Weekend Talk: Doctrine of simplicity

It was Sunday morning. Mrs Bella Quaye had finished dressing up for church and was closing her wardrobe when she spotted the special dress she ordered from a virtual shop six months earlier.

She had never worn the new dress and had actually forgotten about it, like a dozen other dresses she had neglected.

As she stood admiring the dress, she longed to be in it. But it would take her at least 20 minutes to change into the new dress, and she and her family were already late for church.
 

New dress

Then she began undressing. They would miss the pre-service Bible studies again this Sunday, but the new dress beckoned and she just couldn’t resist it.

Her husband and their three children were already waiting in the Pajero. Mr Quaye, trying hard to be patient, had honked twice and was about to honk again.

Moments later, Mrs Bella Quaye joined her husband and their children.

The SUV had already used up much fuel just idling and running the AC.

But what Mrs Bella Quaye lacked in the simplicity of her fashionable clothes, she made up in her jovial personality. “How do I look, my dear family?” she asked. “I bet you like this dress better than the other one.”

Their older daughter, who had come home from campus to appeal for extra cash and groceries, complimented wisely, “Maa, you look adorable!”

“Thank you,” Mrs Quaye said, strapping on the seatbelt and smiling at her fuming husband who wouldn’t even glance at her.  

Mrs Bella Quaye knew that she had goofed again for failing to consider her husband’s time-consciousness. She must find a way to pacify him later.

Simplicity

They missed the Bible studies, but what convicted Mrs Bella Quaye more was the sermon. Unknown to her, the topic for meditation that Sunday was, “The doctrine of simplicity of life,” delivered by a visiting preacher from a reformed church.

Churches from the reformed tradition adhere to the doctrine of the simplicity of life and worship, and the choice of that theme was the prerogative of the visiting preacher.

“God’s people must not only be holy as he is,” he preached, “but also be as humble and simple as the Bible instructs us to be.

While simplicity does not mean to go about in rags, it nevertheless calls for a humble appearance that complements our faith.”

As Mrs Bella Quaye listened with rapt attention, she was convinced that this sermon was specifically designed for her.

Cut down on your extravagant and flamboyant lifestyle, she heard an inner voice nag her.

Your wardrobe

Then she heard the preacher say, “There are some of us—both men and women—who must look critically in our wardrobes and unburden them of excesses—clothing, shoes, jewellery, wigs, eyelashes, extended fingernails, etc.”

He asked, “You want to be like Christ and know him better, don’t you? If so, imitate the Christ: his simplicity, gentleness, modesty and humility.”

The preacher’s next statement touched Mrs Quaye deeply: “Think about it,” he said, “your excesses mean others’ deprivation.

Every time you spend money for yet another dress that you probably don’t need, someone else somewhere could be a beneficiary of that clothing.”

Although Mrs Quaye was in the chapel, her mind was at home, in her bedroom, in her overloaded wardrobe.

True, she could give away a truckload of slightly used and unused clothes out of that wardrobe without feeling that she had lost any clothing.

Confession

Then the preacher confessed. “I don’t feel qualified to preach this sermon, for I used to be too fashionable.”

In those days, he said, he lost count of the many suits, boubous and kaftans he had, with matching shoes.

“Then I had a dream one night when Jesus appeared to me in tattered clothes pleading for me to lend him a garment.”

In a second dream, he was standing near a heap of all his clothes and shoes.

An angel asked, “What’s that man doing?” Another angel replied, “He’s worshipping his clothes!”

Mournfully, the preacher said he didn’t realise that addiction to fashionable clothes amounted to worshipping them.

He dreamt a third time walking along the street wearing all his clothes, dozens of them, and he could hardly walk.

In the dream, street children, hawkers, mentally derailed persons, beggars and strangers accosted him and confiscated his clothes, stripping him almost naked.

“From that time,” the preacher concluded his confession, “I gave the excess baggage of my clothes away to the needy and felt light and fulfilled.”

The preacher’s last statement was: “Our reformed tradition is different from other traditions.

While modern-day traditions, denominations, independent and private churches go for their flamboyant outward appearance, let ours be modest for Christ.”

As Mrs Bella Quaye and her family drove home that Sunday after the service, she knew what she would do to her overstuffed wardrobe.

The writer is a publisher, author, writer-trainer and CEO of Step Publishers.
E-mail: lawrence.darmani@gmail.com