The Kingdom of God is Enough

Preached at First Presbyterian Church of Rolla. Based on Jeremiah 17:5-10 and Luke 6:17-26.

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For a little over two years, I have used a planner called a Monk Manual. The motivating principle behind it is that monks are some of the happiest and most productive people. Steven Lawson, the creator of the Monk Manual, studied the monastic life and developed a way to achieve similar results in secular life. His approach encompasses these ten principles:

• Gratitude
• Simplicity
• Intentionality
• Order
• Generosity
• Relationships
• Reflection
• Presence
• Balance
• Transcendence

The question is, how can we incorporate these in our daily lives? Lawson developed the Monk Manual as a way of integrating spiritual practices that lead to living out these principles. Just last week, I started a program he calls, “Find Your Inner Monk,” which delves deeper into these concepts.

I want to focus on just a few today to set the stage for the rest of our time together. The first is simplicity. Simplicity begins with letting go. Monks express this tangibly by paring down to the essentials—both emotionally and physically—liberating themselves from the things that weigh down their mind, body, and spirit. The vows of poverty and chastity are the tangible expressions of a dedication to simplicity. Much easier said than done. If you start making a list of all the things in your life that you “need,” you will find that it includes many things that were unknown a generation ago. Do I “need” a smartphone? Probably not, but getting rid of it is unimaginable to me.

Next, there are relationships. Monks vow chastity, but do not live without love. Instead, they embrace a different kind of love, the chaste love of brotherhood. In the same way, we can have lives filled with loving relationships. In the Monk Manual, there is a spot for daily gratitude. Most of my entries there are people with whom I have a relationship—sometimes family members, but often friends who enrich my life, or even casual acquaintances who reveal God to me. Hospice nurses cite that the biggest regret of the dying has nothing to do with achievements or financial investments—but has everything to do with relationships. I’m an engineer and an introvert, so for much of my life, I’ve focused on developing a few close relationships. Over the past few years, I’ve tried to broaden my social circle. The pandemic has made that difficult—I think everyone’s social circles have been collapsing just because it is SO HARD to get together. Still, I’ve been striving to stay connected with old friends and develop new friendships.

The last principle I want to discuss is presence. Presence means letting go of the past and the future and being fully in the moment. It means really listening to the person you’re talking to, rather than thinking about what you’re going to say next. We are so used to control that it’s hard to let go, and trust that it really is going to be okay, after all. Engaging with what’s right in front of us, which means giving ourselves fully to the present moment, requires vulnerability—which can be terrifying. But if you’re ever with someone who has real presence—like my friend Ashley Brooks—it’s exhilarating. Their openness and presence are contagious and make you more open and present with them.

Simplicity, relationships, and presence—three ways we let go of our attachments to the material world and surrender to God. This week’s Gospel lesson is the opening part of the Sermon on the Plain, which is Luke’s parallel with Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount. As in Matthew, Luke opens the sermon with blessings, but unlike Matthew, Luke includes the woes here as well. We see these pairings: Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation. Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you will be filled. Woe to you who are full now, for you will be hungry. Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh. Woe to you who are laughing now, for you will mourn and weep. Basically, if you’re down, you’ll be lifted up; if you’re up, you’ll be brought low.

The blessings are for those who trust in God. The woes are for those who trust in worldly things. If you are rich and you think you can rely on your wealth, you will be reluctant to trust in God. But as the saying goes, you can’t take it with you. One day, you’ll have no choice but to surrender all that you have. If you release your attachments now, you can break free of the cycle of blessing and woe inherent to our world and you’ll be more able to live in God’s realm now. Jesus’s message that the kingdom of God is at hand reminds us that we can live in God’s kingdom now, not later. But living in God’s kingdom means not living in a worldly kingdom.

Jeremiah has similar curses and blessings. Cursed are those who trust in mere mortals, but blessed are those who trust in the LORD. Then Jeremiah follows up with a reminder that, “The heart is devious above all else.” It’s easy to turn your whole life over to God, or rather to say that you’re turning it over, but hard to really let go. Most often, we say that we will put our trust in God alone, but then don’t follow through. On Sunday, we believe that God will provide, but on Monday, we go to work or check our investments. When I was working with Rocco to design our new house, I started out with the intention of downsizing because our family doesn’t need so many attachments—but by the end of the project, we ended up with a bigger house and more storage space for all the stuff we don’t really need. I’d like to let go and trust in God completely, but it’s a struggle every day.

 It’s important to remember, though, that these blessings and woes are not commands, but rather are descriptions of reality. If you put your trust in your wealth, you’ll worry about every dip in the stock market. If you are attached to your possessions, they wind up owning you. If instead you let go of your possessions and trust in God, there’s nothing you can lose. I’m reminded of Nino—some of you know him from the Mission. He went through some things, including alcohol addiction and prison, but then found Jesus and turned his life around. He posted once on Facebook, “I don’t have much but I have it all.” He has let go of all his material needs and dedicated himself to serving God, and he’s filled with joy. It’s always great when he stops by the Mission. He lifts people up and makes the community better just by his presence, which reflects the glory of God.

Nino has enough. We live in a society where a scarcity mindset prevails. We worry that we won’t have enough time to do everything we “need” to do. We worry that we won’t have enough money to be secure. So we chase after more money, which uses up the time we don’t have. I was listening to a recording by Father Richard Rohr recently, and he pointed out that our homes and kitchens are full of “time-saving devices,” and yet we have less time than ever. The pursuit of abundance leaves us always feeling scarcity. We think, If I just have X, I’ll be happy. I just need a new car, or a new job, or a bigger TV, or a faster computer. Then we get it, and it’s nice at first, but eventually it leaves us unsatisfied. The more we have, the more we want, and the less it satisfies.

So the opposite of scarcity is not abundance. The opposite of the scarcity-abundance trap is enough. Kurt Vonnegut wrote this poem as an obituary:

True story, Word of Honor:
Joseph Heller, an important and funny writer
now dead,
and I were at a party given by a billionaire
on Shelter Island.
I said, “Joe, how does it make you feel
to know that our host only yesterday
may have made more money
than your novel ‘Catch-22’
has earned in its entire history?”
And Joe said, “I’ve got something he can never have.”
And I said, “What on earth could that be, Joe?”
And Joe said, “The knowledge that I’ve got enough.”
Not bad! Rest in peace!”

Enough. Instead of striving to have what you want, enough-ness is wanting what you have. The root of this enough-ness is relationships.

Father Rohr reminds his audience that many poor people in Third World countries are much happier than relatively well-off people in America. The reason is that instead of relying on things, they rely on each other. They know that if they are in need, their family or their neighbors will help them out. Instead of putting their time and energy into building up a big bank account, they build up a big social account—wealth in the form of social connections. Elsewhere I have heard this called the gift economy. I give something to you, not as a loan against some future gift you’ll give me, but as an investment in our friendship. And maybe you won’t “pay me back,” but in sharing of myself, I help build up a community of belonging where people support each other. God’s realm is built on something even more powerful: the grace economy. We share not only our time and resources, which are limited, but also God’s grace, which is limitless. God’s grace multiplies our efforts and strengthens our relationships.

I mentioned that I started a program called, “Find Your Inner Monk.” It’s described by Monk Manual founder Steve Lawson as a pilgrimage, but a pilgrimage that takes place in your daily life. In the first lesson, he talks about how we form our ideas, values, and goals, and how we answer life’s big questions. Especially in America, we have this image in our minds of the solitary individual deriving answers from first principles and formulating their own vision of how the world works. That image drives the phenomenon of those who say they are spiritual but not religious, instead seeking answers to life’s questions on their own. But Lawson points out that that’s not a reflection of reality. In reality, the influences on our ideologies and beliefs are first our communities of belonging, then the broader culture, and then our personal experiences. That is, our communities of belonging have the strongest influence, and the more we feel belonging, the more permeable we are, the more open we are to the community’s beliefs.

As we let go of our worldly attachments and invest instead in relationships, we build up those communities of belonging. The more I give to this church, in time, talent, and treasure, the more I feel a part of it, and the more it molds me into its image. We should work towards making our church both a place where people feel complete belonging, and a place where we lift up Jesus Christ and his self-sacrificing love as the ideal that we are all striving to achieve.

I’ve noticed something curious about the human psyche. You would think that receiving a gift would make you value the giver more and make you feel more a part of the giver’s community. But that hasn’t been my experience. In reality, it is in giving that we ascribe more value to the receiver, and in giving that we feel more a part of the receiving community. It’s as if the receiver validates our gift, and therefore validates us as a person and as a member of the community. That’s why so many people volunteer at the Mission and at GRACE and at all of the other charitable organizations in town. That’s why a great way to reconcile with someone is not to give them something, but to ask them for a favor, which shows that you value them.

So to build a true community of belonging, we need to value the gifts each person has to offer. If we want to grow in our impact on our community, we don’t need to raise more money for charity, although that won’t hurt and I would still encourage you to give on this Souper Bowl Sunday. We don’t need to be more entertaining, or to have more programs. What we need is to create spaces where people feel valued, where the gifts they have to offer matter. Some people have financial resources they can share; others have musical or artistic talents, or know how to fix things, or know how to organize and plan, or are good with numbers, or whatever. All of us have life experiences that we can share, things we have learned that can help others see God in a new way. All of us have a yearning to love and be loved.

A community where people truly feel belonging, where they can bring their full selves and all their life experiences and skills and talents, has a name: the kingdom of God. I’m not sure how to build such a community, but Jesus tells us that the kingdom of God is at hand. It’s nearby, just waiting for us to enter it. Let us all strive to create spaces where people can give of themselves, their whole selves, and receive in return the grace of God and membership in God’s glorious kingdom.

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