Not Simply Living but Living Simply Mark 6:7-13 Year B Proper 10, July 13, 2003 The Rev. William V. Livingston, Rector Church of the Resurrection, Starkville, Mississippi In 7 verses, the author of Mark conveys what Christ offers us, calls us to do, and how he instructs to do it. Jesus offers us the opportunity not to just simply live, but to live simply - unencumbered by rules and regulations, material obsessions, or anger and hatred - to live purposefully, and to live in community. Purposefully: The majority of my pastoral care time - whether offered as counseling, spiritual direction, or pastoral visits - is spent dealing with purposefulness: a college student discerning her vocational calling, a 30-something looking for his reason for being, a 40-something couple trying to bring order into their marriage and family, a 50-something wondering where her life has gone and how to salvage what is left, someone nearing death and weighing whether his has been a life well-lived. "Jesus called the twelve and began to send them out two by two, and gave them authority over unclean spirits. . . So they went out and proclaimed that all should repent. They cast out many demons, and anointed with oil many who were sick and cured them." Jesus gives purpose. No, most of us will not be sent to cast out demons. However, each of you has the same purpose. God has given you gifts and talents unique to you and invites you to use them within this parish and in the world. Until we do so, we will continue to seek our purpose: sometimes in unproductive or unhealthy ways. In community: An individual Christian is an oxymoron. We can be Christian only in community: the Church, the body of Christ. "Jesus called the twelve and began to send them out two by two." Community bestows strength. If one falls, one will lift up the other. Not only does community protect its members from physical danger but also provides companionship and encouragement in difficult circumstances. Community builds the common beliefs and lends credibility to the message. Community fosters accountability and reduces temptation. For most of us that community is our parish - where we are nurtured in our spiritual development, supported in times of suffering, and loved in our failings. Our challenge is also to allow that community to be where we are called to accountability: Are we only receiving and not giving? Am I offering my gifts and talents for the common good? Am I sharing my wealth to support the needs of our parish and to enable it to fulfill our communal mission? Simply: Browse bookstore shelves and magazine racks - especially the sections that deal with self-improvement, psychology, family life or spirituality - and note the publications that purport to guide how to simplify one's life. The fact we actually need to be told how to unclutter our existence should tell us something about human tendencies. "He ordered them to take nothing for their journey except a staff; no bread, no bag, no money in their belts; but to wear sandals and not to put on two tunics. He said to them, 'Wherever you enter a house, stay there until you leave the place. If any place will not welcome you and they refuse to hear you, as you leave, shake off the dust that is on your feet as a testimony against them.'" He doesn't send them out with rules and regulations. He doesn't send them out in luxury travel trailers with a handheld global positioning device and cell phone. He doesn't instruct them to retaliate against those who irritate them. While I hope all sermons are ones which you leave with something to think about, I especially hope you will ponder some questions I am about to ask you. You won't have time to answer them now, but simply make a mental note of them (as a matter of fact, for those who want to and may be as forgetful as I, I have them typed and on the shelf in the Narthex if you want to take one with you after the service). First, when in your life were you the most happy? What things contributed to that happiness? When you have felt most happy, did you have a sense of mission or purpose: a sense of what you wanted to accomplish vocationally, living into your role as husband or wife or as a parent and not distracted by a long list of societal norms and expectations? Jesus sent the disciples out with a mission, not a policies and procedures manual. Second, consider your relationship with your possessions. Approximately how much do you spend each year protecting your possessions - car insurance, household insurance, lock boxes, storage spaces, security systems? Which would give you greater happiness, having more storage space or less things to store? Do your possessions give you a sense of purpose or even joy? "He ordered them to take nothing for their journey." This is not about some type of asceticism or self-sufficiency. It is about freedom, trust, and community. By not being preoccupied with wealth accumulation or possessions, they were unencumbered to live into their purpose and freed to experience the things of life that provide true happiness. Only by relying on God and being in community in which each gives and receives his or her gifts for the benefit of all were they freed from the false perception that they were self-sufficient. He invited them to experience the happiness of radical dependence and the freedom of not being slaves of their possessions. Finally, what lingering conflict or anger stands between you and your sense of joy? "If any place will not welcome you and they refuse to hear you, as you leave, shake off the dust that is on your feet as a testimony against them." When others disappoint or irritate us, instead of calculating ways of retaliating or carrying that anger with us, Jesus invites us to release it, to shake off the dust, and move on with life, the life reality gives us, not the life we would have created. In 7 verses, the author of Mark conveys what Christ offers us, calls us to do, and how he instructs to do it. No, we are not called to sell everything we own and to walk the countryside. However, Christ lets us know that a full wallet does not equate to a full life and invites us to be rather than to have. We are invited to do more than just simply live. We are invited to live simply amongst the complexities of life: to live purposefully - growing in our relation with God through the body of Christ by mutually sharing gifts and talents, to let go of our judgments and resentments of our brothers and sisters, to free ourselves from our obsession with accumulating wealth and possessions by offering what we have back to God. This offering is not about balancing the parish budget nor about memorial gifts but about celebrating we are more grounded, happy, complete, joyful - whatever term we want to use - that life itself is grace when we are not controlled by our money or our things and when we offer them back to God. If we accept this invitation, as we come to the end of each day, we might claim that day as a day lived well: a day we lived by grace rather than judgment, forgave the undeserving rather than failing to forgive one who deserves it, fed one who didn't really need it rather than neglecting one who was truly hungry, made ourselves vulnerable rather than preying on the vulnerable, believed in others too much rather than too little, erred on the side of too much trust than on cynicism, expected the best and been wrong rather than expecting the worst and been right. To do so will often mean we are out of step with the rest of the world - but then, isn't that what Jesus was, and wouldn't it be glorious if we were?