The Gift of Simplicity
Indianapolis First Friends Quaker Meeting
Bob Henry
March 7, 2021
I Thessalonians 4:6-8
6-7 Don’t run roughshod over the concerns of your brothers and sisters. Their concerns are God’s concerns, and he will take care of them. We’ve warned you about this before. God hasn’t invited us into a disorderly, grungy life but into something holy and beautiful—as beautiful on the inside as the outside.
8 If you disregard this advice, you’re not offending your neighbors; you’re rejecting God, who is making you a gift of his Holy Spirit.
Good morning Friends, it is good to be with you once again in the comfort of your own homes. I pray this finds you safe and well.
Last week, we looked at what It means to become burden bearers for our neighbors and loved ones. At the end of the sermon, I took a moment to highlight our Quaker Testimonies (or what we call our S.P.I.C.E.S.) which speak to this burden bearing. I also mentioned that for the weeks leading up to our Easter Celebration, I would take time to unpack a little more about each testimony or S.P.I.C.E.
Today, we are going to look at the first “S” in our S.P.I.C.E.S – Simplicity.
I was first introduced to Simplicity ironically by a Quaker, before I ever even had considered becoming a convinced Friend.
It was Quaker Richard Foster who introduced me to Simplicity in his book, Freedom of Simplicity: Finding Harmony in a Complex World from 1991. The book is not that long, but it really packs a punch. I was in my Masters’ Program in an introductory class on Spirituality when I was assigned this book.
I have to be honest, until this time, I had never contemplated simplicity. I was raised in a country, and for that matter, a church which rarely spoke of or highlighted simplicity.
I never heard it preached from a pulpit, no one taught it to me in school, and when I really thought about, much of what I was taught was just the opposite of simplicity. Yet, my professor was clear it was foundational to our spirituality and life of faith.
Well, as I cracked open the book and began to read, Richard Foster explained it this way.
“Jesus Christ and all the writers of the New Testament call us to break free of mammon lust and live in joyous trust...They point us toward a way of living in which everything we have we receive as a gift, and everything we have is cared for by God, and everything we have is available to others when it is right and good. This reality frames the heart of Christian simplicity. It is the means of liberation and power to do what is right and to overcome the forces of fear and avarice.”
He goes on to say,
“God's blessing is not for personal aggrandizement, but to benefit and bless all the peoples of the earth. To understand the distinction makes all the difference in the world. The theology of wealth says, 'I give so that I can get.' Christian simplicity says, 'I get so that I can give.' The difference is profound.”
We in America have wrestled for a long time with the “prosperity gospel” invading our spirituality and religious life.
After the Civil War we saw a rise in the prosperity gospel linked together with revivalism.
Tent Revivals were as much about money as saving souls and quickly God’s blessing had become about prospering and wealth while trying to live a pure life.
When we failed at our purity, money became the way to buy our freedom (sounds very similar to the Reformation Days with indulgences). This would continue to evolve in America and creep into the nooks and crannies of many faiths (including Friends) without realizing it.
As media became more and more involved, televangelism became the way so-called religious leaders and organizations found their way into the pockets of their watchers.
As Richard Foster was writing “Freedom of Simplicity,” America was watching the fall of Televangelist Jim Bakker and his PTL Empire and many other religious con artists who had merged prosperity theology with the American Dream while making a rather large profit for themselves.
It seems only appropriate that it would be a Quaker who would write a book to remind us of our roots and invite us to find freedom again from this bondage to money and idealism.
Another Quaker, Lloyd Lee Wilson also described simplicity in terms of freedom. He said,
“Simplicity is the name we give to our effort to free ourselves to give full attention to God's still, small voice: the sum of our efforts to subtract from our lives everything that competes with God for our attention and clear hearing.”
So why is it that Quakers have made Simplicity one of our distinctives and testimonies all along?
In my research, I turned to the words of Quaker Fran Irene Taber, who said that
“…the first generation of Friends did not have a testimony for simplicity. Instead, they came upon a faith which cut to the root of the way they saw life, radically reorienting it.
They saw that all they did must flow directly from what they experienced as true, and that if it did not, both the knowing and the doing became false.
In order to keep the knowledge clear and the doing true, they stripped away anything which seemed to get in the way. They called those things superfluities, and it is this radical process of stripping for clear-seeing which we now term simplicity.”
Now, if you have ever read any history book that mentions Quakers, one thing you most likely will read about are the three aspects of our testimony of simplicity: dress, speech, and material possessions.
The First we almost always read or hear about is Simplicity of Dress.
On the surface, you may think plain dress is pretty straightforward (right this second, maybe you’re mentally picturing what you think Quaker dress may look like). Quakers in gray and subdued colors, almost Amish in appearance.
Yet “simplicity of dress” is actually subjective.
Modern Quakers simply dress simple. It doesn’t sound like this is too different from what you may see with some of the minimalist leaders today: consistency, timelessness, maybe similar, coordinating colors.
Yet why would anyone willingly (and gladly) choose this type of dress?
First of all, this approach to fashion and style is timeless. You don’t have to spend time and money on the latest trends, effectively giving back time and money—and energy and mental bandwidth—to spend on the most important things in your life (which typically aren’t things at all).
It is widely known that Albert Einstein bought several variations of the same gray suit so that he wouldn't have to waste time deciding what to wear each morning, and so he could give more time to his research and study to impact his world.
Actually, when I was an Anglican Priest, I had a similar experience. I wore a clerical collar and mostly black clothing every day, which helped me not even think about what I was to wear and simply focus on the task at hand.
Actually, I have found it hard to get out of that mentality, my closet is made up of mostly black and simple items. I rarely get new clothing until they actually wear out, I need something, or I receive a gift. I must confess, one of my vices is my collection of fun socks – which would have been most likely frowned upon by many early Quakers.
Overall, you could say that there is a personal aspect here where one needs to overcome their ego and identity since this is voluntary simplicity. Let’s be honest, this would have been much harder back in junior high or high school, then it is, at least for me, today.
Another aspect of valuing plain dress was intended to eliminate an aspect of social inequality. If everyone dressed in a simple way, it would put people on more of an even (visual/physical) playing field. We see this in schools today that require uniforms for students. It is also why I do not like wearing a suit to lead worship.
Lastly, there’s now an ecological aspect when you think of the wastefulness of trend-based clothing and fast fashion. Every day, we have more and more options for sustainable, ethical, and slow fashion.
Author, Activist, and New Monastic Community founder, Shane Claiborne, shared in an interview that he makes his own clothing. He shared that he caught the vision while living in Calcutta in a village of people with leprosy. Since they were completely cut off from the rest of society, they had to make their own clothes and shoes, grow their own food and be a fully self-sustaining community. Shane found himself mesmerized with the way of life that they had created, “a new society in the shell of the old.” Shane went on to explain that in Gandhi’s movement making one’s own clothing was a sign of resistance against British rule. The central symbol of the independence movement was the spinning wheel and one could recognize those who were part of it by their homespun clothing, whether poor or in Parliament.
Let’s now, move on to the second aspect of simplicity – Speech.
Plain or simple speech for early friends also worked to illuminate social inequality. One example of this was not using titles and calling everyone sister or brother.
As well, this aspect is often paired with a “simplicity of behavior.” Here’s is how we Quakers/Friends describe it:
“Simplicity does not mean being simplistic. We value nuance and choose words carefully when we speak. We may speak passionately, but we avoid distortion and exaggeration.”8
“Honesty, avoiding class distinction (titles)…and the speaking of truth.”
Sadly, we live in a world of exaggerations and distortions – marketing and the media has often invaded our religious world – so much that “Church Growth” is a degree option in many seminaries these days. As well, our titles, or what may be labeled our “degrees” or “family lineage,” also may be complicating things and putting us in positions of authority or privilege.
If the Quaker faith is going to be counter cultural and make a difference in our world and especially with our neighbors, we may want to again find ways to put aside our titles and degrees, and embrace a simplicity that creates equality among one another. Seeking again our authentic voices by speaking Truth to Power in our world with passion rather than distortion and exaggeration.
Folks, I hope when people join us at First Friends for worship, small groups, fellowship experiences, service work, etc., they find us genuine and speaking to their condition. That what draws them to us is not our degrees, titles, or family heritage, but that we are speaking to the condition of the world and our neighbors – becoming equals and burden bearers on this journey called life.
And that leads us to the most contentious of the three aspects of simplicity- Material Possessions.
Again, here is how some Quakers/Friends have described the simplicity of material possessions.
“Believe that one should use one’s resources, including money and time, deliberately in ways that are most likely to make life truly better for oneself and others.”
“Believe that a person’s spiritual life and character are more important than the quantity of goods he possesses or his monetary worth.”
The reality is that this testimony is not just about the nature of our possessions or what goods we have to offer, but rather also about our attitude toward these possessions and goods.
Way before Richard Foster wrote “Freedom of Simplicity” he wrote the following about plain living. He said,
“We plunge ourselves into enormous debt and then take two and three jobs to stay afloat. We uproot our families with unnecessary moves just so we can have a more prestigious house. We grasp and grab and never have enough. And most destructive of all, our flashy cars and sports spectaculars and backyard pools have a way of crowding out much interest in civil rights or inner city poverty or the starved masses of India. Greed has a way of SEVERING the cords of compassion.
I will be honest with you. At times, Sue and I have struggled living in Fishers, Indiana. We have wrestled with the size of our home and the cost of living in relation to many we serve. (I am glad we have the space currently to provide for all three of our boys – but when they move out it will be time to simplify again).
I too can easily become wrapped up in a-less-than-simple life that so quickly crowds out the civil rights of my neighbor, the poverty they can’t seem to arise from, the starving in their stomachs, the struggles, abuse, and oppression they face daily. Too often I just look away and hope that I didn’t see it, but each time I neglect these nudges of the Spirit, I embrace the greed in my heart.
If there is one thing that reviewing our testimony of Simplicity should do is help remind us of those words I opened with from Richard Foster…that simplicity is all about pointing us toward a way of living in which everything we have we receive as a gift, and everything we have is cared for by God, and everything we have is available to others when it is right and good.
I pray we will see these gifts of God and share them with our neighbors, starting today!
Now, let us continue to ponder these thoughts as we enter into waiting worship and simple silence. Here are some queries to help you reflect during this time.
How can I apply the Testimony of Simplicity to my own life?
Are there ways I can simplify my dress, speech/behavior, or overall quantity (and relationship with) my material possessions for the benefit of my neighbors and world?