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A few years ago, I was invited by a close friend and colleague to attend a session called “Nurturing Culture of Changing Leadership”. One of the stories our facilitators in that session shared with us was that of The Rev. Barry Randolph at Church of the Messiah in Detroit.
When Randolph started out at Messiah, the church was small, maybe half the size of St. Luke’s. Today it is 5 times that size. Randolph was brought in by the church and by the Diocese to specifically do this kind of work. His trick was to make the Gospel relatable and show the love that God has for us in a personal way. He was empowering and building up the members of the church so they could do the work we are all called to as Christians and Episcopalians: to share the Good News of Jesus Christ. The goal was not just to evangelize to the world; it was also to spread what they had learned to other congregations. Randolph was trying to build up a community where everyone was taking part and had a share in the work of the church. He also asked the vestry, when speaking, not to talk about what they didn’t have, but instead to speak of what is possible.
At their fingertips, Church of the Messiah had everything a church could want, what many of us long to have. He was building up the parish to the heights they had sought him out to reach. You’d think that they’d be grateful for all that Randolph was guiding them to be.
As we learned after our session’s intermission, there were also a lot of struggles. The old guard at the church was unhappy with what was happening. They disliked the change. They didn’t like having people who were new in their midst. The pushback got to be too hard, and Randolph stepped away for three months time to take a break and clear his head.
When he returned, he found Church of the Messiah reverted back to what it was before. The old guard had chased away all the newcomers. All the growth that had happened was gone.
Randolph changed up his leadership approach at that point. He realized he had to be much more hands on with the parish. He had to push back hard to get back the people they had lost. He had to take on more active leadership before they would be able to take on the more autonomous role he had envisioned for them as they lived out their live as followers of Christ Jesus.
Even though Randolph, through the love of Jesus, provided the church exactly what they wanted, they still complained. They complained because even though they had what they wanted, they didn’t have it their way. They had to let go of themselves. They had be open to what the Spirit was providing in their midst.
Complaining is the theme of our readings today. We see the Israelites, fresh from their freedom from the Egyptians, wailing against God, as well as against Moses and Aaron, the leaders God provided for them. They even long for the slavery they had before, just to fill their bellies with bread.
The amazing thing is that God still provided for them. He gave them the gift of bread from heaven known as Manna, the Hebrew word for the Israelites’ response: “What is it?”
Shortly after our reading today, the Israelites fail God’s test we see given here, the test to see if they will do what the Lord says. They keep trying to find more Manna on the seventh day and they find none. They fail to heed God’s instructions for how long to keep it out and it goes bad. Yet God continues to provide the Manna for as long as the Israelites need it.
God could have abandoned them. Instead, like Randolph, God kept pushing forward, even after all the complaining Israel did against the Lord.
We see another round of complaining in the Gospel. There we have the Landlord, representing God, and the laborers in His vineyard, representing us. At each time of day, the landlord went out to find new laborers, just as we come to Faith at different times of our lives, some as children and others well into adulthood.
At the end of the day though, each laborer receives the same wage. Those who came earlier complain that they are receiving the same amount as those who came later, even though that was the amount they had agreed upon earlier. This is not unlike the old guard at Church of the Messiah struggling with the idea of newcomers coming in and helping lead their church.
Yet as a friend and colleague of mine once reminded me, the Kingdom of God is not fair, and that is good for us. We are not rewarded as we ought to be, but as God chooses. This is what the Landlord reminds the first laborers as they complain against Him. What belongs to the Landlord is the Landlord’s, and He can do with it as He pleases.
What belongs to God is God’s, and the Lord will do with it all as the Lord sees fit. This is what Grace means. We do not receive what we are owed. We receive what God wishes to give us. We do not receive wages, we receive a gift. We do not receive what we deserve, but what God out of Love wants us to have.
For all the complaining, we still have hope. We see the hope of what we can be in Paul’s Letter to the Philippians. There we see that the Philippians are living into the Word of God. There we see that they are standing firm in the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. It is not an easy path they follow. Paul himself is writing to them from prison. Their Lord, and ours, had to die on the Cross for our sins. We see how hard it is to do the work God has given us to do from followers like Randolph all the way back to Paul. Yet that struggle, as Paul puts it, is worth it, for we have been granted the privilege of living into Faith and believing in our Lord Jesus Christ. Ultimately, we are given the chance to be closer to God through our relationship with our Lord.
We have a decision to make. Are we going to complain like the laborers and the Israelites, or are we going to take their stories as a warning? Are we going to turn against God, and God’ servants, or are we going to turn towards Jesus as we lean on Him through our trials and tribulations? Are we going to wail against God’s path or have the patience to see God’s work through to it’s magnificent conclusion? Are we going to stay stuck in our own ways and our own past, or are we going to embrace what is new in the wonderful gift of Grace and Love that God has provided, free of charge, to each and every one of us who will accept it?