How Much Is Enough?
Luke 3:9-14
Confession time: I adore Costco. Frequently, I have to make myself not go and repeat to myself that I do not need 12 lbs. of boneless chicken breast or 16 rolls of mega paper towels. And the struggle is real! There is something very, very comforting about buying in bulk because with that comes this sense of not having to worry or think about replenishing whatever you bought any time soon. I have a few exceptions from my abstention: I do buy trash bags and toilet paper in bulk regularly from Costco!
Toilet paper. I'm sure y'all remember The Great Toilet Paper Shortage of 2020, don't you? To this day stores still have signs up that limit the quantity of paper products for the bathroom you are permitted to buy.
We have a tendency, when fear and anxiety rise up within us, to no longer believe that what used to be enough is enough anymore, don’t we? Where all of us normally got by with the toilet paper we had purchased in the past, prior to March 2020, a whiff of worry about toilet paper shortages back then turned into a run on that most valuable of hygiene products.
John the Baptist in the 3rd chapter of Luke was asked "what then should we do" by crowds of people who were listening to John the Baptist's warnings about the coming seismic shifts with the arrival of the long awaited Messiah. Usually when we think about the end times, nuclear bunkers stocked with years of dried rations and clean water comes to mind. We think of hoarding all that we might imagine needing.
But John offers the opposite advice: if you have two shirts, give one of them away. Do not take more than what is needed. If you have food and your neighbor does not: share. Find a way to be content with what you have rather than being obsessed with what you don't. Far from preparing for the end of things, this sounds like solid advice to live a spiritually grounded life that has access to the foundation of living a joyful life: contentment.
Why is contentment so elusive? Why is it that we seem to never have enough? Friends, if there was ever a time to really scrutinize our tendency to excessiveness in hoarding and consuming--I think Advent is it. Aside from being a time where we wait for Christmas, Advent is actually a penitent season in our Christian tradition. Like Lent, Advent was a time when people seeking to be baptized would prepare for baptism, and would engage in an intentional time of fasting, praying and contemplation.
What if Advent became a time for us where we slowed down and decided not to follow the trends of excess baked into the messaging that bombards us each year at around this time?
We are coming up on the third Sunday of Advent, otherwise known as Gaudete Sunday or, more recently, the Advent Sunday of Joy. Counterintuitively, I believe that learning how to refrain from gathering up all of our wants and staving off our fears by hoarding to excess, we actually can have true joy simply by learning that what we have is enough.
And I don't say this to you without acknowledging that I have my own work to do in this area--kitchen gadgets seem to be spontaneously... appearing in my home alongside home-brewing toys! And I join the throngs of people who want the next Apple gadget that comes out. I think this is work for all of us to do.
So I invite you to join us this Sunday as we explore a surprising way to have joy: by being satisfied with less, and giving the excess away to help our neighbor. Join us!
