This was my reflection for the Agape Community on Wednesday, September 11th- but I waited until Sunday to share so as not to spoil the mystery for people who did not hear the readings until Sunday.
Exodus 32:7-14
The LORD said to Moses, "Go
down at once! Your people, whom you brought up out of the land of Egypt, have
acted perversely; they have been quick to turn aside from the way that I
commanded them; they have cast for themselves an image of a calf, and have
worshiped it and sacrificed to it, and said, `These are your gods, O Israel,
who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!'" The LORD said to Moses,
"I have seen this people, how stiff-necked they are. Now let me alone, so
that my wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them; and of you I
will make a great nation."
But Moses implored the LORD his God,
and said, "O LORD, why does your wrath burn hot against your people, whom
you brought out of the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand?
Why should the Egyptians say, `It was with evil intent that he brought them out
to kill them in the mountains, and to consume them from the face of the earth'?
Turn from your fierce wrath; change your mind and do not bring disaster on your
people. Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, your servants, how you swore to
them by your own self, saying to them, `I will multiply your descendants like
the stars of heaven, and all this land that I have promised I will give to your
descendants, and they shall inherit it forever.'" And the LORD changed his
mind about the disaster that he planned to bring on his people.
Luke 15:1-10
All the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to Jesus. And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, "This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them."So he told them this parable: "Which one of you, having a hundred sheep and losing one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the one that is lost until he finds it? When he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders and rejoices. And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbors, saying to them, `Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost.' Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.
"Or
what woman having ten silver coins, if she loses one of them, does not light a
lamp, sweep the house, and search carefully until she finds it? When she has
found it, she calls together her friends and neighbors, saying, `Rejoice with
me, for I have found the coin that I had lost.' Just so, I tell you, there is
joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents."
Reflection for September 11th
I would like to reflect a bit today on the theme of “complaining” in
our readings- that is, complaining as a holy practice.
Complaining is not a theme we tend to focus much on, yet it is a
behavior we see over and over again in Scriptures. In the gospels, people are
always complaining to Jesus for all sorts of reasons- they don’t believe what
he is saying-and by ‘they’ I mean the disciples as well as other Jews; he has
healed someone and others are demanding he do the same for them. And in the
Hebrew Scriptures the Israelites often complain of their plight in the
wilderness; and the psalmist complains to God.
Maybe we don’t spend much time on the theme of complaining because we
don’t tend to think of it as good behavior. After all, complaining might bring
to mind other behaviors we wouldn’t value – such as whining or pleading or
demanding … and I don’t know about you, but when I think of times I’ve had to
plead with someone or demand something of someone, I tend to think of those as
times when I’ve felt helpless, with no other options. And that’s not usually
something I look to repeat.
But there are actually many scholars of the Hebrew Scriptures who
have looked specifically at “complaint stories.” Broadly speaking, they are
interested in when the people in the Hebrew Scriptures are in the “right” when
they are complaining. Are they complaining in order to seek justice for
themselves and others? Or are they complaining because they are bored, or
hungry or tired or frustrated?
Although there’s nothing wrong with asking questions about whether
it’s “right” to complain to God, I’d like to set that question aside. I want to
instead draw attention to how complaints, in our readings, act like a spark
that invites a turning back towards mercy.
In our first reading, our first complainer is God. God is frustrated
with the people, who, in Moses’s absence, create an image of a calf, which they
worship and sacrifice to. Curiously, God even refers to the Israelites as “your
people” as he addresses Moses, rather than acknowledging them as his own. He
adds “they have been quick to turn aside from the way that I commanded them.”
Moses responds, you could say by “filing a complaint” in return. He
questions God’s anger and says, “Turn from
your fierce wrath; change your mind and do not bring disaster on your people.” So
here he has reminded God that the people are his people-not Moses’s people. He
then reminds God of his covenant with the people, specifically his promise to
Abraham that his descendants would “multiply” like “the stars of heaven.” After
this, perhaps recalling the rules he had come up with, God changes his mind –
choosing mercy instead.
Then, the next line, which
is not in our reading is: “Then Moses turned and went down from the mountain,
carrying the tablets of the covenant.”
You could say that the
complaints in the reading allow the movement in the relationship between God,
Moses and the people to take place. The people have turned aside, and God
complains in response; and in response to God, Moses pleads that he “turn” from
his anger. And because God turns, Moses is able to turn back towards the
people, with his faith in God’s promises again renewed. Each of these turns
might be likened to the steps in a dance, with each character only able to turn
in response to others.
Ok, but about our gospel?
Here again, the reading
begins with a complaint, this time from the Pharisees and the scribes, who are
“grumbling” because Jesus eats with tax collectors and sinners. While we do not
tend to praise the Pharisees and the scribes for their grumbling, it is worth
noticing that if they had not complained, Jesus would not have responded by
sharing the two parables of the shepherd and the woman with the lost coin. And
in both of these parables, there is again a “turning” that results.
In the two parables, two very different people- with very different
social roles-find someone or something they have lost. And this finding allows
Jesus to remind his listeners that the repentance of just one person –
regardless of who that person is- is cause for rejoicing.
And so, thanks to the Pharisees and scribes, the people who were
around Jesus at the time had a chance to hear these stories of repentance-
which means to “turn around.” And so also do we have a chance to hear these
parables- because the Pharisees and scribes cared enough to grumble, which
invites Jesus to respond.
So, in both our readings complaints create room for a new
relationship to occur. The Pharisees and the scribes may not have been happy
with how Jesus responded, but they nevertheless did have to engage differently
with Jesus as a result of his teaching of the parables. And in our Exodus
reading, Moses uses his complaint as an opportunity to remind God of the terms
of his relationship with his people.
So I’d like to invite everyone to reflect a bit on complaints in your
own life, especially those times when you complained or someone complained to
you. What happened in the relationship that followed? Did it bring a
change—even if that change was not what you hoped for or expected? And although
this is a question about very human experiences, we can’t forget that God was
the first complainer in our readings today—so you might respond by thinking
about complaints God has made to you, or you have made to God.
So I invite your responses to the question of how you have
experienced complaints in relationship to others.
