Chapter 1Week 1IntroWhat do you hope to gain from the Simple & Free experiment?
How has excess in your life distracted you from things that actually matter?
Have you ever fasted before? If so, describe the circumstances. If not, what do you anticipate as you fast from excess during the Simple & Free experiment?
How do you feel about pursuing “less of me, more of God”?
As you begin the Simple & Free experiment, what do you think God wants to do with your life? What do you think He’s calling you to give up? Where do you think He’s calling you to serve?
Getting ReadyWhen my son Ben was around eight years old, he moped into the living room in a demonstrative, performative huff. Lots of dramatic sighs. Tons of flopping on the couch. Several side glances to make sure I was seeing his distress. Expecting a genuine difficulty or painful experience, I said: “Ben? What’s wrong, honey?”
And throwing his hands in the air, he hollered: “Mom? Why can’t I just have a horse?!”
Of course I burst out laughing and he fled to his room, disgruntled and persecuted because we wouldn’t put a horse in our teeny suburban backyard. But I must be honest with you, good reader, here is a small fraction of the thoughts I’ve entertained:
Why can’t I just have a newer car for once in my life?
Why can’t I just have cuter clothes and more of them?
Why can’t I just have nice pots and pans instead of these wretched, scratched ones?
Why can’t I just have fluffy towels like at Hyatt Regency Hill Country?
Why can’t I just have a house with two more rooms? And a jet bathtub?
Why can’t I just have a few fancy vacations? Like to Italy or something?
Good reader, what have you wished you could “just have” lately?
Jesus talked repeatedly about people with privileges, riches, advantages. He was always saying how rich people were favored and that our luxuries were granted to us on merit. Enjoy them, rich folks! It’s all for you, and you’re awesome! OPPOSITE DAY! Just kidding. I can’t find a single word Jesus spoke that bodes well for rich people at the top of the food chain.
Woe to you who are rich, for you have received your comfort. (Luke 6:24)
As for the seed that fell among thorns, these are the ones who, when they have heard, go on their way and are choked with worries, riches, and pleasures of life, and produce no mature fruit. (Luke 8:14)
“The Parable of the Rich Fool.” Nice title, and here is the punch line:
That’s how it is with the one who stores up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God. (Luke 12:21)
He has satisfied the hungry with good things and sent the rich away empty. (Luke 1:53)
Read Matthew 19:16–22
Luke 18:18 further tells us this young man was a ruler, so not only does he have money, but he has power and position. In Matthew 19:16 he asked, “What good must I do to have eternal life?”
What does the young man’s question to Jesus tell you?
Why on earth, of all the ways Jesus could’ve challenged him, do you think He answered like He did in Matthew 19:21?
Then, naturally, we get this gem in verse 23, in which I feel deeply connected to Jesus for His use of outrageous hyperbole. (Exaggeration is my medium.) Jesus is seriously making a point by painting the picture of shoving a camel—weighing roughly two thousand pounds—through the eye of a needle—measuring about half a millimeter. Lest anyone manipulate a lesser metaphor, like fitting a tall guy through a small gate or cramming your foot into a shoe one size too small, Jesus crafts this impossible scenario no listener could minimize.
Rich people able to receive Jesus’ kingdom . . .
It’s that hard.
This little story was no problem for me most of my life. I mean, bummer for all those rich people! Whew! What a mess they are. Jesus is not playing. Like the T-shirt I wore in high school said, y’all better “get right . . . or get left!” (I’m sorry, Everyone Who Knew Me Then.)
Then things started getting weird for me. Rogue thoughts about my own wealth began infiltrating my brain, where I’d cleared space for more comfortable ideas like, for instance, how to have a happy life. These intruders started questioning the (fat, slothful, apathetic) residents in my mind, asking about the rest of the world and how are you spending your money and why do you have bins of stuff in every corner of your house and do you have a responsibility to those who suffer and does the way you spend your money matter?
You can see why I hated these new tenants.
What have the residents in your brain always told you about what you own? It’s okay to be honest.
Do you have any intruders? If so, what are they asking?
Rich White DudesThen the intruders, aided and abetted by Jesus, staged a mutiny. The catalyst was the week we housed twelve evacuees from Hurricane Ike. Our little church, four months old at the time, took in eighty strangers from the coast who had nowhere to go. We’d moved our three kids into our bedroom, washed sheets, blown up mattresses, rolled out sleeping bags, and readied the house for an onslaught. As carloads arrived and we welcomed them in, one ten-year-old boy walked in our home, looked around with huge eyes, and hollered:
“Dad! This white dude is rich!”
For years I didn’t realize this, because so many others had more. We were surrounded by extreme affluence, which tricks you into thinking you’re in the middle of the pack. I mean, sure, we have twenty-four hundred square feet for only five humans to live in, but our kids are in public school and we don’t even own a time share, so how rich could we be? (Roll eyes here.)
But it gets fuzzy once you spend time with people with a completely different lived experience. I started seeing my stuff with fresh eyes, realizing we had everything. I mean everything. We’ve never missed a meal or even skimped on one. We have a beautiful home in a great neighborhood. Our kids are in a Texas exemplary school. We drive two cars under warranty. We’ve never gone a day without health insurance. Our closets are overflowing. We throw away food we didn’t eat, clothes we barely wore, trash that will never disintegrate, stuff that fell out of fashion.
And I was so blinded, I didn’t even know we were rich.
How can we be socially responsible if unaware that we reside in the top percentage of wealth in the world? (You probably do too: Make $35,000 a year? Top 4 percent. $50,000? Top 1 percent.) Excess has impaired perspective in America; we are the richest people on earth, praying to get richer. We’re tangled in unmanageable debt while feeding the machine, because we feel entitled to more. What does it communicate when half the global population lives on less than two dollars a day, and we can’t manage a fulfilling life on $25,000 (almost thirty times that amount)? $50,000 (almost seventy times that amount)?2 It says we have too much and it is ruining us.
It was certainly ruining me. The day I am unaware of my privileges and unmoved by my greed is the day something has to change. I couldn’t escape the excess or see beyond my comforts though. I wrung my hands and commiserated but couldn’t fathom an avenue out. We’d done some first-tier reductions, freeing up excess to share, but still . . . the white dude was really rich.
Have you ever considered yourself rich? Does your response come from comparing yourself to others? And if so, do you compare yourself to folks above your rung or below it? Why?
I totally identify with the rich young ruler when “he went away grieving, because he had many possessions” (Matt. 19:22).
How do you feel after reading the last few paragraphs? How does a challenge against our American luxuries make you feel?
It’s interesting that Jesus gently discarded all this young man’s good behaviors and instead plowed into a systemic issue separating him from the kingdom of God: wealth and position. Rather than affirming the lovely side dishes, He went straight to the meat of the matter and totally shocked this well-behaved young man, who was doing so much right. I mean, we could understand a rebuttal for a wifebeater or a child abuser or a swindler, but this guy diligently kept the commandments and even wanted to know what else he could do.
He was trying hard, flying right, on the up and up.
Then Jesus told him, “It’s not about what you’re doing right; it’s about what you cherish.”
We can figure out what we cherish by how we feel when it is threatened.
How would you feel if God asked you to part ways with your stuff? (Make it real: your house, your neighborhood, your cars, your comforts.)
If you’re a believer, how does it feel to have your good behavior discredited compared to how you’ve handled money and possessions?
Copyright © 2021 by Jen Hatmaker. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
