Chasing Two Rabbits

"Chasing Two Rabbits"
Matthew 6:19-21


I used to have this board game called “Wise and Otherwise.”  The playing cards had a three or four wise sayings on the front of the card.  But they were only half of the wise saying.  These wise sayings were collected from all over the world.  Then on the back of the card was the actual ending of the wise saying.

One person would read one of the first half of a wise saying.  Everyone playing the game would then write down their guess for the other half of the wise saying.  The player with the card would write down the actual ending of the saying and place it in the pile with the other players guesses.  All of them would be read and the players would vote as to what they think the actual ending of the wise saying was.

So, are you ready to play?  Here is the first half of the wise saying for this morning:  “If you chase two rabbits…”  Now you can have some time to think about what the second half of this saying is.  I’ll ask you for your guesses at the end of the message, and tell you the real answer.


I want to challenge you this morning, not about the dangers of greed.  Hopefully you all have an idea of what those are.  Erich Fromm wrote in his book, Escape From Freedom, “Greed is a bottomless pit which exhausts a person in an endless effort to satisfy the need without ever reaching satisfaction.”  That’s probably one of the better definitions of greed I’ve found.  There is no end to greed, because nothing satisfies a greedy person.  Nothing will ever be enough.

And greed seems to start at a young age.  The poet Shel Silverstein gives us a glimpse into the child’s greedy mind in his poem, “Prayer of a Selfish Child”:

Now I lay me down to sleep,
I pray the Lord my soul to keep.
And if I die before I wake,
I pray the Lord my toys to break
So none of the other kids can use ‘em.
Amen.

It doesn’t take much of an effort to lay down the particulars of greed, the dangers of greed, the deadliness to the soul from greed.  The harder case to make is for living a life of simplicity, free from greed.  In Jesus’ parable of the rich farmer who built larger barns to hold his accumulated stuff, hears the voice of God saying, “Tonight your soul is required of you, and now who will get all your stuff?”  In the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, the rich man, in hell, still doesn’t get it.  When he does, it’s too late.  That’s the deadly quality of greed--when you finally get it, it’s got you, and it’s too late to do anything about it.

So my message this morning is not about greed, but about simplicity.  Sometimes we can find out about a thing by looking at it’s opposite.  That’s what we’ll do with greed and simplicity this morning.

I want to look at several qualities that lead to a life of simplicity.  If you want to lead a simple, unencumbered life, you need to get a few things right.

The first quality in leading a life of simplicity is understanding and coming to terms with the fact that we aren’t going to stay here forever.  As Jesus said in our verses this morning, “Don’t hoard treasure down here where it gets eaten by moths and corroded by rust or--worse--stolen by burglars.”  To be greedy, to be a hoarder of treasure here on earth is saying, at the same time, “This is where our ultimate reality lies.”  We may not think that or say that out loud, but we may be living it just the same.  Our greed, however slight--our acquisitiveness--belies the truth about where we think our ultimate and eternal reality lies.

The truth is what Jesus said:  “Stockpile treasure in heaven, where it’s safe from moth and rust and burglars.  It’s obvious, isn’t it?  The place where your treasure is, is the place you will most want to be, and end up being.”  If your ultimate reality is going to be heaven, then that simplifies, really fast, all the stuff we are greedily trying to hold on to.  That’s the first quality:  knowing we aren’t here forever.

The second quality a person needs to live a life of simplicity is to have as much concern for neighbor as for self.  Just as a little boy finished the cake, his mother came into the kitchen.  She immediately lit into him:  “Why, Bobby, you ate all the cake without even thinking of your little sister!”
“That’s not true,” Bobby said.  “I was thinking of her all the time.  I was thinking I was afraid she’d get here before I finished.”

We deal with greed, and move toward simplicity through hospitality.  Greed is a motivation.  But it is also an idolatry.  Idolatry and greed are about acquisitiveness and power.  As a motivation, greed is about taking what you don’t need, and what’s not yours to take.

But hospitality is about giving what one has in order to serve your neighbor.  If we are motivated more by taking and acquiring, we are less motivated by giving and sharing--which is at the heart of hospitality and simplicity.  Hospitality and simplicity are tests of Christian ownership.  That is, how much do we desire to grasp, and how tightly are we holding on to things, rather than living in hospitality with the neighbor with open hands.  To be free of grasping, to be free of eating all the cake, is to become open with giving.

Greed treats your neighbor as an enemy at worst, or a competitor in the least.  Hospitality through simplicity treats the neighbor as a guest.  Hospitality through simplicity is about giving access to what you have--to what the neighbor needs.

Thirdly, in order to nurture simplicity we need to notice how God takes care of the birds of the air.  This is from last weeks scripture, but it bears repeating here as we look at the differences between greed and simplicity.

What we notice about the way God takes care of the birds of the air is trusting God’s daily provision.  Daily, the birds find what they need.  Gandhi once said, “Earth provides enough to satisfy every man’s needs, but not every man’s greed.”  Every day, God provides.

I don’t know how the birds of the air do this, maybe through song, but the best way to receive this daily provision of God is by saying grace.  Saying grace is thanking God for all that you’ve been given--and inviting others into the knowledge and reality of God’s provision.

Saying grace is a choice.  Those who are greedy may have a hard time saying grace because they can’t see what they have and have been given--they only see what they have acquired.  But most importantly the greedy see what they don’t have and desire.  Saying grace is a sermon that says, “How good of God to give me this.”  The concentration is on God and God’s goodness, not on the selfish desire of greed.

Greed is never happy.  Saying grace is at the heart of happiness and simplicity.  Even the word in Greek for grace sounds like happiness:  chara!  Saying grace in simplicity is the seat of true pleasure and happiness--that we are truly happy with and for all that God has graced us with.  Saying grace is a celebration in the community of simplicity where God is always the provider and we are the birds of the air.

And the last quality a person needs to live a life of simplicity is realizing living is about being not having.  From the birds of the air we move to the wildflowers in the field.  This also is from last weeks scripture.  Jesus compares the wildflowers in the field to King Solomon:
Instead of looking at the fashions, walk out into the fields and look at the wildflowers.  They never primp or shop, but have you ever seen color and design quite like it?  Even Solomon looked shabby alongside them.

The main difference between Solomon and the wildflowers is that Solomon has to put something on to display his “glory.”  The more display he has, the more glory he thinks he has.  That’s what leads to greed.

But the wildflowers glory is not put on--it isn’t an add on.  It’s inherent in what they are.  What we learn from the wildflowers in Jesus’ example is that it isn’t the add on stuff that makes for glory.  It’s one’s being as it was created by God.  The better we understand our being in God, the better we understand simplicity.  Strip everything away.  Strip everything away:  who and what are you?  That’s how we will all stand before God some day.  Imagine yourself with nothing but your “being” before God.  What is that?  Who is that?

The question, then, is how do we create that kind of simplicity now, and enjoy life to the fullest?  Not in greed, but in simplicity.

The comedian, Richard Pryor, said soon before he died, “There was a time in my life when I thought I had everything--millions of dollars, mansions, cars, nice clothes, beautiful women, and every other materialistic thing you can imagine.  Now I struggle for peace.”

Peace.  Another word for simplicity.  Another word for standing before God in the end, totally unencumbered by anything holding you back from him, because that’s the way you lived.


Now to the wise saying riddle.  What did you come up with for the second half of, “If you chase two rabbits…”?

Here’s how it ends:  “If you chase two rabbits, both will escape you.”

That’s the way of greed.