Week 42 Sunday
Week 42 Sunday
The Way Is the Way of Simplicity
Matthew 16:5-12
We turn now to consider the Way as the way of simplicity. The Christian way is the way of complete simplicity.
Evil is always complex, roundabout, tangled. Goodness is always a reduction of life to simplicity. Lies are roundabout, complicated. Truth is straightforward and uncomplicated. If you lie, you have to have a good memory; you have to remember each time what you have said. But if you speak the truth, then you don’t have to remember what you have said; you simply tell the truth each time. All great discoveries are a reduction from complexity to simplicity. There is a motto on the walls of the office of the research department of General Motors at Dayton, Ohio, “This problem, when solved, will be simple.”
Life for the Pharisee was very complicated. For Jesus it was very simple. The Pharisees lived by innumerable taboos, regulations, and laws. Jesus reduced these hundreds of laws to two: love to God and love to humankind. That is genius. If beauty is an absence of superfluities, then Jesus was beautiful in character and life and must have been in appearance, for there was an absence of superfluity and pretense. His words were stripped of all useless verbiage, and were so near to fact that they were fact. It was said of Cromwell that “his words were half battles.” But Jesus’ words were whole facts. Some try to make language impressive by swearing by everything in heaven and on earth. Jesus said, “Swear not at all. . . . Let your communication be, Yea, yea; Nay, nay: for whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil” (Matt. 5:34, 37 KJV). You don’t have to strengthen truth by an oath, trying to get this, that, and the other thing behind the truth, for the universe is behind the truth. It is self-verifying. Nothing is behind a lie; it is on its own; hence, people try to bolster it with loud affirmation and oaths. A person who swears is unsure and so tries to make statements emphatic by profane assertion. Swearing isn’t the sign of a “he-man”; it is the sign of a weak man; and the more one swears, the weaker one is. If, as Voltaire wrote, “the adjective is the enemy of the noun,”* then swear words are the enemy of emphasis. The more you swear, the weaker your statements.
O Christ, make me simple and straightforward as you are. I would be cleansed of all complications and roundaboutness. I would be direct and self-verifying, simplehearted, of simple speech and simple love. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: “All who swerve from thy will, thou spurnest; their notions end in nothing” (Ps. 119:118 Moffatt). My notions end in nothings.
*Widely attributed to Voltaire.
Week 42 Monday
Speech Reduced to Simplicity
Matthew 5:34-37; James 5:12; 1 Peter 2:1
We continue the Way as the way of simplicity. The Quakers introduced “the one-price system”* into Europe in obedience to the suggestion of Jesus that “your communication be, Yea, yea; Nay, nay” (Matt. 5:37 KJV). This abandonment of the bargaining system, which was prevalent in Europe as it is now prevalent in Asia, has saved civilization millions of years in time and untold bad temper.
The account says, “He was speaking the word to them” (Mark 2:3 Moffatt). What was “the word”? Not some written scripture. It was “the word” amid the multiplicity of words. When people heard it, they said, “This is the word.” When the greatest orator of the day spoke at Gettysburg, people heard a torrent of words, words that have been forgotten. But afterward, when Lincoln spoke out of the depths of sincerity words reduced to simplicity, people heard the word, the word of democracy. His speech is deathless. When Jesus stood before two groups, they asked him innumerable questions to which he answered nothing. But when each group came to the crucial question, his answer was as clear as crystal. The Jews wanted to know the answer to this, “Tell us if you are the Christ, the Son of God!” “Even so!” answered Jesus. The Roman governor wanted to know, “Are you the king of the Jews?” “Certainly,” replied Jesus (Matt. 26:64; 27:11 Moffatt). The rest is silence.
When a relevant issue arose, Jesus was simple and direct. Concerning the irrelevant, he maintained a majestic silence. His enemies paid tribute on another occasion to this quality of simple directness, “We know you are straight in what you say and teach” (Luke 20:21 Moffatt). He was straight in his unstudied moments, “in what you say,” and in his studied moments, “in what you teach.” In both he was straight and simple. Paul caught this simplicity from his Master, “I state the truth openly and so commend myself to every man’s conscience before God” (2 Cor. 4:2 Moffatt). The truth he preached—Christ—and the conscience are made for each other. Said an old Quaker to me, “I wondered how you would use words to get beyond them, but I believe you did it.” I brought them to the Word, to Christ.
O Christ, you are the Word, the Word made flesh. Help me to be the word made flesh in a very insignificant way, and yet nevertheless in a real way. I give up all affectation, all unreality. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: “Let what you say be simply ‘yes’ or ‘no,’ whatever goes beyond that springs from evil” (Matt. 5:37 Moffatt).
*A system of set prices, as opposed to bargaining and negotiation.
Week 42 Tuesday
Life Reduced to Simplicity
1 Corinthians 2:1-5; 2 Corinthians 1:12-14
Jesus not only was simple himself but demanded simplicity. He demanded it as a condition of entrance into the kingdom of God, “Unless you turn and become like children, you will never get into the Realm of heaven at all” (Matt. 18:3 Moffatt). Unless you reduce life to simplicity of spirit, you cannot get in.
Within that kingdom nothing is revealed except to the simplehearted, “Revealing it to the simpleminded; . . . such was thy chosen purpose” (Matt. 11:26 Moffatt). Is this the chosen purpose of God in nature and in grace? Do the simplehearted, the simpleminded know, and do the rest go blind? Apparently.
Jesus said, “Do not trouble yourselves about how to defend yourselves” (Luke 12:11 Moffatt), for if you are in a state of self-defense you are complicated. You will get tied up within. Let your life and conduct be your defense; don’t nervously go around trying to explain things. Be the kind of person who can afford to wait until the years and the centuries speak against the hours. Moreover, you can afford to confess mistakes because you are essentially right. You are not afraid to be thought wrong because you are so conscious of being right. Small people are always defending themselves; big people can afford to wait until time will defend them.
You can be rich in two ways: in the abundance of your possessions or in the fewness of your wants. When your wants are reduced to simplicity, then you are rich. Someone asked a radiant person who had suffered much how he did it, and the reply was, “I think little about what I haven’t and much about what I have.”
Our definition of Christianity then becomes simple. Complicated creeds and systems give way to the simple. A visiting and very pompous bishop asked some village people in India, who were candidates for baptism, “What is it to be a Christian?” and expected a theological reply, but got the answer instead, “To live like Mr. Murray.” Mr. Murray was the missionary who had taught them. The word of Christianity had become flesh in him. It was so in Jesus.
O living Christ, make me simple, unaffected, and unafraid. Give me the mind that was in you; then I too shall be simple and straightforward and loving. I would have the heart that loves the simple and the true. Give me that heart. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: When I am on the defensive, I am living by fear, not by faith.
Week 42 Wednesday
Steps to Simplicity
2 Corinthians 2:17; 4:1-6
We come now to the steps to gain simplicity of life and character:
(1) Go over your life and see if there are complicated motives that produce outer complications in attitude and act. If there are mixed motives owing to mixed loyalties and loves, then that produces complication. Perhaps these mixed motives are in the subconscious mind. The lid may have been put on them so that they are suppressed. You are at war with yourself. Conscious and subconscious minds are at cross-purposes. That makes complications and compromises.
(2) Still the mind and let all motives and loyalties and loves come to the surface. In that relaxed mood look at them and see them for what they are. Do not fight them; look at them calmly and straightforwardly.
(3) Make up your mind which motives are worthy, which shall stay and which shall go. You are in the hour of pruning, the pruning of the extraneous, the unnecessary, and the wrong. Ask God to give you clear sight and courageous decisiveness. You have come to the crossroads, one road leading to complication on complication, the other leading to simplicity and sureness.
(4) Surrender all that complicates into the hands of God. Don’t become tense and begin to fight these complicating things. That makes the roots cling all the tighter. Give inner consent for God to take them out. God can, and does take them out, with your consent, your full consent. God has your motives under divine control and direction.
(5) Let these simplified motives, now purged of complications, work out into simplified living. The outer manifestations must be simplified in order to keep the inner simplified. For if you act complicated, then you will be complicated.
(6) Start from a simple premise, “I have no responsibility except to live in union with God.” That reduces life to the simple and the vital. You do not have to think about many things. Think of one thing, and all else follows. That one thing, “Abide in me. . . . If you abide in me . . . ask whatever you will” (John 15:4, 7). One responsibility: Live in union.
O Christ, I see. I have been nervous and anxious and complicated. And now at long last I am coming to the simple. I am in union with you. That is my primary and only responsibility. I accept it with joy. I am a child again, simple, happy, unafraid. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: “Leave it all quietly to God, my soul” (Ps. 62:1 Moffatt).
Week 42 Thursday
More Steps to Simplicity
Matthew 5:3, 5, 8; 1 Timothy 1:3-5
We continue our steps to simplicity: (7) Since you have one simple responsibility, and that is to live in union with God, now you have one simple attitude toward people: Give out love and only love. As a friend says, “If you give out heaven part of the time and hell part of the time, you will be in heaven part of the time and hell part of the time.” You will be in that which you give out. If you give out love all the time, you will be in love all the time.
Moreover, you are born of that which you give out. If you give out criticism habitually, you will become a critical person in the very essence and makeup of your being. The output becomes the instay. The person who manifests love always becomes lovable—always.
(8) You now look no longer at the end results, but you do the right thing and let results take care of themselves. If you are always looking at the end results, you are always nervous and complicated. Act from a simple premise: do the right thing, then the results can take care of themselves. Those results will always be right in the long run. It is impossible that the right thing should have a wrong result in the long run. And it is impossible that the wrong thing should have a right result in the long run. The man, referred to previously, who paid three thousand dollars to be told that he needed a new philosophy of life, went out to give to industry a simple idea—to him revolutionary, “Do the morally right thing in every situation, and don’t even think about end results. The universe will take care of them.”
(9) You can now afford to confess mistakes of speech and act, for you no longer feel it necessary to defend yourself. You are fundamentally simple and therefore sound. Go over your life and cut out all affectation in speech and act. Make everything ring true—especially your speech. Cut out all useless adjectives, all talking for effect, all weasel words. The Chinese say, “Words are the sounds of the heart.” Your heart and your words now have the same sound, the sound of simple love.
Now you can say, “I have soothed and stilled my soul. . . . My soul is like a weaned child” (Ps. 131:2 Moffatt).
O Christ, make me like a weaned child, weaned from all that complicates and all that is out of harmony with love. For I must have within me nothing but simple love, and I must act on nothing but simple love. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: “Let all that you do be done in love” (1 Cor. 16:14 Moffatt).
Week 42 Friday
Weaned from Many Things
Luke 10:38-42
We must follow up these steps to simplicity by some general thoughts that gather up the implications of simplicity. You are now weaned from the necessity of always being entertained. You don’t need to be entertained at all. You are your entertainment. Your world of entertainment has become simple. When there is nothing to entertain you from without, you can do what the Scripture says, “Drink water . . . from your own well” (Prov. 5:15). The reason for the passionate demand for entertainment and diversions is that the well within is dry. So life has to be primed from without. But now you can live on simple pleasures, simple loves, and simple things. You do not despise entertainment, but you do not depend on it. You can have it or do without it.
You are also weaned from the necessity of success. A great many are nervously feeling the necessity of always succeeding. They are in bondage to success. But now you do not have to succeed. All you have to do is to be true to the highest that you know, and success and failure are in the hands of God. That emancipates you from the bondage to succeed. The most successful Man that ever lived failed, by all the standards of success. He left no money, no book, and no property. All he left when he went away were some seeds sown in the hearts of some doubtful followers. But those simple seeds have transformed the world. Yon don’t have to succeed. Sow the seeds of love and truth, eat and sleep, and the earth will bring forth fruit of itself. The universe will take care of success. You can even “loaf dynamically.”
Again, you are emancipated from insult. Said someone of another, “Insult doesn’t get him; it goes over his head. He doesn’t know when he is insulted.” When you are lowly and humble, then insult goes over your head. You know you are simple and sound, so what other people say doesn’t affect you. You can smile at insult, for you have an insulation—the insulation of simplicity. An officer of the Confederacy, in Virginia, was challenged to a duel. He put an advertisement in a paper, “I have a greater responsibility than to defend my honor. I am a Christian. And to duel is unchristian.” This wiped out dueling in Virginia overnight. Simple courage changed the attitude of a state.
O Christ, I have come to the place of the great Immunity. Now I do not go up and down with my circumstances, for my life is within. I am therefore released from dependence on outwardism. I thank you. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: Love is my only obligation (see Rom. 13:8).
Week 42 Saturday
Freedom through Simplicity
Matthew 10:19-20; Luke 14:7-11; Romans 12:16
One more day we must spend on the implications of simplicity. At a railway station in India, I turned to an Indian gentleman and asked if he was going on my train. “No,” he replied, “there are nothing but third-class carriages on this train.” (In India there are four classes on trains: first, second, intermediate, and third. Third-class means wooden benches and crowds.) “I’m going on it,” I replied. “Yes. You can go on it,” he answered, “for you are a religious man. If you go first-class, it doesn’t exalt you; and if you go third-class, it doesn’t degrade you. You are lifted above these distinctions, but I have to keep them up.” I could have danced on the station platform! I was free from the vast complication of keeping up a position. I could go first-class, or I could go third-class—my values were elsewhere. I had to keep up nothing for I wanted nothing. I had emancipation by elimination.
A British ambassador’s wife sent a request to reserve a front seat at one of my meetings; it was explained that “an ambassador’s wife should never sit with anyone in front of her.” What a complication to live by! I could sit anywhere; I was free! Bondage to prestige is bondage.
The successes of life are often through the simplicities of life. Alexander McLaren preached a whole series of sermons to win one skeptic of powerful intellect to Christ. At last, the man presented himself to join the church. McLaren was delighted and asked which sermon had helped him to the decision. He replied, “None of them. I helped an old woman down the steps, and she turned to me and said. ‘Oh, thank you,’ and added, ‘Do you love Jesus Christ, my blessed Saviour? He means everything to me.’ I did not love him then, but her face and her words arrested me, and I found I was on the wrong road. So I’ve turned.”* Simplicity won where learning failed.
A rich Mexican suffering from stomach ulcers traveled at great expense to Battle Creek, Michigan, expecting a complicated remedy, but he got this prescription, “Stop worrying and drink seven glasses of water a day.” He did—and got well. Simplicity heals as well as saves.
O Christ, you are asking me to give you one thing— myself, my all. It is all so simple, and yet when we do it, we see how profound it is. Everything falls into its place, and everything works with everything else. I thank you. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: “Thou has given me room to move, and a foothold sure!” (Ps. 18:36 Moffatt).
*Alexander McLaren (1826–1910) was a Scottish minister who was president of the Baptist World Congress. Published source for story is unknown.