Without Complaining…

Do everything without complaining and arguing,so that no one can criticize you. Live clean, innocent lives as children of God, shining like bright lights in a world full of crooked and perverse people. – Philippians 2:14-15

Can I be honest for a second? I really hate this passage. Seriously. Every time I read it, I feel like an utter mess. It’s just ridiculous. It is regularly something that feels beyond my grasp. It feels like a few lines of impossibility. 

The truth is, complaining is like a second natural language to me. Like sarcasm, I find myself speaking it fluently. And I’m really gifted at complaining too! I can multitask my complaining. In a matter of just a few seconds, I can complain about drivers, and being hot, and racing to the next thing, and my kid kicking the seat in front of him and all from the comfort of my captain’s chair as I zip down the highway. 

I can complain about politicians (that’s easy) and I can complain about government waste or government words (sometimes they are the same thing). I can complain about being too busy and then complain about having nothing to watch on the hundreds of channels on my tv. I can complain that the church isn’t meeting, or that it is meeting but not doing what I want it to do, or that it’s people aren’t more holy or should be less whiny (like me of course). 

And to all of this, Paul’s words interrupt my desire for personal preference and constant bickering. “Do everything without complaining.” I wish Paul had added “unless you really need to” in order to decompress a bit. He didn’t. I wish he would have given me a chance to explain why I needed to post that complaint on Facebook though – I mean people need to hear that I’m upset about something. He didn’t do that either. 

Well, Paul lived in a different time. He would probably join in about the pandemic, or masks, or social distancing, or the government arguing and playing games…right? Seriously doubt it. 

The truth is, Paul’s world was just as messed up as ours. His church was a hot mess. He even had religious people try to kill him – several times. He had to deal with squabbles and infighting all around him. While we worry about online or in person, and the placement of a cross on an altar, Paul had to deal with new converts deciding if eating meat offered at pagan temples was allowable or if a little surgery was needed to ensure non-Jewish believers were truly saved. 

And the government was even more of a mess. Not only could they not agree, but in many cases, they were just as willing to maim and kill Paul as listen to him. He was a citizen, but that didn’t keep him from eventually being martyred. He watched friends crucified and others tortured. He traveled much of the known world and he endured sleepless nights, hunger pains, beatings, a shipwreck, and imprisonment. Paul had every right in the world to complain, but instead, he encourages to reject what comes so easy and so natural. 

But how? How did he do it? Paul was just like us – he wasn’t super-human and he was far from angelic. Part of the answer has to lie in the rest of this letter to the church at Philippi. In preacher world, Philippians 2 is a giant passage that is jammed full of theological treasures. I spent weeks in Greek, Theology, and Pauline Study classes exploring verses 5-11. The section is called the kenosis passage and it speaks of Jesus’ servant style leadership. 

Many people think that these verses were a part of a song, which makes sense if you think about it. What better way to grasp and own such a wild thought but to sing about it! What better way to respond to hardship, then to sing that Jesus endured it too and he did so with the attitude of a servant. Singing of the high name of Jesus when the crushing load of governmental control and corruption is bearing down on you, sounds like a pretty good idea.

Kenosis means emptying out – as I think about it when I’m complaining I’m not very empty. When I’m argumentative and combative, I’m pretty full – full of myself, full of words, full of response. I have no room to listen, to hear, to understand. I only have space for my preference and perspective. While “he took the very nature of a servant and humbled himself,” I often take the nature of the all-knowing, all-wise, and ever offended. 

I’m spending most mornings slowly reading through Thomas a Kempis’ book “The Imitation of Christ.” There are parts of the book that are tough to sludge my way through. He’s writing to monks that are struggling to be faithful, and some of his counsel is a little dated and strange. But there are other parts that are just as convicting today as they would have been 500 years ago. In speaking about building a deeper interior life, a Kempis challenges with the following words: 

“Christ was willing to be assaulted and despised, and yet you have the nerve to whine and to wail just because something untoward happened to you? Christ had accusers and detractor, and yet you want to have only friends and benefactors? How can your patience be crowned with prosperity if it’s never been crushed by adversity? How’ll you ever be a friend of Christ’s if you going to cry out every time you stub your toe.” 

The toe part stings. For Paul, and for a Kempis, the reason to “do everything without complaining” had everything to do with Jesus. It’s Jesus’ own life that is the example. He had every right as the Son of the Living God to complain about all kinds of things. But instead, he endured. Oh, he spoke truth into devastation – he confronted brokenness and sin, but even those words were filled with grace. I can’t say the same about mine. 

Our world is filled with words, noise, and complaints. What would happen, if the church of Jesus rejected the “right” to complain and argue and instead chose the Jesus-way? What if we chose to be 2nd instead of being heard? What if we rejected the right to always be right? What if, instead of making the noise of the victim, we chose to let humble innocent lives shine brighter than dark words? What if we endured instead of retaliated? 

“Do everything without complaining or arguing.” Every Thing. It’s a ridiculous thing to be told to do. And yet, I have a feeling, that if I chose to sing the song of Jesus more often – to remember how he chose to take on the world’s brokenness – then maybe I might see the world around me differently? Maybe, my joy would be more complete. Maybe when the crooked and perverse seem to prevail, the brightness of God’s glory could make an even bigger impact? 

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