Keep it Simple

What has become of simplicity? Maybe we who run endlessly in a quest for new and innovative ought to examine the arts. Good architecture usually features simple lines and colors which blend and compliment the structure’s setting. While good music may be demanding for an artist, the listener frequently goes away from the performance humming a simple melody that has been repeatedly and stylishly presented. After visiting the Louvre in Paris, the oil painting of the Head of John the Baptist on a Platter is the most memorable. It is unforgettable because of the content and the simplicity of the artist’s rendering.

Christian living and church attendance can become complicated! Modern Pharisees unwittingly add elaborate expectations and forget the effectiveness of simple. Teams of religious professionals work feverishly to smooth out potential rough spots, develop silky segues and modulate the faithful into a predefined attitude of worship. I appreciate the effort, but experience some disconnects when remembering the Pentecostal church that formed me. That church was more akin to a Quaker meeting when worshipers waited on God, sought the "sense of the meeting" and were rather comfortable with silence and welcomed unexpected

interjections of the Spirit.

The need for simplicity has dawned on me again in the last few days. The first reminder came as I read Luke’s account of Holy Week. Jesus’ simple statement interrupted my progress as I read. Jesus told his disciples how they would know whom to ask for permission to use a room for Passover, "As you enter the city, a man carrying a jar of water will meet you" (Luke 22:11). You’ll know whom to ask! You won’t need a lot of help! It’s simple!

The copyright is dated 1960. The times were more simple. One didn’t have to half disrobe before boarding an airplane then. A person with a few wrenches and a high school class in mechanics could tune up his own car. Typewriters hadn’t been relegated to the garage yet. And, V. Raymond Edman, past President of Wheaton College, wrote They Found the Secret, a compilation of short biographical studies of people who changed the world. While reading I was reminded that the great revivalist, Charles Finney, who studied to be a lawyer, dared to seek God as an answer for a barrenness in his spirit and interrupted a work day to meet God. He sought the Lord all alone, in a woods near his law office. Finney had been challenged with the phrase, "When you search for me with all your heart," and resolved to discover the promised result. The future revivalist described the effect his encounter with the Almighty as, "It seemed as if my heart was all liquid; and my feelings were in such a state that I could not hear my own voice in singing without causing my sensibility to overflow.. I wondered at this, and tried to suppress my ears, but could not." This experience occurred repeatedly as Finney accompanied himself playing his cello. Charles Finney’s story and others are worthy of reading.

In the same book, V. Raymond Edman described the wisdom of Adoniram Judson Gordon with, "The infilling of God’s Spirit was not an ecstasy to be kept selfishly, rather, it was the dynamic of discipleship that constrained a Great Heart to seek humble fisher folk and hopeless drunkards that they may know the living Savior as their own."

A. J. Gordon spoke of the circumstances which moved him toward an encounter with God. He wrote, "Well do we remember those days when drudgery was pushed to the point of desperation. The hearts must be moved to repentance and confession of Christ; therefore more effort must be devoted to the sermon, more hours of elaborating its periods, more pungency put into its sentences, more study bestowed on its delivery. And then came the disappointment that few, if any, were converted by all this which had cost a week of toil." In short, Gordon confessed to how he and his peers were caught up in the complexity of life and ministry.

Gordon’s achievements are note worthy. He was an able revivalist and founded Gordon College near Boston, an excellent school until the present. But, his most lasting work may be a series of books he authored. The titles are now quaint, each beginning with Quiet Talks on . . . A. J. Gordon’s books have shaped my life in the nooks of quiet reading and in the crannies of difficulty from which I was uncertain there was an escape. Each bok is amazingly simple. The language is quiet. If the manuscripts were autos, they would be the "SE" model, not the "Limited!" The truths captured by Gordon are enduringly simple and strong.

The last reminder to revisit simplicity occurred last Sunday morning, Our pastor simply invited people to come toward the altar with words of encouragement and assurance. God was present in that moment. Musicians played quietly, people lining the altar listened to those standing beside them. The challenges some faced were staggering. Many wept. Others found it difficult to describe what they confronted. God was there and gave a word of encouragement, a prophecy or word of wisdom, and noone needed to be told that God had spoken. After the extended, glorious interruption, sans segue or human transitional segment, we returned to our seats saying to one another, "Everything is going to be all right!"

Let’s keep it simple!