Grumble, Grumble, Grumble - Reven Jonathan

To prepare our hearts for scripture, let us pray for illumination together.

Speak to us, living God, as you have spoken to our ancestors, through the voices of your prophets, the breath of your spirit, and the life of your Son.

So that we may live according to your word through Jesus Christ our Savior.

The gospel reading this morning is from Matthew 20, verses 1 through 16.

Matthew 20:1–16

Let us listen to the word of God.

For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard.

After agreeing with the laborers for the usual daily wage, he sent them into his vineyard.

When he went out about nine o'clock, he saw others standing idle in the marketplace.

And he said to them, You also go into the vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.

So they went.

And he said to them, Why are you standing here idle all day?

They said to him, Because no one has hired us.

He said to them, You also go into the vineyard.

When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his manager, Call the laborers and give them their pay, beginning with the last and then going to the first.

Now when the first came, they thought they would receive more.

But each of them also received the usual daily wage.

And when they received it, they grumbled against the landowner, saying, These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.

But he replied to one of them, friend, I am doing you no wrong.

Did you not agree with me for the usual daily wage?

Take what belongs to you and go.

I choose to give to this last the same as I give to you.

Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me?

Or are you envious because I am generous?

So the last will be first, and the first will be last.

This is the word of the Lord.

See the glory of the morning sun.

Any of you know this story very well?

Jonah was called to bring a warning to the Ninevehes.

Let's listen to the word of God.

Starting with Jonah 3.10.

When God saw what Nineveh did, the Ninevites did, how they turned from their evil ways, God changed his mind about the calamity that he had said he would bring upon them, and he did not do it.

But this was very displeasing to Jonah, and he became angry, and he prayed to the Lord and said, O Lord, is not this what I said while I was still in my own country?

That is why I fled to Tarshish at the beginning, for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful and slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and ready to relent from punishing.

And now, O Lord, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live.

And the Lord said, Is it right for you to be angry?

And then Jonah went out of the city and sat down east of the city and made a booth for himself there.

He sat under it in the shade, waiting to see what would become of the city.

And the Lord God appointed a bush and made it come up over Jonah to give him shade over his head to save him from his discomfort.

So Jonah was very happy about the bush.

But when dawn came up the next day, God appointed a worm that attacked the bush so that it withered.

And when the sun rose, God prepared a sultry east wind, and the sun beat down on the head of Jonah so that he was faint and asked that he might die.

He said, It is better for me to die than to live.

But God said to Jonah, Is it right for you to be angry about the bush?

And he said, Yes, angry enough to die.

And the Lord said, You were concerned about the bush, for which you did not labor and which you did not grow.

It came into being in a night and perished in a night.

And should I not be concerned about Nineveh, that great city in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand persons who do not know their right hand from their left?

And also many animals.

This is the word of the Lord.

Thanks be to God.

As my brother was getting ready for his son's graduation party this year, he was worried for weeks.

Is it gonna rain?

It'd be terrible if it rained, Jonathan.

Now, I love my brother Wally, but if you know him deep down, he's a lot like Eeyore.

He loves to complain and worry about how everything's gonna go wrong.

And of course, I'm the exact opposite.

I'm a bit overly optimistic.

Everything's gonna be wonderful.

Sunshine and rainbows, even if it's not.

In fact, it's how I remember my blood type.

I'm O positive and Wally's O negative.

So as we're traveling up north on the day of my nephew's graduation party, I told Siobhan and the kids, I bet your Uncle Wally is gonna find a way to complain about this perfect, perfect, amazing weather.

So after we arrive and say our hellos, I get a chance to talk to Wally.

And I say, the weather's gorgeous.

I bet you're relieved.

And then he says, I was actually thinking it's a little too sunny.

I'm gonna have to go grab a hat so I don't get burned.

Do I know my brother or what?

Mr.

Eeyore, Mr.

O negative found a way to complain about the perfect weather.

My brother and Jonah from today's Bible story are peas in a pod.

All Jonah does is complain and grumble and and and complain some more.

I don't think there's a time when he doesn't grumble.

There's one time when he's happy.

Under that bush.

God tells Jonah to go to Nineveh, but he doesn't want to go to Sin City, Nineveh.

It's a terrible place, and they're the worst.

Not only does he grumble, but he gets on a boat in the opposite direction.

And of course, God doesn't let Jonah get off so easily.

And after a torrential storm, all the sailors are worried for their lives, so they force Jonah to walk the plank.

Now that's worth grumbling about.

That's no fun.

And then Jonah gets swallowed up by a giant fish, and he's grumbling, and he's grumbling, and doesn't relent from grumbling for three whole days.

And then when he finally relents, the fish regurgitates him out on the shores of Nineveh.

It sounds nicer when he just spits them out, right?

Jonah's absolutely exhausted, infuriated.

His grumbling has now reached the rank of general.

And in his sorriest and grumbliest voice, General Eeyore Jonah tells Sin City, Nineveh, forty more days, and Nineveh will be destroyed.

Grumble, grumble, grumble.

And since he's a general of grumpiness, he already knows if the Ninevehes repent, something even more annoying is to come.

And it does.

God gives mercy to the very wretched souls of Nineveh who don't deserve it.

And Jonah's so angry and grouchy and grumpy that he'd just rather die.

And Jonah huffs and puffs all the way out of Nineveh.

And at this point, God gives Jonah a break.

And a bush grows up over Jonah, giving him a little shade.

And Jonah's ready to camp out there for days and days and days.

Because it's the perfect spot to view Nineveh's destruction.

And he's waiting for it.

Only discover that the very next day, this nice shady, perfect spot was only temporary.

It was only for a little rest.

A worm attacks the desert bush and it withers the very next day.

And Jonah's sizzling mad, and he grumbles and he grumbles and he grumbles and he tells God, It is better for me that I should die than to live.

You see, the whole world is out to get Jonah.

The storm, the sailors, the sea, the giant fish, Sin City Nineveh, God's goodness and mercy, the scorching desert sun.

And now to top it all off, even the worm is out to get Jonah.

Poor Jonah.

And poor my brother.

And all the grumpel stiltskins out there.

Even if Eeyore or Charlie Brown or Wiley Coyote are satire, we need to have a we need to have compassion on all the grumpy old men out there.

Because even Mr.

OPositive gets a little grumpy sometimes.

It's real.

It's like the world is against some folks, and it can happen to any of us.

The little things keep piling up as though the whole world is out to get us.

It's easy to start complaining and grumbling about things.

But I think Jonah's story is here to remind us that it's not good to just grumble all the time.

God finally tells Noah at the very or tells Jonah at the very end.

Should I not be concerned about Nineveh, that great city in which there are more than 120,000 persons who do not know their right hand from their left?

God basically tells Jonah, just like Siobhan said, to stop complaining.

Stop complaining about God's mercy and goodness and generosity.

Henry Nowen says, of one thing I am sure.

Complaining is self-perpetuating and counterproductive.

Whenever I express my complaints in the hope of evoking pity and receiving the satisfaction I I so much desire, the result is always the opposite of what I tried to get.

A complainer is hard to live with.

And very few people know how to respond to the complaints made by a self-rejecting person.

And the tragedy is that often the complaint once expressed leads to that which is most feared.

Further rejection.

This Thursday night, just as we were finishing dinner, I got a phone call.

It was from Young's Security.

The church's fire alarm was going off.

And I was thinking, I'll be there in eight minutes.

Siobhan, at this point, now gets to take Lydia to the JHS German Exchange meeting while I get to go take care of the fire alarm here at the church.

And as I'm driving, Marcy Joan calls to tell me that it went off after their book study and that she would wait here until I arrived.

And Marcy was there to greet me as I go off to see the firefighters.

I found out that a kid pulled the fire alarm just at the end of the day.

And after they finished, I let Marcy know that it was all reset and put back together.

And she responds, Yay! With three exclamation marks.

And then I start writing a complainy grumpy text on how aggravating our fire alarm is.

And I'm just about to send it.

And I thought about Jonah's grumbling and this sermon.

And I deleted the grumpy text.

And instead I thanked Marcy for her help.

She said I didn't help that much.

I said, Your smile, your greeting.

I was about to be grumpy the whole rest of the day, and the next day Mr.

OPositive was uh not happy.

But you said yay.

It's so easy to get grumbly, to get aggravated, and then to share it everywhere with your whole family.

It's easy to whine with your friends.

It's especially easy on social media.

We can see it.

But it doesn't make things better.

In fact, it usually makes it worse, just as Henry Nowen says.

Now, whenever our family has a no-no no day and we're feeling a bit grumpy like Jonah, uh, the best way our family gets it out of our system is to start singing Sesame Street's the Grouch Anthem at the top of our lungs.

We turn it on.

Grouches of the world unite.

Stand up for your grouchly rights.

Don't let the sunshine spoil your rain.

Just stand up and complain.

It's nice that there's a prophet like Jonah who grumbles and grumbles and grumbles.

And I love that Jonah's so aggravated with God that he could die.

For God showered goodness and grace upon a people like the Ninevehes.

It's good because God still loves the Jonah's of the world.

And I love them too.

Because my brother and even Mr.

Opositive can become the Jonas of the world.

For God's goodness and grace and mercy is super unfair.

And it doesn't make sense.

It shouldn't happen or work.

Not for the Ninevites or for the Jonas or for you and me.

Praise be to God.

That God doesn't listen to our grumbles.

In the name of the Father, of the Son, of the Holy Spirit.

Amen.

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