“Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, my strength and my redeemer.”

I was in a hurry to get the kitchen cleaned up the other night. Art was getting home from a trip and I really do try to have the house in good shape when he gets home. I did something I have been instructed plenty of times not to do… I dumped some leftover roast down the garbage disposal. It clogged up the garbage disposal. This is about the tenth time in my married life that I have clogged up the garbage disposal. When I do this, my husband is not happy. In fact, when I do this, my husband complains a lot. In our house, we don’t like to use the word “whining.” We prefer to use the word the British use, which is “whinging.” Maybe it sounds more civilized, I don’t know… At any rate, Art came home from London, having flown all night and being up for who knows how many hours across the Atlantic to a garbage disposal that was clogged. I’m not talking out of turn when I say that Art came home and whinged (a lot) when he found out the garbage disposal was clogged up. And I don’t blame him…

Maybe we ought to take a poll sample this morning, because my guess is that Art and I are not the only folks who have whined or whinged or complained this week. And my guess is further that some of us have whinged at home, while some of us have whinged about work, about church, or about the world “just in general”. Being in church on a Sunday morning seems a particularly appropriate time to take stock of how our week’s gone. And so I ask you: Have you done any complaining this past week? Maybe about somebody who’s driving you crazy or about something you have an issue with? Have you been a tattle-tale this past week? Have you whinged or whined just a little or maybe a whole lot? Spoken unkindly about anyone behind their back? Gossiped at all? Gotten angry?

If so, you are not alone. If so, you are, amazingly enough, in great and ancient company as our readings from the Bible today so clearly point out. Thousands of years ago, our spiritual ancestors complained. The Book of Numbers, our Old Testament reading, calls them “the rabble.” And I quote: “The rabble among them had a strong craving, and the Israelites also wept again, and said, ‘If only we had meat to eat! We remember the fish we used to eat in Egypt for nothing – the cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, the onions, and the garlic; but now our strength is dried up, and there is nothing at all but this manna to look at…” That sounds like whinging and complaining to me – and gosh – those are supposed to be the Hebrews so grateful to God for leading them out of slavery in Egypt and on their way towards freedom in Israel!!

But then their spiritual leader, Moses, takes complaining to a whole new level when he gets around to a private conversation with God. In fact, Moses whinges to God on the most extraordinary scale. Moses says, among other things, and I quote: “Why have you treated your servant so badly”? Why have I not found favor in your sight, that you lay the burden of all this people on me? Did I conceive all this people? Did I give birth to them? Where am I to get meat to give to all this people? If this is the way you are going to treat me, put me to death at once…”

And then in our gospel reading from Mark, we have a prime example of the disciples tattle-telling to Jesus. It starts out, “Teacher, we saw someone casting our demons in your name, and we tried to stop him, because he was not following us.” Ooh – count on the disciples to try and make sure only the specially chosen and specially recognized get to do God’s work…

The Hebrews whinge, Moses complains, and the disciples run to Jesus tattle-telling. Oh yes – there’s a biblical record, an ancient record of God’s people getting worked up about things. When we complain about the way things are going at home, when we whine about things at church that don’t meet our approval, and when we gossip behind other peoples’ backs at work, we take our own place in a long line of human complainers.

So where’s God in all our whining and complaining? Where’s God in all our tattle-telling and gossiping? I guess the first and best and happiest answer is that he doesn’t give up on us. In the story from Numbers, God comes up with a scheme to assist the complaining Moses by appointing other leaders among the Hebrews so that leadership can be shared and local issues addressed.

In Mark’s gospel, Jesus addresses tattle-telling by letting the disciples know in no uncertain terms that whoever does good things in the name of Jesus is worth it – even if they get in our space and get in our way. “Whoever is not against us is for us,” says Jesus. It’s not our job, in other words, to prioritize who should and shouldn’t be getting recognition for doing the work of Jesus – it’s our job instead to make room for anybody and everybody. Jesus says, “For truly I tell you, whoever gives you a cup of water to drink because you bear the name of Christ will by no means lose the reward.” We’re to make room for everybody who has a desire to serve God – even and maybe most especially when they get in our own way.

Where’s God in the midst of such persistent and longstanding human whinging and complaining, anger and gossip? God is loving us and leading us despite our failings. God is loving us and leading us despite our complaining. God is loving us and leading us despite all the ways we so displease him. And God is leading us forward. Not unlike the Hebrews who he led through the wilderness all those forty years, God is leading us forward into his own new promised land – the land of his kingdom – the land where we truly do treat one another with dignity and respect and love and care and concern.

We come here Sunday by Sunday because we know in the deepest and truest part of ourselves that when whinging, complaining, anger, frustration and gossip rule our hearts, we’re far from what God desires of us as holy people. We come here Sunday by Sunday to confess our failings, to ask for forgiveness, and to be reassured that God, in his gracious and amazing love for us, allows us to begin again. We come here Sunday by Sunday, in short, to be cleansed from our sin and born again into the people and personalities God wants us to be and have.

When you read between the lines of scripture, you realize that human behavior hasn’t changed much over the course of the centuries. But you also realize that in Christ, we’ve been given a much higher level of behavior to emulate. And we understand, then, when the Letter of James, our Epistle reading, cuts right to the chase of human behavior – urging us Christians to strive for the better way, the higher way, a holy way - the way of Jesus himself. “Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.”

We come here Sunday by Sunday to be reminded of our own high calling as God’s holy people. In the course of our worship of God today, we will confess the ways we’ve fallen short and we will be raised up through his forgiveness and be given a brand-new start. And finally we will be strengthened, through the sacrament of our communion with him in Christ, to be his representatives at home, at church, at work, and in the world.

I can’t guarantee that after our worship this morning you and I aren’t going to go home or even go into coffee hour and not find something to complain or whinge or whine about. But I can guarantee you that God in Christ wants so much more from us than that. Perhaps as we move from worship and into the world today, we might simply take with us the old, old prayer request of the psalmist and let it be our mantra: “Let the words of our mouths and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our strength and our redeemer.” I can think of no more powerful Gospel prescription than that. May we pledge to pray it, say it, mean it, and live it starting today.

Amen.