How To Complain To God

"How To Complain To God"

Jeremiah 20:7-12

As the saying goes, “Nobody likes a complainer.”  It is hard being around people who are constantly criticizing and belly aching about one thing or another.  It just wears you out being around those kinds of people.  Often it's hard to get the complainer's voice out of your head.

Our pat answer to these kinds of complainers is, “Look on the bright side.”  Like the army mess officer who was serving a meal, and the soldiers were complaining about the lack of freshness of the bread being served.  The cook said, “Look on the bright side; if Napoleon had had that bread when he was crossing the Alps, he’d have eaten it with delight.”

“Yes sir,” said a corporal, “but it was fresh then.”

Maybe it feels like there are times, events, situations with no bright side.  Complaining seems like our only alternative.  But like I said, we certainly don’t want to fall into a complainers lifestyle.  Beyond allowing it to become a part of who we are, the question needs asking:  Is it OK to complain?  But then there’s a bigger question:  Is it OK to complain to God?

It seems to me that somewhere along the way we inflicted this taboo upon ourselves that it’s not right to complain to God.  We feel almost instantly guilty for complaining about the management to the management.  I was talking with one of the guys at the Tribune church, when I served out there, and he was rattling off story after story about how he’s taken one complaint or another right to the top of the management ladder.  In fact that’s where he starts complaining.  The first person he'd call was the President of the company.  But I think when it comes to God, we're afraid to even step up to God’s front porch.  We don’t feel quite as comfortable dialing up God and letting him have it about his faulty products.

When you read the Bible, though, especially the Old Testament, taking complaints right into the face of God is part of how life was.  Going toe-to-toe with God was fairly common.  You even get the idea that God kind of liked that kind of conversation with people.  It was a way that God allowed closeness to develop in the divine-human relationship.  God gave people the freedom to walk right up and start complaining.  And people allowed God the freedom to complain right back.  What happened to that sense of freedom and lively interchange between people and God?

There was a man who went to Weight Watchers meeting and thought he was the only male there.  It was a big group, but finally he spotted another guy.  During the break he made his way over and asked, “Do you feel as uncomfortable as I do, being one of the only two men here?”

“Oh, no,” the other guy replied.  “This is the only place where I can ask a woman about her weight and not worry about getting slapped in the face!”

Jeremiah is a great example of one of those Old Testament characters who feels no taboo about getting right up in God’s grill with a complaint.  Jeremiah seems free and confident to take his complaints right to God without any fear that God is going to respond with a back-handed slap.  He is confident in his relationship with God -- a confidence that allows him to use certain tones with God without feeling threatened by the fact that he is talking to, you know, God.

Though there is some heat and frustration in Jeremiah’s words and tone, you get a clear sense that there is a deep friendship--genuine relationship--between God and Jeremiah.  The complaining is done between the two who are friends.  But it also feels like they have become friends because they have heard each other’s complaints, and established their friendship on that freedom.

So this is the first point in how to complain to God.  Jeremiah felt he had permission by God to complain.  It is possible that Jeremiah didn’t care if he had permission or not.  He was going to complain no matter what.  But I don’t think so.  I think, by allowing Jeremiah to come at him, God is being approachable, even when we’re angry, frustrated, and in a complaining mood.

Notice that God never came back at Jeremiah, slapping him down for complaining.  God never took on a Mr. T personae, shouting back at Jeremiah, “What you doin’ fool, back-talking God like that!?”  God listened silently; but God listened.

Let’s take a look at Jeremiah’s complaint, both it’s content and tone.  The first thing Jeremiah does is blame God for his frustration:  “You pushed me into this, God...” Jeremiah says.  Other versions have Jeremiah saying to God, “You deceived me...”  That word for “deceived,” is a powerful word that can be translated as “harassed,” “taken advantage of,” “enticed,” or “duped.”  In the extreme, depending on the context, this word can even mean, “raped.”  Imagine saying that to God, “You raped me, God; you took total advantage of me, over-powered me, and abused me.”

To understand what’s going on here in Jeremiah’s complaint, we have to go back to the first chapter of Jeremiah.  There we hear the promises God made to Jeremiah about what Jeremiah’s mission was going to be all about.

God starts out by telling Jeremiah things like, “I knew all about you ... I had holy plans for you ... I’ll be right there, looking after you, as I always have.”  In Jeremiah’s mind, now in this chapter 20 complaint, God seems to Jeremiah to be more like a used car salesman.  Making big promises.  Pretending to be Jeremiah’s new best buddy.  Throw out assurances about the product that were totally untrue.

I think it’s important to remember that Jeremiah is a teenager at this point.  You know how teenagers are.  What they choose to hear.  What they choose to not hear.  Or how they hear things at all, putting their own teenaged spin on things.

God told Jeremiah in chapter one, “Don’t be afraid of a soul.”  Maybe Jeremiah heard, “You will have total power over everyone.”  God said, “I’ll be right there...”  Maybe Jeremiah heard, “You won’t ever be lonely.”  God said, “I put my words in your mouth...”  Maybe Jeremiah heard, “You are God’s right-hand man.”  God said, “Your job is to pull up and tear down...”  Maybe Jeremiah heard, “You will have extreme power, just like a superhero.”

By chapter 20, the reality of what God was really saying is starting to sink into Jeremiah’s teenaged head.  Now, as I said before, Jeremiah is feeling like God is this used car salesman.  God showed Jeremiah this shiny mission as if it was a shiny vehicle.  It seemed to Jeremiah that God was filling his head with all kinds of come-ons about what this shiny new thing would provide Jeremiah:  power, mobility, influence, prestige.  “It’s got it all!”  Whatever Jeremiah thought God was selling back there in chapter one, Jeremiah bought it.

It isn’t the purchase price that Jeremiah seems like he’s complaining about.  It’s the continual, week-after-week expense of trying to keep that shiny mission running.  To Jeremiah, it was like God had sold him a lemon and Jeremiah has had enough.  So Jeremiah complains about it.

Jeremiah realizes, to his credit, that there’s another person he needs to blame.  Himself.  “You pushed me into this, God,” says Jeremiah.  That’s the finger he points at God.  But then Jeremiah continues, “...and I let you do it.”  What’s important to remember about complaining is that you make sure you direct your complaint at the right person.  Don’t complain to your spouse about someone else being an idiot.  Your spouse can’t do anything about what happened between you and the idiot.  That’s your task -- take it to the person who needs to hear it.

And often, that person is yourself.  There are times when the proper complaining statement is not, “Why are you doing this to me?”  Instead it is, “Why am I allowing you to do this to me?”  Can you see the difference?  It’s one thing for someone to kick at your personal boundaries.  It’s another to allow that person to keep kicking.  When will you finally say, “Enough!”?

That’s what Jeremiah is struggling with as he complains to God.  Jeremiah is complaining to God, for sure.  But Jeremiah is also complaining to himself for allowing himself to get sucked into God’s mission.  Jeremiah isn’t too sure about it all now, and he feels he is partly to blame.  Jeremiah recognizes his predicament in his complaint:  How do you say “no” to God in the first place?  God is too persuasive.  We, like Jeremiah, are too ready to say “yes” without thinking about the consequences of that yes.  We assume since it’s God, everything will be great.  Then, when it isn’t as great as we thought, who should our complaint actually be aimed at.  Jeremiah aims his complaint at both God and himself.

Isn’t that what’s behind Jeremiah’s complaining to God?  A lot didn’t turn out as expected.  The mission from God didn’t turn out to be this great power trip for Jeremiah.  The messages that God gave Jeremiah didn’t elicit the expected response from the people.  Instead it opened up Jeremiah to a pile of personal and public ridicule.  Insults.  Contempt.  Jeremiah, instead of feeling like a superhero, is feeling like a public joke.  Instead of people being in awe of Jeremiah, they are poking fun and telling others to “shut him up!”  Instead of overhearing people say, “There goes Jeremiah; he’s cool,” Jeremiah instead overhears people saying, “There goes old, ‘Danger Everywhere!’”

In the Peanuts comic strip, Lucy comes up to her brother Linus and says, “Look what I’ve done for you.  I’ve made up a list of reforms that I feel you need to make to help you become a better person.”

Linus replies, “Well, how nice.  I’ll make good use of this list.”  In the next frame, still looking at Lucy’s list, he continues, saying, “I’ll try very hard to improve.”  In the next frame, he’s artificially glowing when he says to his sister, “In fact, I think I’m getting better already!”  Then Linus crumples the paper with Lucy’s list and starts laughing, louder and louder.  Eventually he walks away, throwing the paper over his shoulder.

In the final frame, Lucy is dejectedly looking down at the crumpled list and says, “Reformers have a hard life.”

That’s what Jeremiah is feeling.  The list of improvements Jeremiah has written up for the people has made him hugely unpopular.  At some point, Jeremiah and the negative message of the mission have to confront each other.  Jeremiah is not a negative, gloom-and-doom kind of person.  But the message was.  So the confrontation of the person of Jeremiah, and the unpopular negative message happens here in chapter 20 in front of God.  It won’t be the first time it happens.

At some point the messenger, the message, and the audience have to interact.  The audience chose denial and insults:  “Shut Jeremiah up!”  The message Jeremiah was given to preach was the theme of the people abusing God using the images of murder and rape.  And then there is the messenger, Jeremiah, who doesn’t like either of the above: the message and the denial and insults it brings.  “I’m done,” complains Jeremiah.  “This isn’t what I expected.  This isn’t what I signed up for.”

In my favorite comic strip, Calvin and Hobbes, Calvin turns off the TV with the remote control.  Calvin stares at the remote and a bright idea beams on his face.  He walks over to where his father is sitting reading the paper, aims the remote at his father, and pushes the OFF button on the remote.  His father is still there.  Calvin turns away muttering to himself, “Rats.”  His father has a “What was that all about?” look on his face.

I get the feeling, in Jeremiah’s tone and words, that for him, God has turned out to be a bit of a disappointment.  In his complaining, Jeremiah is aiming the remote at God and pushing the OFF button, hoping this whole nightmare of a mission will go away.  Maybe like Jonah, Jeremiah felt like God should have just wiped human evil off the face of the earth.  But God didn’t.  And God doesn’t.  Jeremiah’s not sure why.

We might be right there with Jeremiah in that place.  Why doesn’t God just take care of stuff?  Isn’t God all-powerful or not?  What’s the use of speaking and underscoring all the awful ways we treat God, in its many forms, thinks Jeremiah.  But then nothing happens.  God hesitates.  God goes inactive.

In the face of that hesitation, the people launch back at Jeremiah with “insults and contempt.”  Jeremiah wants to know why.  Thus his complaints at God.  Jeremiah isn’t complaining about the insults as much as what’s behind them and prompting them:  God’s hesitation to fulfill the words and mission of Jeremiah's prophecy.  God doesn’t answer, nor gives Jeremiah any inside information about what God is actually up to.  By being silent, God, I think, is letting Jeremiah know that this isn’t about getting answers.  It’s about continuing the conversation.  It’s about submitting to the journey even when there are no good answers.  It’s about listening to Jeremiah’s complaining, allowing it, even honoring it, because that’s what true friends allow for each other.

Pivotal to understanding this whole complaint process with God is that, as with Jeremiah, God is not going to say, “Yes,” or “No” to it all.  The art of complaining to God is found in the acceptance of the ongoing conversation, rather than waiting for some single, lightening bolt answer.

As I mentioned earlier, it is in the ongoing relationship a person establishes with God, so that complaining is simply a part of the larger, ongoing conversation with God.  It is that ongoing relationship and conversation that people never seriously take the time to develop with God.  Jeremiah could complain because he had taken the time to establish himself with God in faithful, ongoing conversation, of which complaining was only a small part.

So if you’re going to complain to God, or at God, or about God to God, then you better first have a good relationship with God.