Complaints are opportunities in search of responsibility, which is just another word for "prayer with legs."
This was the two-fold realization I had as I stepped into the pulpit, moments after having read - for the umpteenth time that week - the Old Testament lesson for Lent 4: Moses, the people, and the snakes: complaints are opportunities in search of responsibility, which is just another word for "prayer with legs."
The gist of the plot in the reading is that the people continue to gripe some two-and-a-half books after being delivered from slavery in Egypt about all manner of things. Not enough food. The wrong kind of food. Too little variety. The unending chorus: "Are we there yet?" And Moses complains to God about the people, and God complains to Moses about the people, and Moses stands up for the people, asking God for the patience to live the whole cycle through the next day, the next month, the next year. For forty years. If you and I are ever tempted to relate to Bill Murray's character in Groundhog Day, how much more is God?
So the snakes are understandable. I mean, it's a little bit like rooting for the underdog in the waning moments of the game, even when you know it's going to wreck your bracket: in principle, you'd like to be above a carnal appreciation for the sheer destruction of it all, but there's too much of the little kid still loving in us who learned early on the joy of knocking down block towers. The snake-bit whiners had it coming, darn it.
But that was exactly the problem of my realization as I stepped into the pulpit: I am the snake-bit whiner.
Whether it's that the kids didn't sleep through the night (again and again and again and again), or that Bek and I merely tag-teamed our way through the day (no small success in itself, mind you), or that the church collection went uncounted again and the altar's not set and it's two-minutes til and where on earth are the bells??, or that the meeting went really well but upon arriving home I learn that the washing machine sounds like it's harboring elephants, or simply that the day refused to acknowledge my plans - that I had some - I have these quiet complaints, some voiced, most internalized, some substantial, most petty, and they take up this room in my soul.
And as I listen as God sends the snakes to bite the ankles of the whiners in the wilderness, I tangibly, physically, feel the room these complaints take up in my soul and I know in the way of knowing that skips straight to the center of all that is true that I want that space in my soul back.
Of course, ingratitude or a temporary loss of the bigger picture are not the only reasons we human beings complain. Part of the explanation is practical: much of Family Systems Theory, for example, is predicated on the notion that relationships happen in threes - thus phrases like the "relationship triangle" and "de-triangulation." Despite the first impression of a word like de-triangulation, the central idea of systems theory is not that triangles are bad, but that triangles are unavoidable: the sheer intimacy of two people talking about and sharing only of themselves is too much for most relationships to carry for much more than a few minutes. So in talking to one another, we bring in other things to stabilize the relationship: other people, mostly, though also ideas, perhaps places, and things. A universally preferred way to bring up other people, of course, is by our complaints about them (a variation on gossip).
If systems theory is right, not only does my complaining issue out of my ingratitude and temporary small mindedness, but complaining is also - and maybe primarily - about fantasy and escape. Escape from reality. Escape from responsibility. Escape, most devastatingly, from the person in front of me. And as the story about the Israelites reminds me, sometimes the person from whom I'm trying to escape is God. What a tragedy.
Of course, complaints aren't all evil: insofar are complaints rightly attempt to give voice to disappointments, honestly felt, they point to a truth. To deny disappointment with God and other people is probably a kind of self-delusion. To deny disappointments with myself definitely is. It's okay to be honest. So the question I found myself wrestling with this past week was, "How can I be honest about my disappointments in a way that builds up and, if possible, glorifies God?"
This is what I've come up with as a start:
If complaints are disappointments remembered to others after the fact (too late to be helpful), what if I could decrease the time elapsed between the initial hurt of the disappointment and the vocalization of the complaint? What if, with practice, I could anticipate complaints such that they left the realm of the past tense altogether? That is, while I was still in a position to act positively, reclaim the good, in the moment of disappointment? For me, this means asking myself throughout the day the following questions, which I choose to put in the form of a prayer: Lord, what about this moment will I be tempted to complain about later? Lord, what can I do about it now? Sometimes, of course, the only answer is "pray." Other times, prayer leads in its turn to clear, concrete, and constructive steps. Either way, the secret silence is broken. Either way, I am reminded that prayer is always enough and that nothing is enough without prayer. I've learned not to take the freebie first step for granted.
Because I don't want to be a snake-bit whiner. I want to be a part of the Church's prophetic voice to a world that doesn't believe the love of the Jesus kind is possible. I want to sing with my words and my actions that not only is love of the Jesus kind possible: we have received it. "The Word became flesh and dwelt among us." And we are glad indeed.
