Grumble

Grumble

Third Sunday of Advent

December 15 2019

James 5:7-10

Be patient, therefore, beloved, until the coming of the Lord. The farmer waits for the precious crop from the earth, being patient with it until it receives the early and the late rains. You also must be patient. Strengthen your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is near. Beloved, do not grumble against one another, so that you may not be judged. See, the Judge is standing at the doors! As an example of suffering and patience, beloved, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord.

One of my favorite books of all time was a book that my husband gave me shortly after we met back in 1992.  It was at the time when books like All I needed to know I learned in Kindergarten and Life’s Little Instruction Book were all the rage. This book is called Life’s Little Destruction Book: Insensitive and Socially Obnoxious Pointers for Leading a Simple Self-centered Life by Charles Sherwood Danes.

It has tips like these:

Give little kids clothes for their birthday

Take 10 items to the 8 items or fewer line at the checkout in the grocery store

Pay tolls with $1,000 bills

When giving directions leave out a turn or two

One that made me stop short though was this one:

Be hard to please.

I thought the book was hysterical until I saw that instruction and then I had to pause.  It made me wonder was I one of those people who is hard to please?  I thought, wouldn’t it be awful for people to think of me as hard to please?  I remember meeting someone like that several years later and it made me remember that book. All this woman did was complain, complain, & complain.  Someone I know admired this particular woman because she had “high standards”.  That’s when I began to think that having high standards was not such a great virtue.

I thought of this book this week while reading The Epistle of James in preparation for this Sunday’s sermon. James is a fascinating book.  Its genre is most closely akin to the Wisdom Literature of the Hebrew Scriptures – giving instructions and exhortations on how to live a good life. By the way, Martin Luther wanted this book taken out of the New Testament Canon because it “burdened the human spirit by laying out what we had to do rather than what we gratuitously received through the sheer mercy of God” [1] Seems like Martin Luther was a little hard to please.

So, the author of the Epistle of James in this passage is exhorting the early Christians who were the recipient of this letter to stand firm, and not to judge one another, but rather to bear each other other’s faults and failings with patience. [2]  Why was this so important? Well, it was important so that the community did not fall apart through being demoralized by incessant grumbling.  And, theologically, it’s not our job to judge. Ultimately God is the one to judge, and not us.  

One commentator observed: If you do not want to be judged by the Judge, you had best leave judgment of others to the Judge as well. The day of salvation is near, and when that day comes, the Lord will take care of everything and everybody. Until then, the thing for you to do is to attend to the sinner who lives under your own hat.[3]

So James uses this interesting word for grumbling – στενάζετε – stenazete.  In Greek it means to sigh, or to groan – like the sighs of God’s children, Israel, under the bondage of Egypt. It’s the sentiment expressed when people feel oppressed under someone or in bondage to something. So, when James uses the word στενάζετε he’s using a really powerful word.  It’s the kind of complaining that threatens the existence of the community.  Which makes sense, right?, since we know no one ever said, “the reason I love attending St. Swithuns is because everyone is fabulous at complaining about each other.”

And it’s not just a practical instruction about having a welcoming congregation. We understand now through neuroscience – that complaining is not only bad for communities but has a deleterious effect on ourselves as well.  Complaining is sometimes couched in more euphemistic terms, like “venting” and “processing” but there is a very thin line between venting and reliving and regenerating the problem.  Although it seems counter-intuitive, getting our emotions out through venting, does not necessarily make us feel better.[4]

According to an article in Inc. magazine, Jessica Stillman writes, that complaining is bad not only for your mood and the mood of your friends and colleagues,[5] it is also bad for your brain and your health.

On the website Psych Pedia, which is a website sort of like Wikipedia but for psychology, Steven Parton, an author and a student of human nature, claims that there are three of the ways that complaining harms your health:

1.     “Synapses that fire together wire together.”

There is a long scientific explanation for this – but essentially – through repetition of thought, you reinforce your negative or positive proclivities – so the more you complain, the more readily and easily you will complain.  Complaining rewires your brain for negativity. The more positive you are – the more readily and easily you will experience positivity and express positive thoughts. Basically, we train our brain to complain.  Positivity rewires your brain for increased positivity.

2.     You are whom you hang out with.

So not only do negative thoughts reinforce negative thinking, but if you hang out with negative people that will also reinforce negativity. How this works is that within our brain we have this faculty to experience other peoples’ emotions. Steven Parton writes, “When we see someone experiencing an emotion (be it anger, sadness, happiness, etc.), our brain ‘tries out’ that same emotion to imagine what the other person is going through. And it does this by attempting to fire the same synapses in your own brain so that you can attempt to relate to the emotion you’re observing. This is basically empathy. It is how we get the mob mentality…. It is our shared bliss at music festivals,” Parton writes. “But it is also your night at the bar with your friends who love love love to constantly

[complain]

.”

“The takeaway lesson”, Parton writes, “if you want to strengthen your capacity for positivity and weaken your reflex for gloom, surround yourself with happy people who rewire your brain towards love.”

3. Stress is terrible for your body, too.

Parton writes that quitting the complaining habit is essential for your physical health, too. “When your brain is firing off these synapses of anger, you’re weakening your immune system; you’re raising your blood pressure, increasing your risk of heart disease, obesity and diabetes, and a plethora of other negative ailments.” [6]

So how do we do refrain from complaining and embrace joy and positivity? Well, in the bizarre way that God works in our lives I learned a sweet example of how this is possible this week.  And I am going to give you a little symbol of Joy for you to remember [hand out Contacta’s Holiday Card].

You may be wondering why I am giving you a photo of people I do not know dressed up in photo booth gear in some random office.  Well, that’s because Snapfish sent these to us by accident.  We got alerted to this mix up when some man named John called my Wellesley College Office phone number having googled “Robbins-Cole” and “Wellesley” (our address was printed on the envelopes) – and my office phone does this wonderful thing – it records all messages and then sends them to me via email so I do not need to be in the office to pick up messages.  The message was that John and his partner Greg had received our Snapfish order at their home in Virginia, and he wondered if we received theirs. So I called him back on the number he left me and told him we had not received their cards. So, we chatted for a minute or two, exchanged addresses and he said he’d send our cards out on Friday morning.  We ended by wishing each other Merry Christmas. On Friday, we received this business’s Holiday Cards.  I had a nice chat with Mallory in Michigan at Contacta and she told me Snapfish was sending her their correct cards in the mail, and she told me they received someone’s cards who lives in South Carolina and she was about to call them.  We wished each other a Happy Holidays and hung up the phone. 

This could have ended in huge complaining and whining sessions across America. But I got to talk to two complete strangers who reminded me, as divided as this country seems to be, how frightened we are of a whole host of things I do not need to remind you of at 8:20am on the Third Sunday of Advent, they reminded me that there are still good and wonderful people in the world who fill our hearts will joy.  Life is hard, and there is much for us to do in bringing the Kingdom of Heaven here on earth.  But how much easier that will be when we are strengthened by our companions in this church and those who share our lives here on earth.  Thank you, John from Virginia. Thank you, Mallory from Michigan.

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[1] Feasting on the Word, p. 64, Year A, vol 1, Patrick J. Howell

[2] Ibid, p.62

[3] Ibid, p. 67, Joanna M. Adams

[4] https://www.inc.com/jessica-stillman/complaining-rewires-your-brain-for-negativity-science-says.html

[5] Ibid., and https://psychpedia.blogspot.com/

[6] https://www.inc.com/jessica-stillman/complaining-rewires-your-brain-for-negativity-science-says.html