This is so simple it's complex!

     I can remember more than once being stymied by a problem of some sorts only to have my son or daughter say, "Why don't you just do this dad?"  The complexity of my creation made simple by the mouths of babes.  I gave up on the remote control a long time ago.  Same for trying to troubleshoot and fix my computer.  They are just too complex for me.  Some would argue that they are both simple devices that are easily maneuvered.  For a 5 year old, yes.  For a 62 year old, no.  While teaching my son to drive I marveled at his ability in school.  He was an honors student, did advance placement, took math classes I don't even know how to spell and without any noticeable work.  However, driving was a challenge until this very complex issues of his was made simple by a suggestion.  I suggested he look at the maneuvering of a curve as a math problem.  It's all physics I told him.  He was puzzled at first but then the light bulb came on and he said, "You're right!" and didn't have the problem again.  It's not often a teenager tells their parents they are right so I am going to treasure the rewards of the complex being made simple.
     We do this with the Christian message as well.  We see it as complex.  While interviewing for my ordination many years ago I was asked to explain my basic theology.  I said, "Jesus loves me this I know for the Bible tells me so."  They were dumbfounded!  Most at the interview table had doctorates and advanced studies in one specialty or another.  "Learned men" they would have been called.  So, when they asked me, "What do you mean?"  I was in turn dumbfounded.  The simple suddenly became complex.  I thought this was simple.  They thought this was complex.  Jesus loves me.  How much more simple can you get?  Why?  Because the Bible tells me so.  What is so difficult about that.  I learned that my "theology" should be based in the thoughts and interpretations of some great theologian.  My unspoken question was, "Like Jesus?"  That's too simple though.  I left them with my simple answer and I could read on their faces that they thought I was a very complex man who needed to work on his theology.
     Freud once said, "Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar."  True.  Sometimes the presentation of the Gospel is as simple as carrying a grocery bag for an elderly or disabled individual and not saying a word.  Maybe that's the reason we can only come to the kingdom as little children.  Maybe we need to remain simple.  You know, play fair, don't care about color of skin or sex of each other.  Not worry about whether my lunch is better than your lunch.  Simple.  The older we get the more complex life is taught to us.  We spend so much time not keeping it simple that we make sure we keep it complex.  Kids, like adults want and need only three things.  They want and need to be loved, accepted and approved.  Nothing more and nothing less.  Simple.  Then we make it complex.  We take a cigar and make it a pipe.  We take using your manners over at least they are eating their vegetables!  And so we grow up with this distorted view of what Jesus wanted us to do and be as Christians.  We spend excessive amounts of time worrying about tomorrow that we miss today.  We are so good at avoiding responsibility that we make a mess of our home, work and social world.  We spend so much time making things complex that nothing really gets done in the Christians life.
     Jesus said, "The greatest commandment is to love the Lord your God.  (simple) And the second is to love your neighbor as yourself." (simple again).  We take this and develop a language that when used leaves everyone mystified as to what it really means (complex).  We spend so much time creating space between me and thee that no resemblance of Christian brotherhood can be seen by the world around us.  We're seen as complex in our simple faith.  When we get right down to it, there is no room for the complex.  When life is complex we miss out on the simple Life.  Our contentment is gone and we are our wits end trying to make things works.  So, just for today let's try to keep things simple and make the complex simple at the same time.  Take a lesson from a kid or Jesus and have a simple happy life.  Jesus loves me this I know, because the Bible tells me so.