My mom turned 80 years old two weeks ago and the gift that she received from her family was a personal book remembering her life. My niece, Michele, who I think does some Creative Memories scrap-booking, took the pictures and letters that relatives and friends sent her and made it into a nice memory book of her 80 years. What I found quite interesting were the pictures of my mom’s parents and grandparents and other older relatives. Her parents would have been born around 1900 and her grandparents about 1875 or so – just about when Lois Mackay was born.

Her parents or grandparents were not happy in those old black and white pictures. No smiles on those faces. Frowns, scowls. Too much starch in their shorts, I guess. They would have fit well with the Israelites and their grumbling and murmuring and groaning in the desert!

Do you know anyone who is a grumpy person? Always negative. Maybe it’s you!! I listen to Irv Brown and Joe Williams in the afternoon on one of the sports talk radio stations here in town. Joe plays the role of the grouch on the show, or maybe that is just who he is. Irv will tell the callers not to be brought down by Joe – Joe has just had a few bad decades!!

Have you ever tried to placate a grumbling person? It doesn’t work!! You take a family member (sometimes a teenager) who doesn’t like the choice of restaurant that someone else made and try to have them pick something to eat. And nothing, absolutely nothing, on the menu is edible and to their liking!! And after refusing to eat you have to listen to the complaints of someone who could die at any moment from starvation all the way home because “there was nothing to eat at the restaurant”!!

Grumbling is one of those great arts that some have. Including the Israelites!! This is how the reading from the Old Testament begins, “In the desert the whole community grumbled against Moses and Aaron. The Israelites said to them, ‘If only we had died by the Lord’s hand in Egypt. There we sat around pots of meat and ate all the food we wanted, but you have brought us out into this desert to starve this entire assembly to death.’” (Exodus 16:2-3) In the good ‘ol days things were always better. This lament wasn’t just at that point, either. They had gotten pretty good at their “poor, old me’s”!!

After God had brought them out of slavery but before He opened the Red Sea miraculously, the Israelites saw the Egyptians pursuing them and they had no where to go – the Sea in front of them, the Egyptians behind them. And this is how they responded – “Didn’t we say to you in Egypt, ‘Leave us alone; let us serve the Egyptians? It would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the desert.’” (Exodus 14:12) And then in the next chapter they grumbled because there was no water. (Exodus 15:24) And now no bread. And God gave them water and gave them bread and quail. And then after seeing every gift come to them, in a way that you would have to say – “This had to be a God thing!! – we read that they got tired of the same stuff over and over again – “We detest this miserable food!!” (Numbers 21:5c) (In the words of some families - spaghetti – again??!!)

Grumblers will get to you. Nothing is right. Half empty; never half full. But it is the reaction of God that is quite amazing!! Instead of throwing up His hands and saying, “Enough, I don’t want to hear it anymore”, He comes with patience and kindness. In Exodus 16 we read this, “The Lord said to Moses, ‘I have heard the grumbling of the Israelites. Tell them, at twilight you will eat meat, and in the morning you will be filled with bread. Then you will know that I am the Lord your God.’” (Verses 11-12) He hears the grumbling and He answers.

He doesn’t invite grumbling but He knew their needs and gave graciously what they needed. In the New Testament St. Paul says, “And do not grumble, as some of them did – and were killed by the destroying angel. These things happened to them as examples and were written down as warnings for us.” (I Corinthians 10:10-11) But He invites us to come with the burdens of our heart and life to Him. In the Easter hymn, I Know That My Redeemer Lives, the fourth stanza says, “He lives to grant me rich supply; He lives to guide me with His eye; He lives to comfort me when faint; He lives to hear my soul’s complaint.” (Lutheran Service Book #461)

The Bible speaks about situations where people struggled with life and suffering and they have many questions about it all. Look at Job. Psalm 42, the prayer of the discouraged says, “I say to God my Rock, ‘Why have You forgotten me? Why must I go about mourning, oppressed by the enemy?’ My bones suffer mortal agony and my foes taunt me, saying to me all day long, ‘Where is your God?’ Why are you downcast, O my soul? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise Him, my Savior and my God.” (Verses 9-11)

This is quite the amazing thing!! To the person who has a complaint, to the one who is quite disturbed by the things of life, even to the one who grumbles, God hears the compliant, the disturbed soul and the griping. And He meets our deepest and greatest needs!!

13 of our youth as well as Stephen Pruitt, Kathy Johnson and myself spent the entire week at Camp Luther in Schuyler, Nebraska. We were involved in a camp called “His Kid’s Camp.” His Kid’s are teenagers and adults with disabilities. Down’s Syndrome, Autism and Mental Retardation made up the majority of the 21 campers that we helped. One of the things that they did was archery – bows and arrows. They had about 25 minutes to be transported to the range and shoot arrows and then return for the next activity. When they got there, by the time that instruction was given and they got to actually shoot at that target, they got to shoot two arrows!! Two. But they were so happy to shoot those two!! As they were coming over on the trailer one of the campers who had Down’s said, “This is my first trip on a trailer.” And on the way back, she leaned over and said, “This is my second trip on a trailer.”

There was some grumbling at camp, but there was mainly amazing appreciation. The Gospel reading for today coordinates well with the request in the Old Testament reading for food in the desert. Jesus is the one that gives us not just our daily bread but the bread for our soul. In John 6 Jesus says this, “I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. This bread is My flesh, which I give for the life of the world. Then the Jews began to argue sharply among themselves. How can this man give us his flesh to eat? Jesus said to them, I tell you the truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink His blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For My flesh is real food and My blood is real drink. Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood remains in Me and I in him.” (John 6:51-56)

He feeds the soul that needs Him so much with Himself. We have food from him that fills us, feeds us, satisfies us. The food and drink from Christ stops the grumbling!! Sins are atoned for, peace with God is established, His promises secure us in our life. By His death and resurrection we are assured that we are His forever. Who could grumble at such news!!

In Philippians Paul speaks these words, “I rejoice greatly in the Lord that at last you have renewed your concern for me. Indeed, you have been concerned but you had no opportunity to show it. I am not saying this because I am in need, for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do everything through Him who gives me strength.” (4:10-13)

The grumbling is replaced with praise and joy and appreciation. God has been so good and God is so good – we find ourselves content in any and every situation – thankful that we have every promise and every gift given to us in Jesus Christ. We are taken care of right now and we will be taken care of graciously forever in heaven.

Bread for grumblers. He heard their cry and gave them manna. Can there be bread for grumblers like me, and like you? Yes. Our needs are satisfied in Christ. St. Augustine said, “Our rests are restless until they find rest in Thee.” And now they have found the rest. Christ has come to us and given us bread from heaven. Amen!!