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If...Only First
Reading:
Numbers 11:4-6, 10-16, 24-29 They were just tired of it. They had been eating the same old manna for just too long. Never mind that it was bread from heaven. It was tiresome. They were bored with it. Their taste buds were longing for something different, something more exciting, something like a burger. Or even fish that they had eaten for free in Egypt. Or those delicious cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions and garlic. They somehow forgot all those nasty days of slavery in Egypt just because they were really tired of manna. I mean, how many flake-like honey-tasting wafers can you eat before you get sick of them? Just imagine how much you would want to go to McDonald’s after eating nothing but communion wafers for months! So they began their lamen: “If only ...if only...if only we had meat!!” I used the word lament intentionally. They weren’t just a little bored with their bread. They were weeping throughout their families, all at the entrances of their tents! They were lamenting, weeping, and crying in their complaint. The Lord and Moses were anything but amused by their temper tantrums. After all the Lord had listened to their cry for liberation from their slavery in Egypt and had freed them through the hand of Moses. Moses had ushered them across the Red Sea on dry land and was leading them to the land that God had promised to give them. There in the wilderness when they were hungry and thirsty God provided quail for them in the evening and manna during the day. They were to collect enough manna for their family for each day, and on the sixth day they were to collect a double portion to last through the Sabbath. If they took more than one day’s worth, the extra rotted. On the sixth day when they took enough for the Sabbath, the extra did not rot. They were having to learn, as we all do, that when we take too much for ourselves from life, we find life spoiled. When we take only what we need, we are fully satisfied. The food God gave them was a gift from heaven, and that bread from heaven came faithfully for all the years they were in the wilderness. Their prayer could have been:
But, that wasn’t their prayer. They kept up with “if only…” Moses began to complain as well. He said to God, “Did I conceive all this people or give birth to them, that you should tell me to carry them and get them to the land you promised them? I can’t carry them alone – they’re too heavy. If this is the way you are going to treat me, put me to death at once and do not let me see my misery.” Moses was so stressed with the weeping, lamenting, crying people that he just wanted to die! In effect Moses was saying, “If only you hadn’t asked me to lead these people, I would be happy in my own little life!” The complaints of the people did not stop either. Someone in the camp was upset that Eldad and Medad were prophesying in the camp. They hadn’t done what everyone else had done, so why should they be receiving the same gift of prophecy as the others? Surely, it was unfair. In other words, “If only, Eldad and Medad hadn’t been given the same gift we were, then we would have known that we were special. Neither the Israelites, nor Moses, had yet understood what the spiritual financial philosopher of Calvary, Rick Fortin, has understood. At lunch this week he casually reminded me that short term losses equal life’s long term gains. In other words, the Israelites had the short term loss of meat and fish, onions, leeks, and garlic--but those very losses were making possible their sure and certain freedom from slavery in Egypt and their move into the Promised Land as God’s chosen people. Their ‘if only’ mentality kept them focused on short term losses, rather than life long term gains. If only...if only...if only. ‘If only’ always gets us into a bad place. Think of what occurs in your own life when you start feeling unhappy with the way things are and begin wishing how wonderful your life would be ‘if only’… such and such would happen. You begin to feel less and less full, less and less grateful, less and less peaceful, less and less human. The more you think of the ‘if only’ the less able you are to find grace in the present. Your eyes become closed to the possibility of ‘now’ as you begin to live in what you desire but which has no tangible reality to it. The more you live in that hazy dreamworld, the more clenched your heart becomes and the more inner disquiet you feel. It is as if the thing you want, the thing that seems so ideal, actually steals away the joy of God’s gifts that are all around you. As your dissatisfaction grows, so does your complaining spirit. The word complain
actually comes from the word plague. We all know what happens in
a plague. It spreads randomly and unremittingly, killing
and destroying everything in its path. The Sufi Mystic Rabia used to
say to her disciples, “stop complaining.” Just ‘stop
complaining.’ Stop being a plague in your world, and stop plaguing
yourself with unhappiness that spreads like a worm through the channels
of your soul. What happens when you stop complaining is that you begin
to dance around the floor of contentment. The word contentment comes
from the French word tenir meaning to hold. When we choose contentment
over complaint, we are choosing to hold on to the graces and gifts
we have already been given. As we settle our souls in contentment we
begin to see ourselves expand, we feel able to gather others in, we
see the tattered edges of our soul being quietly melded together, and
our soul becomes more still and serene. Surprisingly, when we are content,
everything is seen as a gift and our hearts fill with gratitude. The
more content we become the less fearful we are of giving to others. I, at nine years old, felt very sorry for him. He had every right to dwell in an 'if only’ world--if only my family was wealthy, if only I was white, if only I didn’t have to work at my age. He had every right to complain rather than be content. Yet, he seemed to have no anger or resentment at all. In fact, he had a gentle joy about him. I saw him the next day, and the next, and the next. In fact, for the ten days I was there, I saw him asking people if he could shine their shoes. And every day we would talk some. On the evening before my last day there, the little boy showed up again and handed me a box. He was very excited and said that he wanted to give me a present. He had taken all the money he had earned that day and had gone to a store to get me a gift. I can still see his face beaming, and he could hardly contain himself until I opened the box. Inside was a little silver roadrunner pin with a red garnet eye. It was absolutely precious. I was only 9 years old, and could not have articulated all that had occurred there. But I kept that pin. I treasured that pin. I had learned important lessons about giving. I had learned that the poor often find it the easiest to give. I had learned that a full day’s work and its subsequent pay could joyfully be given away. I had learned that the greatest joy of all is not in keeping one’s money, but in sharing it with others. I had learned that contentment was better for the spirit than complaining. And, there was a domino effect of gratitude and giving that came as a result of that boy’s giving. One of the doctors, a family friend, after hearing the story felt gratitude once-removed, so to speak. He went and bought a beautiful and expensive shoeshine kit with all the best polishes and brushes and dyes, and made a gift of it to the boy. You can’t imagine the face of that boy when he opened that present. It was beyond his wildest dreams. The boy had given all that he had made in one day to buy a pin for me, and he received a lavish shoe shine kit that he could never have expected or afforded. If that young boy had spent his time in an ‘if only’ world, complaining rather than exercising a kind of hope-filled contentment, how different his life, my life, and the doctor’s life would have been. It may seem easier to complain than be content with what is. It may seem seductive to let our imaginations run wild in the ‘if only’ world of smoky images. The Israelites wanted to return to what they had known, they wanted burgers rather than manna, they preferred slavery to the fearful wilderness. And inch by creeping inch they were moving away from the goodness of God. They were allowing themselves to go to the place where they no longer believed and trusted in God’s care, provision, love, and goodness towards them. This is the ultimate tragedy of ‘if only’ thinking. Our souls shrink, and we find ourselves on the fringes of our life with God. So turn it around! Do as Rabia suggests: Stop complaining. Just stop complaining. Trust what Ruby Wilson at B.B. Kings on Beale St. says at every one of her performances:
Copyright 2003 Calvary Episcopal Church Gospel:
Numbers
11:4-6, 10-16, 24-29 |
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