JUST DON'T SAY "JUST"

My favorite Preacher, The Rev. Will B. Dunn, is sitting with a parishioner, discussing the foibles of life. The young man says to Will, "They make it sound so easy. ’Just say "No",' 'Just Do It!'" Will responds, "Never trust a culture whose commandments start with the word 'just.'"

Arlena had a professor in graduate school who forbade his students to use the word "just." Try writing a paper sometime, especially a paper in philosophy, as was her situation, without using the word "just." It just isn't easy! Try praying sometime -- or at least listen to the TV preachers who do our praying for us: "I just want to thank you, Lord. I just want to give you all the praise and glory. I just...." and on and on, every phrase modified by that word. We build up our lists of "just" phrases until we have a whole litany of things we just want to do.

Well, if we just want to do it, just want to say it, then let's just do it and say it and get on with it. But it is more than that, is it not?  Life is never as simple nor as easy as we make it.  Any commandment that begins with the word "just" is like any commandment that does not. Commandments are easy to make and not easy to follow. "Don't kill" is as easy to assert as "Just don't kill" – and just as difficult to keep.

Yes, we would all like life to be easy, simplified. We would like to be told that the solution to our problems can be found in one simple phrase, action, responsibility. But even if we could make it all that simple, it would not be. It never was meant to be. God never intended it to be, not in this life, anyway. Life is a struggle, a struggle to do that which we know we should do and not do that which we know we should not. But to do this or not do that is not just a matter of "just doing it" or "just not doing it." There are so many variables and so many temptations. It takes work.

If we want an example of how we are to live out our daily lives, maybe we need to remember how Jesus began his ministry. He went off to the desert to prepare himself. He fasted and he prayed. He disciplined himself. And then when he was at his most vulnerable – hungry, tired and weak – he was tempted to sell out. All he had to do was "Just say 'no.”  And he did.

But it did not come easy and it was not easy, not even for him. And throughout his ministry he was always seeking time away to prepare himself for the next time he was placed in a situation that demanded an immediate "yes" or "no" or some other response. And he was ready, prepared, because he knew ahead of time that one never just does anything.

If you and I are to even become partially successful at living out the demands of our faith, we have to work at it. Those demands may be simplified into "Just do" or "Just don't do" phrases. But they are so much more. We may never take the "just" out of our life. But what we need to add is the spiritual and physical discipline that proceeds it so that we can (just) do it.