bowdenville

Shane Claiborne: “What is enough is defined by our relationship to our neighbor—if our neighbor has four cars, then we think we are living simply if we have two cars. If our neighbor doesn’t have water, then two cars is probably too many. We have this command to love our neighbor as ourselves, but I think the great tragedy of our culture is that we are pushed away from suffering, away from poverty to the point that it’s enough if we give a tax-exempt donation or volunteer for a week out of the year. And yet if we’re really in relationship with people who are suffering, that messes with us. It keeps us up at night when we are faced with the reality that we have people in our neighborhood living in a cardboard box in the winter, and we have shelter.

I think the most important question is not what I should give away, because the Scriptures say you can sell everything you have and give it to the poor, but if you don’t have love it’s nothing. So the deepest question around simplicity is about love, and redistribution of resources is only meaningful inasmuch as it’s rooted in love. When we really figure out how to live in the personalism and love of Christ with our neighbor, then that defines what’s enough so that we’re not just driven by an ideology, but by a love relationship to our neighbor.”

I think this is really well said. There is an idea brewing in mine and Jonathan’s hearts about creating action for a cause… but in thinking things through, I have to remember and look for how God is teaching us to love first. It may be a decent idea, but if its not done with love, its just something we are doing…

britt