When I go grocery shopping, I always bring a list and, mostly, I stick to it. I discovered long ago that without a list, I’d end up buying just whatever looked good. The result: a bigger food bill, forgotten necessities and waste. I discovered that, for me at least, a successful grocery shopping trip demanded I declutter my shopping practices. Life is often full of clutter, full of unneeded things, unhelpful things, things that don’t serve but we still cling to anyway, maybe out of habit or oversight or even fear or insecurity. Of course, God wants us to enjoy what he has made. But when there’s so much that it becomes a challenge to track it all or to find a place or everything, when the pile threatens order and makes stress: that’s clutter. On top of the practical issues it makes, clutter is a spiritual problem too, because it limits freedom. The things we fill our lives with, in a way, own us; they demand attention. A cluttered schedule gives no space for rejuvenation. A cluttered mind gives no space for peace. A cluttered room or house demands time to keep it clean and ordered and working. Even a cluttered fridge can be an obstacle to a good meal. Worse still, if left unaddressed, clutter tends to grow even to the point where it overwhelms. The only way to get rid of clutter is to declutter and until Lent, we’re going to reflect on decluttering. Last week, we considered how decluttering the spaces in which we live, our homes and rooms, make the right conditions, give the freedom needed for peace and love to thrive. It’s an act of decluttering a little easier to do because it’s visible and practical; it’s easy to see the progress made as you work. A bigger challenge, is decluttering what’s invisible, decluttering the soul. The soul is what connects us to God. We all got our bodies from our parents; they provided the genetic material and helped us grow. The soul though, what makes each of us, us, comes from the maker; there’s no one else who decides what makes up our soul. We actually can accumulate clutter in our soul. A healthy soul will be attuned to God and his plan. A cluttered soul, however, is distracted from our creator, tempted to place other priorities, like pleasure, power, money or fame, over God; and because the soul organizes all other aspects of life, when the soul is cluttered, it’s difficult to then sort the good from the bad, or to conquer dilemmas with wise decisions; it’s easy to feel conflicted or fragmented or lost. This has always been a challenge for God’s people. Today, in the second reading we heard the introduction from a letter Saint Paul wrote to the Christians living in the city of Corinth, the Corinthians. We could think of that city as being like the Bowmanville of today: its location offered wonderful opportunities for trade and manufacturing. So, the citizens of that city enjoyed extra luxuries, wealth and influence. Nothing wrong with that, but it tempted the Christians of Corinth to clutter their souls with concerns about those things and Saint Paul knew it had to be addressed. So, he began his letter, “From Paul, called to be an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God.[i]Paul started by linking his identity to God’s will. He’s an Apostle, not because he trained for it or had some innate talent. His position and authority, the reason he should be listened to, comes only because he was called by God for that work. From the very first sentence in his letter, we can tell where Paul’s priorities lay. Saint Paul then extends this thought to the Corinthians. He addressed his letter, “…to those who are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints…”[ii]. It’s a reminder to the Christians of Corinth that they have been set apart for a special purpose. While the city of Corinth may have pressured the Christians to prioritize money, power, pleasure and fame, God has set them apart for something else. This is what it means to be sanctified: to be set apart for a special purpose defined by God. John the Baptist recognized this. He recognized how he was set apart, not to live as a priest in the temple like his father, but to announce the presence of the Saviour. An ordered, decluttered soul begins and ends with God and organizes life and priorities around God’s will; always asking, what does God want me to do, how does God want me to live my life? An uncluttered soul understands the call to first love and worship him, to serve others in his name, to participate in the Christian Community and to direct others to the Saviour. The uncluttered soul puts God given skills and gifts to work not for personal gain but to further God’s plan. For Saint Paul, it meant becoming an Apostle and it would eventually mean giving his life in martyrdom. A cluttered soul leads to feelings of inner conflict because our priorities don’t match those of God. A cluttered soul leads to feelings of meaninglessness or being lost because purpose becomes obscured. There’s a need to declutter. For this, deliberate, prayerful reflection is key. Decluttering a home takes deliberate work; it won’t happen by accident. It takes effort to go through it all to determine what is to be kept, what is to be stored away and what should be eliminated. Decluttering the soul takes a similar approach: deliberate examination of all that fills the soul, to judge what should be kept: those things that align our priorities to those of God, what should be stored away: those things that strengthen and nourish during difficult moments, and what should be thrown away: all that pretends to be of greater value than our Saviour. Disciples throw away anger, bitterness, resentment, lust, greed and selfishness. We make the determination […]