Five Minute Friday - Complicate

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One word. Five minutes to write about it. This is the idea behind Five Minute Friday and this is today's free-writing post.

well, that does complicate things

not that complicated

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I've been working on income taxes, and it's no fun. For many years we've purchased a software program to do our taxes and it's always made a tough job more manageable and organized. Last year we went to a professional tax preparer because we had some unusual income things and moved states partway through the year and just a lot going on. It relieved a lot of stress and confusion to let a professional do it. This year I'm back to the software but I'm still a little lost on the state return, doing it in this state for the first time.

Tax forms are complicated. Way more complicated than they need to be, in my opinion. Like many legal systems, I guess. Exceptions and conditions and more can make it difficult for us to understand what deductions we can take, what expenses can be claimed and in which section of the form, and what qualifies under this or that rule. It's exhausting and nerve-wracking.

The Pharisees had a reputation for making the Torah way more complicated than it needed to be. They probably had very good intentions. They were trying to clarify what qualified as work, what constituted a violation of a law, or how to make an acceptable sacrifice. But it was really complicated! And Jesus called them out on it too:

But Jesus replied, "Woe to you experts in religious law as well! You load people down with burdens difficult to bear, yet you yourselves refuse to touch the burdens with even one of your fingers!

~Luke 11:46~

Jesus also made it clear to his followers that God's law wasn't going anywhere, and it's a requirement to follow it:

"Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished. Therefore anyone who sets aside one of the least of these commands and teaches others accordingly will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven."

~Matthew 5:17-20~

So we have to follow all of God's law, and do a better job of it than the professionals? That sounds really complicated! The Pharisees must have thought so too, because they tried to trip Jesus up about which commandments were important. They thought they had a good 'gotcha' question that would stump this upstart Rabbi, but instead Jesus took the complex and made it so simple.

But when the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together. And one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. 

"Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?"

And he [Jesus] said to him, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets."

~Matthew 22:34-40~

Don't make it more complicated than it needs to be. The basic principles are not that complicated, and when we are in relationship with God and are following these two simple commandments to love God and love others, it usually makes all those complicated rules a lot simpler. If we love God with everything we have, we'll want to follow his commands because they are for our good and for his glory. When we begin to understand his love for us and for all our neighbors, we'll want to treat others with the same mercy and justice God has shown us. It's not always easy, to be sure, but it really isn't all that complicated. And it was what God had been telling his people all along.

He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.

~Micah 6:8~

Educators take something simple and make it complicated. Communicators take something complicated and make it simple. ~John C. Maxwell

Sometimes the questions are complicated and the answers are simple. ~Dr. Seuss

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There's no limit to how complicated things can get, on account of one thing always leading to another. ~E.B. White

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This post is linked at Five Minute Friday for the word prompt "Complicate".

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