Complaining
The Fourth Sunday in Lent
March 11, 2018
Numbers 21:4-9
From Mount Hor the Israelites set out by the way to the Red Sea, to go around the land of Edom; but the people became impatient on the way. The people spoke against God and against Moses, “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and we detest this miserable food.” Then the Lord sent poisonous serpents among the people, and they bit the people, so that many Israelites died. The people came to Moses and said, “We have sinned by speaking against the Lord and against you; pray to the Lord to take away the serpents from us.” So Moses prayed for the people. And the Lord said to Moses, “Make a poisonous serpent, and set it on a pole; and everyone who is bitten shall look at it and live.” So Moses made a serpent of bronze, and put it upon a pole; and whenever a serpent bit someone, that person would look at the serpent of bronze and live.
Do everything without arguing and complaining Philippians 2.4
I was once told by a professor that the task of preaching is to ask yourself “What does God want the people of God to hear from these holy texts today?” Some days this is an easier question to answer than others – but even on a good day, the preacher is trying to make a faithful, educated, and prayerful guess at what that answer might be.
Take for example our Old Testament lesson for today. It is beguiling. And really, the only reason it was chosen to be part of our lectionary, our chosen readings for today, is that Jesus refers to it in his answer to Nicodemus in our Gospel lesson for today “and just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up.” That is, that Jesus must be lifted up on a cross.
So here is the context of the Old Testament reading – it is the final of the so called murmuring scenes, which could also be known as the grousing scenes or the complaining scenes. These scenes all take place during the 40 year journey of the Hebrews who escape Egypt and journey to the Promised Land of Canaan which will become Israel. And the Hebrews during these scenes complain about the lack of food, lack of water, and then when they get food they complain about the type of food, they want meat instead of manna, and then they get to the point where they are so fed up that they just complain about everything even if it doesn’t make sense. Like this morning -they complain about having no food, and then in the same sentence they complain about the type of food they are given, “For there is no food and no water, and we detest this miserable food.” This makes absolutely no sense. It’s like your kids complaining about there being no food in the house when you have a full refrigerator.
And it appears that the Lord is equally fed up, and so God sends poisonous snakes that bite and kill the people. And then the people repent and they realize they have gone too far – it’s one thing to complain about one’s circumstances, but they find that it is whole different things to complain wholesale about God. So the Hebrews say sorry and the Lord provides relief – in a way that leaves out all explanation of how this actually works – God tells Moses to fashion a bronze serpent and put it on a pole so that all who look at this bronze serpent, the Seraph, will be saved.
Now, it would be easy to segue into a sermon on fear because of the prevalence of snakes in our Old Testament lesson – but because it is Laetare Sunday, refreshment Sunday, mid-lent Sunday, Rose Sunday or Mothering Sunday as it is called – when we are invited to lighten up a bit – and to rejoice – I am going to talk not about fear but about complaining.
So complaining –
One of the most popular Lent programs I did in my previous parish was a Complaint Free Lent. The idea was not my own but came from a pastor named Will Bowen (willbowen.com). He started this program in his church where he encouraged members of his congregation to give up complaining for 21 straight days. He started off by giving members of the congregation purple silicon bracelets (you could as easily use a rubber band) and each time the participants found themselves complaining he or she would need to move the bracelet from one wrist to the other. Now when you switched wrists, you had to start on day one again.
Will Bowen offers all sorts of sound reasons to refrain from complaining –
- The first is he argues you can’t complain your way to better health, more happiness and greater success.
- Secondly, when you complain you build your reality – so for example, he says that the way you choose to describe someone, that person will be that way with you. Some in this congregation sent me a video of a little boy who tells his audience “what you practice you become very good at” – and he talks about joy and happiness – but he also says, if you complain all the time, and you practice complaining you will get very good at it, and pretty soon you will find no shortage of things to complain about.
- Will Bowen also comments that complaining is problem focused and not solution focused.
- And here one last reason – Will Bowen quotes the French poet, Collette, who wrote “What a wonderful life I’ve had! I only wish I’d realized it sooner.” Complaining is in many respects the antithesis to gratitude and keeps us from appreciating the lives we have.
So why do we complain? Will Bowen says that we do it for all sorts of reasons
- from making a connection with one another as in gossiping,
- or absolving ourselves of responsibility by assigning blame,
- or showing that we are superior to someone else.
And I just want to clarify at this point, complaining is not noticing something like, “it is cold out today, grab a coat when you leave”. Complaining is “When is this weather ever going to end, I should have moved to the South years ago.” Also complaining is not commenting on something you want changed to a person who can effect change – so say you are unhappy with the volume of the music in a restaurant – if you ask the waiter if the music could be turned down, that is not a complaint. If you spend all evening commenting on how loud and intrusive the music it is – that is complaining.
Now, just for a moment I want to contradict everything I have said so far. While Will Bowen is a proponent of total complaint free living other sociologists have argued that a bit of complaining is actually quite good for us. In a NYT article several years ago (May 6, 2013), Alina Tugend argued that:
“Some complaints serve as an icebreaker or a bonding experience. Grousing about the weather or traffic is an easy way to start a conversation or simply to avoid standing silently next to each other in an elevator.
“It’s one way to create rapport,” said Joanna Wolfe, a professor of English at Carnegie-Mellon University whose research focuses on communication styles. Complaining about a late bus with other riders, for instance, “creates kind of a solidarity,” she said. “I’ve made friends that way.”
So I think the point is, we need to ask ourselves – what is the purpose of our complaining? Is it information sharing? Humorous observations about life? Or is it a habit we have fallen into and the main way we communicate?
So back to our Old Testament. The point in this Old Testament story is that the Hebrews just could not see how much God was looking out for them and they just keep complaining – “all this free food and freedom is really bothering me God, can’t we just go back to our old lives of hard work and oppression under the Egyptians?” And it’s like God says “you think it’s been bad so far – you want to see misery – let me release the snakes.” In other words, God wants them to focus on the blessings before them, instead of focusing on what they don’t care for.
And here is the good news, Jesus says in our gospel lesson today that the light has come into the world, and that light is Christ. And if people choose to love the darkness, look for the darkness, and surround themselves in darkness, the light of Christ is just not going to reach them. But every time we keep our eyes fixed on Christ, trust that Christ is with us, and trust that Christ’s grace and kindness will follow us and provide for us all the days of our lives the more our lives will be filled with love, gratitude, grace and treasures.
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