My wife and I are in the process of moving. Actually, we are majorly downsizing--going from a little three-bedroom house to a one-bedroom apartment attached to my college dorm. I'm becoming the Resident Director for the very dorm I lived in for my first two years of college.

But let's throw that aside for now. I'm sure there will be plenty of faithful and funny stories to come from that experience. I guarantee it.

What I really want to focus on is the moving part. Which is the worst. Not only is packing just plain boring and tedious, but in the process, I'm discovering a lot about myself. Namely, I guess I'm a hoarder.

Okay, well, I don't quite hoard enough to be featured on one of those shows where people clean my house for me. I don't have stacks and stacks of newspapers going all the way back to 1980. So mountains of clothes that no longer fit. No sea of vintage toys in the living room. Nothing that crazy. Just normal stuff, like two empty Cheez-it boxes left on my office floor for probably a month. Okay, only semi-normal.

Though while a lot of stuff is certified junk and should have been thrown away or recycled eons ago, there's also the category of "stuff you don't want to throw away because it has some perceived sentimental value, but also, like, what in the world will I ever do with this?" Someday perhaps I will want to display my t-ball participation trophy from second grade to boast to the world that I did indeed once "do the sports"--but the chances of this are slim.

Collecting books is a particular vice of mine. In college, the library would have a book sale twice a year with old books being rotated off the shelves. I'd strategically wait until the last day of the sale where you'd pay $5 for any books you could fit in a designated box. Yet, in reflection, I don't think I've ever read any of those books. Many are so out-of-date that I'd doubtless have use for them. But nonetheless, I have them.

Accumulating random stuff you'll probably never use is such a part of the American experience that I'm surprised it's not considered a God-given right in the Constitution. The process of moving has revealed how much stuff accumulates over time even when you are a young married couple in a small house.

My wife and I agree that we have too much stuff so downsizing will do us good. But no matter how many times we tell ourselves we don't need more stuff, we somehow get more stuff. At the store, we have a moment of weakness and we buy that thing that we use only for two weeks.

I had a revelation recently in preparing for a sermon on justice. I was reading Rich Stearn's excellent book The Hole in Our Gospel. In this book, the former president of World Vision reframes the ending of Matthew 25 in a modern context. Matthew 25 is a striking but uncomfortable passage where the sheep and goats are separated, the sheep being the ones who helped the incognito Christ and the goats being the ones who ignored him. It's awkward because in this passage salvation is completely based off how much you helped the "least of these"--that's the one criteria.

Stearns modernizes what Jesus says to the goats:

“For I was hungry, while you had all you needed. I was thirsty, but you drank bottled water. I was a stranger, and you wanted me deported. I needed clothes, but you needed more clothes. I was sick, and you pointed out the behaviors that led to my sickness. I was in prison, and you said I was getting what I deserved.”

What Stearns brings out is the truth that our excess is often a distraction to righteous living. It blinds us to the reality of the disadvantaged among us. We too easily make excuses for not helping others. Like with the Rich Young Ruler, there's something about all that stuff that makes us lose sight of what we are supposed to do.

For an example from modern life, a study from 2018 revealed that households that make more than $75,000 give a much smaller percentage of their income to their church compared to households earning below 75k. While we shouldn't mistake giving to church with living a life of charity to others, the stats do reveal a lot about what money and the stuff that comes with it can do to you.

It reminds me of an early argument in my marriage about the trash. In my wife's way of seeing things, if one noticed the trash looked full, one would take the trash out. Reasonable. Fair enough, I suppose. But for whatever reason, my brain didn't make the connections. Full trash can did not automatically lead to me taking it out. I just stuffed more things in it. What I had to do is train my brain to fully see, to fully make the responsible choices based on the observation of the trash being full.

I think for many people all our stuff and excess is breaking down the Christian equation of "person in need" = "I need to help them." Just like I didn't register that I should take out the garbage, so we don't recognize that we need to help the least of these when they are right in front of us. Distraction and excuses and living in our own little world block the Christian charity equation from working.

In Western logic, I deserve all my stuff. It's a physical sign of my success, hard work, ect. In Christian logic, however, all my stuff actually belongs to God. And if it's getting in the way of doing justice and helping others, then it's time to give that back to God by giving it to others. As Jesus would say, "If you would be perfect, go, sell what you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven" (Matt. 19:21). Too much stuff shapes our life in a direction that heads opposite of where Jesus wants us to go.

[By the way, I go more in-depth on this subject in chapter 2 of my book Who We Are]

Is your stuff holding you back from your Christian duty toward the least of these?

Brb gotta pack,

Jake Doberenz