The Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost - September 21

Bring Your Complaints to God
Exodus 16:2-15
Matthew 20:1-16

In the Exodus reading for today, the Israelites are complaining. Again. Complaining and whining. Our feet hurt. We’re hungry. Why did we leave Egypt? We’d rather be dead. Back in Egypt we got to sit around the fleshpots. We had an all-you-can-eat nonstop buffet of meat and bread.

Really!!?? They never got to sit and rest. They were slaves, treated very harshly. They definitely did not have an abundance of meat or bread. But in their whining, they proclaim that anything would be better than the current state they find themselves in. Their complaining and whining sounds childish. Somebody needs to shake them by the shoulders and tell them to grow up! They have been saved from slavery, for heaven’s sake!

Despite the childishness of their whining, this passage, and others in Exodus, highlight the importance of complaint in the story of the people of Israel. This incident is the third of its kind in Exodus.

All of these complaints follow the same pattern (Callie Plunket Brewton HERE): (1) the people encounter a potentially devastating threat to their well-being -- the pursuit of the pharaoh and his chariots, deadly dehydration, starvation; (2) they complain (literally “murmur”) against their leadership; (3) their human leaders bring the complaint before God; and (4) God saves them by various means -- the miraculous crossing of the sea, providing drinkable water, and, in this narrative, providing bread from heaven.

They encounter a real threat or hardship; they complain to Moses and Aaron; Moses and Aaron bring the complaints to God; and God responds.

As a personal aside I do like the third stage of the pattern. I like Moses’ model of leadership. When the people complain to Moses, Moses takes it to God. So every time someone complains about something in the church… their feet hurt; their knees hurt; it’s too hot or too cold, or things were so much better back whenever… Like Moses, I promise I’ll faithfully pass those complaints along to God and let God respond..

And the thing is… God does respond. As childish and annoying as the peoples’ complaining may be, God seems to see this as an opportunity for relationship. For God, it is an opportunity to be present in the peoples’ lives. God responds to their complaints.

He does not give them exactly what they say they want, but God responds. They want comfort. They want abundance. They want to go back, not forward. They get food and water and a revelation of the glory of God with them.

The Gospel reading for today, too, is about complaining. It’s about the laborers who complain because other people who worked less than they did got the same pay. They worked all day and others just a few hours and they all got the same pay. It’s easy to sympathize with that complaint. They want life to be fair! They want people to get what they deserve, what they have fairly earned. God is active in that story, too. The complainers don’t get what they want. But they get their daily wage, the sustenance they need for the day. And a place in the Kingdom of God.

I think I have quoted the august theological Mick Jagger before: You can’t always get what you want, but if you try sometime you just might find you get what you need.

If you try. If you bring yourself and your complaints before God, at least in this story you will get: A visible manifestation of the presence of God. In case you had forgotten. God tells Moses to tell the people. You will know that I am the Lord your God. Second, the people are given their daily bread. The sustenance that they need. And finally they are given a structure of activity that helps form them as God’s people. Every morning and every evening—in the midst of all of the trials and anxieties and uncertainties of the wilderness—they go out to gather what God has given them. And in that structure they are reminded and reassured of God’s care and presence. They are given the Daily Office! A daily routine that brings comfort and stability in the midst of uncertainty and connects them over and over again to God’s goodness. Another part of that structure is Sabbath rest.

Hang on to those gifts. They are given to us, too. Especially hang on to that idea of structure in the face of life’s challenges and times of complaint. Daily prayer, weekly Eucharist ground us in God and connect us to God’s goodness.

But go ahead and complain. I think this is an important implication of these readings. Go ahead and complain to God. Don’t feel like your words to God always have to be “only be pious and grateful.” Don’t feel like you need to censor your words and prayers to God. Don’t feel like you have to only say what you think God wants to hear. Don’t censor your words and feelings with God.

I’m reminded of a couple in my first parish who were celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary. Part of the celebration was a church service with renewal of vows. The wife wanted to write a prayer for the occasion. I don’t remember the content of the prayer, just that she struggled to write it in Elizabethan English. The Rite 1, King James English, is majestic and glorious, but she didn’t know how to conjugate verbs in Elizabethan English. But she felt that was the only appropriate language in which to address God. A light example of how we censor what we say to God. Don’t.

Complain. Whine. God’s people always have. It’s an ancient and longstanding relationship builder with God. And God listens and responds. Complaint provides a place to see God’s work in our lives.