17th Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 20A

17th Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 20A September 24, 2023 This week, I’ve been thinking about complaining. Our [Old Testament and Gospel] readings for today are chock full of complaining, and after I read these readings for the first time this week, I started to pay attention to how often I offer or listen to complaints in my life. I was reminded of an idea that Richard Rohr had in his book Falling Upward that has stayed with me since I read it years ago. The idea that Rohr poses is that when we complain, what we complain about says more about ourselves and the state of our own spiritual life than it does about whatever we are complaining about. In my quest this week to understand complaining, I listened to a podcast about it. The podcast was titled The Hidden Brain and the episode was “How to Complain Productively.” In the podcast, a psychologist talks about a study that he did on bus drivers in England. And what they learned in this study is that we most often complain to people who we think will support us in our complaint. (And if we don’t find that support initially, we’ll move on in our complaining until we find a different person who will agree with us.) We then often can get caught in a complaining loop with that person that creates a sort of echo chamber. And when we get caught in that complaining loop, the study revealed that our anger goes up and our forgiveness and our hope goes down. So, what’s the answer? The psychologist suggested that we need to reframe the situation that we’re complaining about—see it from a different angle. Often curiosity can help us in that endeavor. Sometimes we can do this by ourselves, or sometimes we need the help of a sympathetic listener who can help us reframe.i In our reading from Exodus today, we see the Children of Israel wandering in the wilderness, and they are complaining that they don’t have enough food: “If only we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the fleshpots and ate our fill of bread; for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger.” (It’s a legitimate complaint, albeit perhaps overly-dramatic.) But Moses is not a particularly sympathetic listener: “For what are we, that you complain against us?” … Your complaining is not against us but against the Lord.” But he does help reframe the complaint—"don’t complain to me! Take it up with God!” Now it’s easy to think badly of the Children of Israel about how they are bunch of whiners, but just think for a minute about how they have fled slavery in Egypt and are now wandering around in the wilderness. They are understandably anxious; they probably feel pretty powerless, and the one thing that they can do is complain. (And that’s probably just the tip of the iceberg of what their complaining reveals about their spiritual lives in that moment.) And interestingly enough, God responds to the peoples’ complaining in a sort of divine eavesdropping and offers to provide food for the people as long as they follow God’s instructions on how to gather it. So God reframes the complaint, reminding the people that this same God who has brought them out of slavery in Egypt is with them in the wilderness and still provides for them, and as a part of that relationship, they need to do what God asks of them. The story ends with the peoples’ complaining replaced by curiosity when they ask about the manna: “what is this?” It’s interesting to me that in this story, the peoples’ complaining is rewarded with response by God and an invitation into a deeper relationship with God. In the gospel reading for today, Jesus tells a parable that comes right on the heels of Peter’s complaint (in Matthew 19:27): “Look, we have left everything and followed you. What then will we have?” Jesus helps reframe Peter’s complaint by telling our parable for today, a parable about workers complaining about the generosity of the landowner and how they aren’t getting their fair share. When the all-day workers complain to the landowner, he pushes back and reframes the complaint saying, “‘Friend, I am doing you no wrong; did you not agree with me for the usual daily wage? Take what belongs to you and go; I choose to give to this last the same as I give to you. Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or are you envious because I am generous?’” In both of these stories, the complaint gets re-framed within the context of God’s providence and God’s radical generosity. And interestingly enough, the lesson doesn’t stick for long. Just after this passage in the gospel, we see the disciples begin to fight about who is the greatest among them and who will sit at Jesus’ right and left hands when he comes into his kingdom (thanks for that, James and John’s mamma!). And we see next week in Exodus that the people once again start complaining, and this time it’s because they don’t have enough water. So, what’s the invitation (the big question) for us in all of this this week? I invite you to reflect on what you’ve been complaining about recently. What might it reveal about your spiritual life right now? Have you complained to God about what is bothering you? How might the Holy Spirit be inviting you to reframe the issue you are complaining about to see it in new light? i. https://hiddenbrain.org/podcast/how-to-complain-productively/