t know how they came up with this figure or how accurate it is, but I do think it speaks a profound truth. There is always a new gadget our or a better version of something we HAVE to get. It can be a plasma TV, an iPod with 10 more gigs of space, a new car or a third pair of workout shoes but we can not live without it. Many of us in this country, including Christians, have a hard time understanding the word “enough”. It is in some people’s vocabulary less than “I’m sorry.” But it is one that all Christians should use on a regular basis.
A basic tenet of Christian teaching is contentment. It was a theme of Paul (Philippians 4:11-12; 1 Timothy 6:6-8) and can also be found in Hebrews 13:5. One of the “Seven Deadly Sins” in Christian tradition is gluttony. We often think of this as only referring to food (though it surely applies to that as well in the most overweight country the world has ever seen) but it also applies to everything else we consume. The Bible also consistently teaches against covetousness. This is lusting, wanting, what other people have. We refer to it jokingly as “Keeping up with the Jones’s”. How many of us fall into that trap?
Simplicity is an important part of the Christian life. The monastic tradition, living lives of simplicity and poverty to devote oneself to knowing God, originally came to being during the rise of Christians to power and affluence during the times of Constantine and Augustine as a critique of the opulence of many Christians. Christianity changed and monasticism reacted against it.
Lives of simplicity and contentment leave much more space for God to move in to. It is amazing how easily God can be replaced with things.
I recently came across the story of Hannah Salwen that is a beautiful example of contentment and enough. She is a teenage girl who convinced her family to sell their house, give half of the money they got from it to villages in Ghana and move into a house half the size. She did this after seeing a homeless man sitting next to a Mercedes. She came to the conclusion that “If that guy didn’t have such a nice car, then that guy could have a nice meal.” Wow. It is so true. The excess we own, the things we don’t need, is a form of theft from the poor. This is what many of the early monastics taught. They believed if you died with money you died a thief because it could have been given to help the poor. How we have lost this impetus here in America.
Simplicity is historically tied to Christian spirituality. Many Christians today think the exact opposite; that material possessions are tied to spiritual blessings from God. This selfish spirituality has injured the witness of the church. Many churches now look minimally different from the society we are in. Let us re-embrace the spiritual discipline of simplicity. We may just find God in our contentment.
Thanks for the post