Writing something about simplicity initially felt absurdly daunting and complicated to me. My mind clambered and raced over boulders of complex rhetoric. Ironically, attempting to clarify the nature of simplicity actually revealed within me the kind of breathless, nonsimplistic scrambling to which our culture is prone. Our schedules are exhausting, our lives are full to bursting, and we feel the persistent pressure to complicate our lives: to do more, see more, be more, have more.
But Jesus’ message is juxtaposed with such chaotic momentum and pluralistic motivation: “Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness …” (Matt. 6:33). Simple. Much simpler than I tend to make it. Over and over again, the language of Scripture admonishes us to fix our eyes, singularly, upon the Kingdom of God with nearly scandalous disregard for our personal goals, desires and, at times, even our needs — entrusting those, instead, to God.
This Kingdom of God we are called to seek, depicted by Christ’s mysterious and numerous metaphors, is a hidden Kingdom of “absolute righteousness, of unsurpassable freedom, of dauntless love, of universal reconciliation, of everlasting peace.”1 It is the yeast that is slowly working its way through the dough as we await its full consummation. Seeking first that Kingdom requires an intentional turning toward God. It is a calling to singular and total commitment and complete subordination of all other fidelities. It must become, in the words of Soren Kierkegaard, our “one thing.”
When we desire this “one thing,” God liberates us to live and practice graceful lives of simplicity. We are more accurately able to see what our true needs are, and what is excessive or wasteful. We are freed from the anxiety of a dualistic mindset. We learn to love the poor and the oppressed because we realize that it was for them that the Kingdom was inaugurated (Isa. 61:1-3). We also, most excitingly for me, begin to see glimpses of God and of the Kingdom of God in our midst.
I saw it recently when I watched a tiny young friend from the streets declare her freedom. Covered in grime from her day spent playing on the floors of the filthy subway station, she powerfully defied the reality in which she lives as she sang the haunting words of a simple song our Servant Team had taught her:
Me viste a mi cuando nadie me vio. (You saw me when nobody saw me.)
Me amaste a mi cuando nadie me amo. (You loved me when no one else did.)
Y me diste nombre. Yo soy tu niña, la niña de tus ojos. (And you gave me a name. I am the apple, the apple of your eye.)
As she sang, I saw the disguise of a young child of the streets — held in contempt and rejected by so many — fall away, and she was revealed as a beautiful daughter of God who, against all odds, was dancing in joy upon the injustices of her life. I saw Jesus bind up the heart of one who is brokenhearted. I saw the Kingdom. Like the man who found the treasure in a field and then sold all he had to buy that one field (Matt. 13:45), I knew it was worth everything. This one thing is worth everything.
ENDNOTES
1 Hans Küng, trans. Edward Quinn, On Being a Christian (New York: Doubleday, 1969), p. 215.
Photo: Margi Felix
Jennifer Dean lives in the colorful barrio of La Boca, Buenos Aires, with her three children and husband, Jeremiah. She is determined to learn the Argentine tango.