Less Is More - Ecclesiastes 4:4-8 (Pentecost 21C)

We are getting into this new series - Making Change - at a time when people are thinking about  not only our church budget, but looking ahead to the next year of our personal budgets. But you know, this series may be the easiest or the hardest to impact your life! You might say… yeah Pastor Dan - I’ve got this down… and then start zoning out and wondering what’s for lunch or your fantasy football team or something. Hopefully I’ll keep it engaging for ya’ll too. But on the other end, I hope that this series of Making Change will hit you so that it inspires you to take the next step in your financial journey. 

Now, these lessons seem simple on their surface - Less is More, Stress Is Bad, Giving is Good, and Tomorrow Matters - but taking what we will be discussing and implementing it is where the message may get jumbled. 

We start this morning with the message of Less is More. Now - as much of a paradox as this seems, it’s been a proverb that has been around for centuries. One of the first people it’s attributed to is a Greek philosopher named Chiron of Sparta. A different way of translating his phrase is “Brevity is the soul of wit”, which seems an interesting way of bending those words a different way. Well - if I'm a truly witty person, maybe that’s all the message this morning…. Hahaha - you’re not getting away that easy. 

There’s an idea in our culture which is the opposite of our talk today, that if we have one, two is better. Whether it’s one dollar, two is better. 1 car, 2 is better. Have one kid, people start asking when the second one is coming, right? More money, more clothes, more toys… more stuff!

Let me start with a story -  When I was a kid, one of my favorite candy was Hershey’s chocolate bar. I’ve grown up a bit in my tastes since then, but simple wins, right? Anyway - when I was in elementary school, Hershey’s either started coming out in other flavors or I just started noticing them. One of these flavors was Cookies & Cream - white chocolate with bits of  Oreo-like chocolate cookies embedded in it. I saw this on the shelf, and I knew I had to have it, since that’s also one of my favorite ice cream flavors. This bar was special because it was a giant bar - like the size of four regular bars! I felt like I won the candy lottery - and it wasn’t even Halloween at the time! I got it home, and  I wanted to try it right away, of course. As a kid, you think have one little square and that’s good. But being a kid - if one little section is good… five more is better, right? As I continue to munch on this delicious treat, I must have blacked out because before I knew it, the whole thing was gone! It was so good I couldn’t stop! And then, the joy of eating subsided and the pain of a belly ache started to settle in. Too much of a good thing can be a bad thing! Without getting into the gory details, to this day, I cannot even look at cookies and cream Hershey’s bars without remembering. I have not had one since. 

This is one good reason why less is more. There’s other biblical examples of this as well - even from the beginning. Adam and Eve had everything, so you wouldn’t think this principle applies. They lived in a literal paradise, with all the amenities they could imagine. AND YET… they were reminded that there was one tree they couldn’t eat from. They COULDN’T USE it. Until someone pointed it out, they were content. But then in the first marketing campaign, Adam and Eve were tempted with what they can’t have - it was an exclusive product, a luxury that they couldn’t deny. What they didn’t have is what they wanted! And now we all pay the price.

We can break the cycle though! Less is more! This is the center of our scripture today too. The verse I’d really like to highlight is number six: Better is one handful with tranquility than two handfuls with toil and chasing after the wind. Say that with me again - “better is one handful with tranquility than two handfuls with toil and chasing after the wind”. Better is one handful… this seems to be backwards of other conventional wisdom as well. Isn’t it one in the hand is worth two in the bush? I don’t even know what that one means, so let’s just get back to what I came here for.

Why is it better? When you have one handful, it leaves the extra hand to other things. If I have two handfuls, the second hand is occupied. If my second hand is open, I can offer a hand up off the floor. If I have one hand full and someone needs something, I can offer something to someone in need. If I had one handful and someone needs comfort, what can I do? I can offer them comfort. When we have this open hand, we can do with it what matters. If I have two hands full, I’m really only focusing on my hands so that I don’t drop what’s in them.

I want you to work on this during the week - ask yourself,  what really matters? If you have a hard time thinking on one, you know, the top three things that really matter. I’d love to hear those over the next week. But - when we focus on what matters, it can bring real clarity and motivation to act on it. A colleague of mine put on their social media and asked people what was the most important. Some people put their faith, their walk with Jesus. Some put family and other relationships. A few put their health. 

But you know what NO ONE put? Their bank account. The next iPhone. Their living room furniture. New countertops. How many Instagram followers they have, or even how many levels of Candy Crush they’ve finished! 

Jesus said in the Gospel of Luke: Life does not consist in an abundance of possessions!  Jesus preached LESS IS MORE! 

So maybe you’re sitting there wondering how you can start living the way that Jesus preached… thank you for asking, I’d love to tell you! 

First of all, one thing on how to live Less is more - cut back. I used to live in this house before I was married to Tadjena. It was built in 1920s. There were two bedrooms and one bathroom in the original house. Someone put a half bath in it before I lived there. But one thing that the remodelers forgot to think about when upgrading the house was closet space. In each bedroom, there was one closet. It was tiny… I’d say it was barely more than the width of my shoulders. Thinking about it, back when the house was built, it made sense why the closets were so small. But to see that now, my initial reaction was to laugh, but I thought i could make it work. 

Moving into a new house though, is an interesting time. We buy houses unfurnished and empty, and it’s amazing how realtors and TV shows stage things to give people a more concrete idea of what the spaces could be when they move in. It’s so common now… but what happens after you move in and furnish your space, then life keeps moving, so you’re putting stuff in your garage. Maybe it’s seasonal, so it’s gotta go somewhere this time of year. But then, if you’re lucky to have attic space, I bet there’s stuff being stored in there too. That’s where I keep my Christmas tree, which we know only comes out seasonally. Once that space is filled too, what do we do? One of the biggest businesses right now is storage facilities because our houses are too small for our possessions! We rent and pay money that we work for to put our stuff in a place we don’t own! 

How is this something we could apply to the church? Do we need to cut back our programming to allow more time to discern vision of how Bethany church is to move into the future? Do we need to cut down our meetings so we have more time to go and do the actual gospel work of training disciples? Do we need to pare down our committees because those serving are doing that with two or three hats and getting burned out? Is this house of God built in the 1950s the right place for us sixty years later? Are we using our spaces appropriately, or do we need to renovate? I don’t have answers to these questions but I am curious to hear your thoughts. 

So this brings me to the second way to live out our “less is more” mentality - clear out! Clear out as if your life depends on it! Because it might! Don’t get me wrong - I am not any better than any of you at this - in fact, I might just be preaching to myself today as much as anyone else. I know this is difficult for so many people - and maybe we need to help one another to do this. Our church could use a little of this, having an inventory taken of what’s here and what needs to be cleared out because it’s weighing us down. Weighed down with the weight of expectation, maybe from family members, some of whom may no longer be with us. You might have problems clearing things out because you are afraid once you let go, you’ll need it. Or even there’s sentimentality that we’ve attached to our stuff.  But this is the point - clearing out the stuff may have more to do with cleaning out our emotions too, which leaves us more nimble to respond to people who need us now. It can be overwhelming with all our stuff - too many options, from the movies to the grocery store.  I know I’m younger than most of you, but it still feels weird saying this - I remember when our movie theatres only had three screens. There was a theatre behind Glenbrook Mall that I would go to lots of times when I was in high school. But now, I think the smallest movie theatre in town has… 16 screens? When that one opened it seemed insane that there would be demand enough to have 16 movies running at the same time. Even worse, all the endless options on just one of the many streaming services available at our fingertips just… makes me dizzy! Don’t even get me started on the grocery store and we have whole aisles dedicated to one or two products. 

But again - how can we apply this bit of wisdom to the church? How can we make more disciples with space that we clear out from what we’ve done. I know I’ve touched on this point a few times in previous weeks, but since the United Methodist Church has been going through a “clearing out” of sorts, what does that mean for its future? For so long, the threat of widespread disaffiliation has been looming over our heads, and though it is not completely gone, I personally feel as though those clouds are beginning to lighten. Those who have left are doing so graciously, and the landscape looks different, that doesn’t mean that we are going to be ineffective in our attempts to bring the gospel to where it needs to go. There are former members of churches who have left that probably feel abandoned by the UMC. We will welcome those people who wish to remain in our denomination, and our ministries. I want to encourage you to dream about the future and how we can reach more in our communities for Jesus, not just for numbers, but for lives changed.  

Lastly, the last way that we can live embracing a “less is more” attitude: Pay off! Stress is bad, which we will get into more next week, but debt is a tool. Some people have really benefitted from using debt to improve their life. Student loans have historically been a way to do that, and mortgages have been a great way to get into a better place. But once you’re in that happy life - do you say to yourself, “Man, I’m really peaceful because I have this debt in my life!”; “My credit card payment really helps me center myself.” NO - because the whole idea of credit cards is that you can buy something now, but enslave your future self to paying for it. It brings with it stress, worry, fear. You may even change your life because of your debt, like I know many in my generation, because of student loans have chosen not to have children because they don’t have the resources. 

But when you pay off the debts you have, is there anything better? Making the last credit card payment after you’ve been too deep you don’t want to even look at your statements? The last car payment, doesn’t it feel a little bit better driving around knowing that you don’t owe anyone? 

Anyone remember the verse we have today… better is one handful in tranquility than two handfuls in toil. Maybe a better way to say that is, better is a car that’s paid off than a new one with a high interest rate. Better is a one story house than a two-story to stay in a job you hate to pay for it. Better is the financial margin to be able to help others, than to be one paycheck from ruin. 

Less is More - doesn’t mean that you don’t have anything. In fact, if you’ve figured out what matters, maybe you have some nice stuff. I know I started today by saying cut back and clear out, but by knowing what is important, you know the stuff you treasure, versus having junk that owns you! Let me say that again, it may transform someone’s life. It’s better to have nice things you own and treasure versus having a bunch of junk that owns you! The clutter is not good for your soul, we need to find places to keep; and that maybe the richest people are not those who have the most, but those who need the least. 

Last story - I promise. I’ve been on a few mission trips in my life, and one that still impacts me to this day was when I was in high school and I went to West Virginia. Now, you might be thinking, West Virginia impacted you the most? Yes - let me explain. I could have gone on a foreign trip to Central America or Africa or somewhere, but that may have impacted me less than this trip did because it was people like me. My youth group went to McDowell County, West Virginia to this tiny town called War. I was told at the time (I don’t remember if I’ve ever verified it) but allegedly, this is the same county where the legend of the Hatfields and McCoys feud takes place. That’s a story for another day. Anyway - we stayed in a school gym, and we went to do kind of everyday things, run a Vacation Bible School, doing light building work fixing up some houses for mobility-challenged people, among others. But that’s where some of the similarities to here stopped. McDowell County, West Virginia is one of the poorest and sickest counties in America. The population two years ago was about 19,000 people. It’s beautiful country out there, don’t get me wrong, but it is also deep coal country, and so with those jobs disappearing, it’s hit them very hard. The poverty rate in the county is about 1 out of 3 people. Nearly half of all personal income is from Social Security and other federal programs.

As I was serving these people, some of them were grumpy, and I’m sure rightly so, looking back at it. What I couldn’t have realized at the time was that the opioid crisis was just beginning when I was there, and I wasn’t aware of those sorts of things either. It was this county and many other like it that were ravaged by pain pills. We wouldn’t have known it. My group were young and naive, ready to bring Jesus to this lost population. What we found beside it though was those that had faith, were beacons to their communities. They were grateful we were there and wanted to help. That kind of joy is contagious, I tell you what. 

So I came home from that trip, transformed. I was ready to live my simple life, among the complexities of northeast Indiana. I don’t want to say that my transformation wore off, but the momentum of my experience hit a bunch of resistance. The richest people are not those who have the most - but who need the least. I couldn’t do it - I mean - a teenager against a whole marketing industry? Nearly twenty-five years later and I'm still saying the same thing. 

But that’s why we need to remember our verse for today: Ecclesiastes 4:6 - Better is one handful with tranquility than two handfuls with toil.” I was inspired for this whole series by the pastor of Life.Church, Craig Groeschel, who writes, “Your life is too valuable, calling too great, your God is too good to waste it on meaningless things.” Better is one handful, and children that you love,. Better is one handful, and a core group of intimate friends. Better is one handful and vacation memories. Better is one handful and a passion for Jesus, than ANYTHING ELSE this world could imagine. 

Thank you. Amen.