ODYSSEY: Travel Light
With my wife and kids living in Arkansas, I fly monthly to visit them. How many of you in the room are frequent travelers? I've discovered with flying today, less is more. Airlines want up to $30 to check a bag. So it’s better, faster and cheaper to keep it as minimal as you can. I’ve reduced my travel life to this roll bag. It's really pretty compact. I can live up to 8 days out of this roll bag. What I've discovered, though, by keeping it simple is that less is more is an important principle in travel. If I took a full suitcase and had to check it each time, the average pick up time at an airport baggage claim is 1/2 hour. If I take 12 trips, that’s 6 hours wasted standing waiting for my bag when I could be spending that time with my family. Less is more. The rule of the day is K.I.S.S. Keep it simple, saints. That is exactly what Jesus is telling us in our Scripture today, that when you travel, travel light. Today we’re talking about simplicity. Sometimes that’s a lifestyle of choice and sometimes it’s forced on us.
One of the hardest things I had to do after Katrina was gut my house and throw everything out that had been ruined by the floodwaters. It seemed like days I was walking to the empty lot across the street where I was piling all of my ruined possessions. One of the lessons I learned in that process is how much stuff I had and didn’t need. When you have to go through your home and throw everything out, you begin to realize all of the stuff you had accumulated in your closets, under your bed, in the attic and in all of your drawers, most of which you didn’t even know you had. And where did it all go? To the curb and then the dump. From that point on, I was committed to living a life of simplicity, being happy with less stuff. Can I get an Amen? That extended to when I was searching for an apartment. I found a 650 square foot apartment with a living room, kitchen, bedroom and bathroom. Most people walk in say how cute it is and then the next thing they say is, “It’s so small.” But it’s all I need and I’m loving it, snug as a bug in a rug. I can clean my floors in less than 5 minutes and dust in less than 10. Can I get an Amen? That leaves more time with God and to enjoy life.
Jesus wants us to choose a simple life. The problem is we live in a consumer society which continuously bombards us with the message, you find life and meaning in the pursuit of things. We justify it by calling it the pursuit of the American dream. The more you have, the happier you’ll be. The problem is that the joy and happiness of that new car or phone or clothes wears off and so you start searching for the next new thing to make you happy. It seems that so much of our time and debt is based on the pursuit of the American dream and getting more. What we need to understand is that consumption is addictive. By 2006, the average American was spending $1.22 for every dollar earned, and in two years the economy collapsed because we kept pursuing meaning in non-life-giving kinds of sources. George Barna in his latest book Furuturecast says that women spend an average of 8 years of the life shopping, including 301 shopping trips a year and more than 400 hours a year. Despite repeated letdowns, rather than give up on the consumer mentality, we just seek the next newest and latest thing. And what happens is that the pursuit of things gets in the way of our relationship with God. That’s what happened with Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. They chose to pursue the apple instead of God. Now that apple can be many things to many different people. It can be the lastest sports car or video game or designer purse or shoes or dress. And the result is we take our eyes off of the source of life and turn our eyes upon something or even someone who doesn’t give life.
Now, the kingdom of God states meaning and purpose are found in relationships beginning first with a relationship with God. We find our core identity in this relationship with God, and it's why Jesus called his disciples to himself. Our real identity can only be found in our relationship with God. The American Dream, the kingdom of this world, says you find life in the pursuit of non-life giving sources. In the kingdom of God, you find life in relationships, beginning with our relationship with God. But then there is a second relationship of importance and that’s our relationship with each other. You and I are created for relationships.
Too often, we come to believe that we don’t have enough to accomplish God’s will. I love The Message, which translates Matthew 10:9-10, “Don't think you have to put on a fund raising campaign before you start this journey.” You know a lot of us think. . . I can't afford to really do or give what God wants me to do or give, but someday I will be able. When I retire then I'm going to be able to do what God really wants me to do. It says, “You don't need a lot of equipment because you are the equipment. All you need is yourself. The hope for the world that you offer as you go out on this mission is Christ in you.
Jesus calls us to travel light. Jesus tells us in our Scripture today that all you need is three meals a day. Travel Light.” What we need to do, sisters and brothers, is get off this treadmill of pursuing the American dream and begin to cultivate a life in the Holy Spirit, pursuing our relationship with God and with one another. You know, if you spend too much time pursuing stuff and things then you'll never have time to cultivate that which is eternal. That’s what counts!
Do you see why Jesus is saying we have to right-size our life for this journey? How many of you have seen the television show Hoarders? Would you say that there is some “hoarder” in all of us? There is some hoarder in all of us. “Jesus said to them, ‘Watch out, be on your guard against all kinds of greed, life does not consist in abundance of possessions.’” There's some way that through life, intended or not, possessions tend to accumulate. Now he tells them a parable, he says ’The ground of a certain rich man yielded an abundant harvest.’ He thought to himself, ‘What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops?’ That's the problem, when we want to store more than we need. “Then he said, ‘This is what I do, I'll tear down my barns and build bigger ones. And I will store my surplus of grain.’ If you have your Bibles circle the word “surplus.” There's a reason that God gives us surplus, and it's not to store. “And I'll say to myself, ‘You have plenty of grain laid up for many years, take life easy; eat, drink, and be merry.” Life was never meant to be taken easy; it's meant to be committed to the mission of God, which is dangerous and difficult, “But God said to him, ‘You fool, this very night your life will be demanded from you, then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?’ This is how it will be for those who store up things for themselves but are not rich toward God.” Well what is Jesus saying to us here? What do you have right now that you never use or rarely use that's taking up space? We need to implement The KISS principal: Keep It Simple, Stupid. We need to keep life as simple and clutter free as possible.
Second, Jesus never sends us out alone. Do you notice that Jesus never sends anybody out by themselves? Any time in scripture that Jesus sends someone on a mission there are no less than teams of 2. One of the keys of being sent out and traveling light is relationships. This is why relationships in the kingdom of God and the body of Christ are so important. None of us were ever meant to do God’s work by ourselves. Relationships are absolutely essential, but the problem today is that relationships are developed in the margins of our life. What are margins? They are open spaces that aren't filled up with other stuff. One of the issues with life today is that we have very little margin in our life. If you don't have any margins in your life then you don't have room for relationships. As long as we're caught on this merry-go-round of the pursuit of the American dream, then we're spending all of our time and energy in the pursuit of stuff. The more stuff you have, the more complex your life is. Because the more time you have to spend taking care of your stuff, you have no time for relationships!
Third, we need to downsize. What Jesus is really telling us here is that we need to have periodic garage sales both for our souls and our lives, for the sake of God's mission. Hello! The outward world is really a reflection of our inner world. If I come into your physical space and it is all clutter and a mess, it really is a reflection of what's going on inside of you. Am I right? When your outward world is really kind of chaotic it affects your inner world? When we clean up our outer world, then it frees our inner space. That's what Jesus is saying here. If I’m too weighted down, then I can’t travel very far. We could be using these under-utilized resources for the people who don’t have and God's mission in the world. What if we put all of this stuff on EBay? Can you imagine if we as a church sold all of the things we don’t need and put it into mission? Live simply so other people can simply live! What about the stuff that we have hidden away that we have this childhood attachment to and stuff that's never used? What's going to happen to it when we die? It will fill our children's basement and then their children's basement.
Now, what we need to do for this mission is name the essentials. That's exactly what Jesus is doing. Name the essentials. First cultivate your relationship with God. How are you cultivating your relationship with God right now? You can never be too busy to cultivate your relationship with God. Take a moment. What are some of the ways you cultivate your relationship with God? Pray. Okay, journaling? What else do you do to cultivate your relationship with God? I think that's critical. Mother Theresa, said for 40 years Jesus was silent and didn't speak to her, but she found Jesus in serving other people. That's spot on.
Second, spend time with people you love. You're going to die. I don't care what season it is in your business; if you die it won't matter. Don’t miss spending time with people you love. One of the best times I had this summer was when my son was at camp and it was just my daughter and I. Those were precious times. She went everywhere I went, even the office, and did everything I did. It was one of the most special weeks of my life. Too often we spend all of our time tryingnto get to the point where we’ll have more time with friends and it never comes.
American businessman was at a pier in a small coastal Mexican village when a small boat with just one fisherman docked. Inside the small boat were several large yellow-fin tuna. The American complimented the Mexican on the quality of his fish and asked how long it took to catch them. The Mexican replied only a little while. The American then asked why didn’t he stay out longer and catch more fish? The Mexican said he had enough to support his family’s immediate needs. The American then asked the Mexican how he spent the rest of his time. The Mexican fisherman said, "I sleep late, fish a little, play with my children, take siesta with my wife, Maria, stroll into the village each evening where I sip wine and play guitar with my amigos. I have a full and busy life, senor." The American scoffed, "I am a Harvard MBA and could help you. You should spend more time fishing and, with the proceeds, buy a bigger boat. With the proceeds from the bigger boat, you could buy several boats, eventually you would have a fleet of fishing boats. Instead of selling your catch to a middleman you would sell directly to the processor, eventually opening your own cannery. You would control the product, processing and distribution. "You would need to leave this small coastal fishing village and move to Mexico City, then LA and eventually NYC where you will run your expanding enterprise." The Mexican fisherman asked, "But senor, how long will this all take?" To which the American replied, "15-20 years." "But what then, senor?" asked the Mexican. The American laughed, and said, "That’s the best part! When the time is right, you would announce an IPO and sell your company stock to the public. You’ll become very rich, you would make millions!" "Millions, senor?" replied the Mexican. "Then what?" The American said, "Then you would retire. Move to a small coastal fishing village where you would sleep late, fish a little, play with your kids, take siesta with your wife, stroll to the village in the evenings where you could sip wine and play your guitar with your amigos."
We don't have to own everything. “The earth is the Lord's and all it contains.” It's just, right here where it says in this passage today, “The worker is worthy of his wages.” When you seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, watch what God will give back to you.
Third, do the will of God. We need to do the things that God is truly calling us to do. I have so much going on in my life right now. It’s so easy to let other things get in the way of the work of the kingdom. Too often, we major in the minor things in life. We need to make building the kingdom of God and doing the will of God the very first priority of our life. Why are we here? We are servants to the Lord Jesus Christ. Remember the worldview of the kingdom of consumption is self actualization but the worldview of the kingdom of God is self sacrifice. Right-size your life for the mission of God. And major only in the major things of the kingdom of God.
