How long can you go without complaining? Or gossiping, or criticizing?
In 2007, the pastor of a Unity church, in Kansas City, Missouri, told the people in his congregation he thought the world would be better off if everyone would stop complaining. He followed that with, “Everyone seems to agree on two things: 1. There’s too much complaining in the world, and 2. The world is not the way we’d like it to be. I think there is a direct correlation between the two.”
He wanted the congregation to give up complaining, criticizing, or gossiping for 21 days. People who joined in the challenge were given purple bracelets as a reminder of their pledge. If they caught themselves complaining, they were supposed to take off the bracelet, switch it to the opposite wrist and start the count over. Rev. Will Bowen said it took him three and a half months to put together 21 complaint free days. Today, almost six million bracelets have been shipped around the world to 106 countries.
Have you heard about this? Here is how it works:
• Begin to wear the bracelet, on either wrist.
• When you catch yourself complaining, gossiping or criticizing move the bracelet to the other wrist and start over.
• If you hear someone else who is wearing a bracelet complain, you may point out their need to switch the bracelet to the other arm; BUT if you’re going to do this, you must move your bracelet first!
• Stay with it. It may take many months but when you reach 21 days you will find that your entire life is happier, more loving and more enjoyable.
Today the Complaint Free World Foundation has a “complaint free curriculum” for classrooms. One teacher wrote that everyone was so much happier in a complaint free classroom. Although, she wrote, it did take her longer than her young students to gain competency in complaint free behavior.
A woman in Houston wrote that she turned her beauty salon into a complaint free workplace. After she read the book A Complaint Free World she painted the break room purple and stenciled “complaint free workplace” on one wall. She asked her beauticians to wear the bracelets and if they succeeded in complaint free behavior for twenty-one days, she would give them a bonus. After a few days, three of the biggest complainers quit. All the employees who remained eventually reached twenty-one days of complaint free work. The purple bracelets changed all their lives.
No, I do not have any purple bracelets to pass out, although you might expect me to, and I am not going to challenge you to live twenty-one days without complaining, gossiping, or criticizing. Not today, anyway—perhaps… Instead, I am going to explore this idea of “giving up.”
What does “giving up” mean to us—giving up behaviors and attitudes which get in the way of our relationship with God and others.
There were two construction workers who ate together every day. One would open his lunch box and say, day after day, “Another meatloaf sandwich. I hate meatloaf sandwiches.” After a while, his friend got tired of hearing him complain about meatloaf sandwiches and said, “Why don’t you ask your wife to make you something else?” The meatloaf man looked at his friend and said, “What are you talking about, I make my own sandwiches.” [Adapted from Complaint Free World, Will Bowen]
The story reminds me of my father’s words, so persistently said during my growing up years, “The only hell there is, is the one we make ourselves.” Stepping aside for a moment, it occurred to me while writing this sermon that I received Christianity from my mother, and universalism from my father!
What do we have to “give up” to have better relationships? In our reading of Matthew today, the young, wealthy ruler came to Jesus and asked “… what must I do to have eternal life?”
Hinging upon that one question, the scribe of the Gospel of Matthew packs most of his theology in these verses. For her or him, religion is about the time when God will change the course of human events. It is about restoration of the twelve tribes of Israel, and it is about the upheaval of the status quo.
But for us, since we are not living in the first century, we have to look at the story for its meaning today. For us, it is about creating the kingdom of God.
Jesus represents goodness, as well as God. The man in the story may be young, he may be a ruler, and he may be rich, but something is missing, and he knows it. He wants to know how he can obtain that which is missing—eternal life.
The Pharisees in the first century were one of the sects who believed in some kind of life after death. The story never says the man was a Pharisee, but we must consider the possibility. Jesus’ answer shows us his beliefs in his heritage. God is first; one must recognize one’s primary relationship. And then, Jesus said, obey the Law by being faithful to one’s other relationships, spouse, family, and others by loving them as much, Jesus replied, “as you love yourself.”
If the man was a Pharisee, Jesus answered him according to the law. But there is more here. The young ruler said he did all that, yet he was still missing something. We can surmise that he wanted to know what these Jesus-followers knew. Jesus said if you want to be “perfect,” give up your riches. The Matthew scholar Eugene Boring tells us that the word used here for “perfect” teleios “does not mean ‘perfect’ in the sense of sinless, but ‘whole,’ ‘undivided,’ ‘mature.’”
Jesus knew two thousand years ago that to achieve the kingdom of God, each one of us had personal growth work to do.
It was harder for a rich person to obtain the kingdom than it was for a camel to go through the “eye of a needle.”
A blog of the Mennonite Brethren Churches, Canada, tells the story of the eye of the needle. [Adapted]
A Syrian guide was taking me through the city of Damascus on a tour. We came to a section of what apparently had been a very ancient wall, and he called my attention to the nature of the huge wooden gates. Then he pointed to a small, low door beside the main gate, and I was struck forcibly with this statement: That is what is called the 'needle's eye.' I had read about the smaller gates beside the large city gates of ancient cities, made to allow travelers to enter or leave the city at night when the large main gates were barred fast, and could not be opened except by a special order. The Jaffa Gate in Jerusalem also had a gate called a "needle's eye."
If travelers came to the walls after the gates were closed, and they did not want to leave their camels or his goods unprotected, they had to unload everything and their camels would have to move through the low gate without any burden, without anything on their backs.
Throughout the centuries of the Christian story, many have taken these scriptures to mean they had to give away their wealth and riches. That is what the young ruler thought. And, he went away sad, disheartened.
Jesus meant: to obtain the kingdom of God, to be whole and mature one must get rid of those things to which we are attached. We have to let go of everything that gets in the way of our wholeness, our relationship with God and with others.
“Giving up”
Do we need a purple bracelet to remind us to give up those things that keep us from the kingdom? Do we complain, gossip, criticize? What else do we have to give up?
Our narrow focus on our own lives,
our obsession with shopping,
our addiction to perfection,
our addiction to drugs or pornography
our lack of concern for others,
our too busy lives,
our compulsive eating
are a few things we could give up.
What if, we took one step toward “giving up?” What if for this time we call Lent, we give up something. Not chocolate, or dining out once a week, or going to the movies—why don’t we give up something that gets in the way of relationship with God. In our Ash Wednesday service each participant is given a pencil and a piece of paper cut in the shape of a tear. We ask each person to write down what gets in the way of their relationship with God. Every one of us had no trouble writing down something. I thought to myself, “See, you are not the only one who knows easily what gets in the way.”
Once we think about it we know what those attitudes and behaviors are.
Why don’t we make Jesus’ words real for us?
Giving up is not “giving up” everything like the young, wealthy thought, so he went away sad, disheartened. Giving up is the first step in becoming whole, becoming mature, and becoming a part of the kingdom.
We don’t want to live our lives wanting the Kingdom of God and not quite able to get there. We want to live our lives in the best possible relationships of which we are capable, with God and with others. I know what I need to “give up,” do you?
Amen and blessed be
Matthew 19:16-30
16A man came to Jesus and asked, "Teacher, what good thing must I do to have eternal life?" 17Jesus said to him, "Why do you ask me about what is good? Only God is good. If you want to have eternal life, you must obey his commandments." 18"Which ones?" the man asked. Jesus answered, "Do not murder. Be faithful in marriage. Do not steal. Do not tell lies about others. 19Respect your father and mother. And love others as much as you love yourself." 20The young man said, "I have obeyed all of these. What else must I do?" 21Jesus replied, "If you want to be perfect, go sell everything you own! Give the money to the poor, and you will have riches in heaven. Then come and be my follower." 22When the young man heard this, he was sad, because he was very rich. 23Jesus said to his disciples, "It's terribly hard for rich people to get into the kingdom of heaven! 24In fact, it's easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to get into God's kingdom." 25When the disciples heard this, they were greatly surprised and asked, "How can anyone ever be saved?" 26Jesus looked straight at them and said, "There are some things that people cannot do, but God can do anything." 27Peter replied, "Remember, we have left everything to be your followers! What will we get?"
28Jesus answered: Yes, all of you have become my followers. And so in the future world, when the Son of Man sits on his glorious throne, I promise that you will sit on twelve thrones to judge the twelve tribes of Israel. 29All who have given up home or brothers and sisters or father and mother or children or land for me will be given a hundred times as much. They will also have eternal life. 30But many who are now first will be last, and many who are last will be first.