April 2007

Lessons from Cars, Trucks, and the Friends Testimony of Simplicity

How is it that a big Ford truck can teach a Friends pastor a lesson in simplicity? Take a look at this story to find out.

Before our four children started driving, my wife, Charlann, and I found a great deal we didn’t think we could pass up. We bought a barely used, one-year-old 2000 Ford F250 pickup with everything a man could hope for—V-10, 4x4, crewcab with large comfortable seats for six, side-bars, tanneau cover, trailer hitch, etc. The cost was more than $6000 below retail value. We bought it for its size and price and for me—because it was a man’s truck. When I drove into a parking lot anywhere, men would drool. The truck made me look good.

Soon, the older kids purchased their own vehicles. We no longer needed the crewcab size, the 9/11 mpg, or the monthly payments. After a few months, I surrendered to the Spirit’s leading to sell the truck and to get something less expensive to drive and maintain. It sold quickly. The man who bought it needed a truck to pull his hot-air blimp to advertise a Christian radio station.

The equity we had in the truck was enough to buy a 1994, eleven-year-old, Mercury Grand Marquis from a retiree moving to Hawaii. The car had only 12,800 miles on it and I could pay cash for it with the leftover money from the sale of the truck. With no car payment and 18/23 mpg, it was a comfortable and affordable ride. When I brought the car home, my youngest son lamented, “Dad it looks like an old man’s car,” to which I responded, “I am becoming an old man and it’s paid for.”

The testimony of simplicity is the Friends belief that a person ought to live life simply in order to focus on what is most important and ignore or play down what is least important. It has more to do with one’s inner condition than one’s outward appearance and with other people more than oneself.

Defining simplicity in 21st-century culture can be rather complex. I remember a church—not a Friends church—near my first pastorate where the people believed in simplicity. To belong to that congregation, members had to drive cars that were at least ten years old with black exteriors. Driving by after a service, one could see cars with black exteriors and red, blue, tan, or silver interiors. Some were dilapidated clunkers, some were ten-year-old exquisite luxury vehicles, but all were black as night on the outside.

I appreciate the Friends church’s willingness to look for biblical balance as a basis for faith and practice. As with the other disciplines of our faith, simplicity grows out of the teachings of Jesus. Friends believe that followers of Jesus should be more concerned with the inner condition—the spiritual state—than with their outward appearance, a lesson I had to learn when I sold my truck. Friends also believe that God blesses his people so they may bless others. The resources invested by God in his people should be used to make life better for everyone, not just themselves.

In his book, The Rich Heritage of Quakerism, Walter Williams stated that early Friends deeply felt that material means, expended for physical luxuries, could better be employed in feeding the hungry, educating the poor, and promoting the spread of the gospel.

The danger of a lack of simplicity in life involves both the temptation to ignore God while worshipping self and to ignore others while indulging self. Both are violations of the great commandments. Simplicity, however, must remain a matter of conviction, led by the Spirit, rather than a codification of rules defined by people.

In his book, The People Called Quakers, D. Elton Trueblood pointed out that legalism began to creep into the Friends movement shortly after George Fox’s death. George’s widow, Margaret, was concerned about the growing focus on external things like clothing which overshadowed the focus on inner, spiritual matters.

The new leaders of the Friends movement were pushing to eliminate bright appearance and to insist that everyone wear gray, plain-cut clothes. Margaret found this legalism to be “alien to the Spirit of Christ.” Whatever else Jesus might have been saying about the lilies of the fields in Mt 6:28-30, she doubted that “drab over bright and colorful” was part of his meaning.

In a recent article in Everyday Stewardship, one family took a break from binge buying for an entire year. They chose instead to sidestep culture’s frenzied materialism and live more simply. Sue Klassen stated, “As we refrain from upgrading our lifestyle, we’re really facing our sense of entitlement and learning the Apostle Paul’s secret of being happy and content—with much or with little.”

A day may come when a “man’s truck” will fit into my lifestyle and budget once again. But for now, being content with what I have and avoiding the pressure of culture’s unquenchable lust for more is better stewardship of God’s resources in my life. It’s a lesson I trust I have learned for good.

—Don Murray is pastor of the Corona Valley Friends Church (CA). Don is a representative from EFCSW to the EFI-North America Communications Commission and serves as Commission Chairperson. He and his wife, Charlann, have four children and one son-in-law.