Excerpt from Luke 9:43-53
 
"Whoever welcomes this child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me; for the least among all of you is the greatest."

Reflection by Donna Schaper

If you want to be great, get small.  If you want to be good, get small. If you want to be like Jesus, use power differently than everybody else does.  Get rid of it. 

I have become truly irritated with the way people argue that "Less is more."  That is such a sneaky way of praising more and elevating it to a stature it does not deserve.  More is a problem.  Like so many parts of our economic system, more is a tyrant, an oppressive tyrant, one who ruins your life with full closets and anxiety about getting them filled in more and better ways.  You know your marching orders: More, faster, sooner, bigger, better.  I wonder how obedience to these values is going for you?  Big and more are great friends.  Small and less are also.

Less is not more.  Less is less.  And less is small in the ways of the tyrant, and large in the way of Jesus.  Less isn’t just about closets either.  It is about experiences, emails, fuel, friends, opportunities, books read, movies seen.  Beautiful clothes and marvelous experiences are not wrong in themselves.  They are actually wonderful.  One at a time.  Don’t let the tyrants tell you that "less is more."

Prayer

O God, bring us back to that second naiveté of the child, where one sandbox is a world.  Amen.

About the Author Donna Schaper is Senior Minister of Judson Memorial Church, New York, New York.