H. Michael Brewer
Crescent Springs Presbyterian
18 September 2005
HEART MURMURS
Exodus 16:2-15
Philippians 1:21-30
The Israelites murmured against God in the wilderness. That’s how the old King James Version has
it: murmured. Newer translations have complained. That’s not a bad rendering. The Israelites certainly
did complain, but murmuring says so much, doesn’t it?
Murmuring isn’t loud. Murmuring is not people shouting, “When we will get a square meal?”
Murmuring is people muttering under their breath, “Well, I don’t know about you, but I didn’t follow
Moses all this way just so he could starve me to death in the wilderness. He should have thought about
how he was going to provide for us before he brought us to the middle of nowhere.”
When you’ve just had a spat with someone and they leave the room mumbling something you can’t
quite make out, that’s murmuring. At its worst, murmuring becomes a habit, an attitude toward life, a
continual discontent, an undercurrent of grumbling, the sour conviction that things are a mess and will
probably get worse.
Did the Israelites complain in the wilderness? Of course. Did they grumble? Yes. Did they gripe?
Sure. But more than anything else, they murmured—they murmured under their breath and in their
hearts.
What prompted this murmuring, this continual whining? God wasn’t treating them right. After all, so
far all God had done was to humble the stony heart of Pharaoh by turning the Nile River into blood,
blotting out the sun, and burying Egypt in frogs, flies, gnats, and locusts. So far, all God had done was
to free the Israelites from backbreaking labor beneath the whips of the Egyptian slave-drivers. So far,
all God had done was to lead the people safely out of bondage after stuffing their luggage with Egyptian
gold and silver. So far, all God had done was to guide the people by a fiery pillar, to part the Red Sea
for their convenience, and to drown the pursuing army of Pharaoh. That’s all.
No wonder the Israelites are murmuring. God obviously cannot be trusted and God’s faithfulness
hasn’t been proved. The Israelites are hungry, and they figure God will let them starve. But God hears
their murmuring and sends bread from heaven, bread that arrives every morning six days a week for
forty years.
Then the Israelites murmur that God is going to let them die of thirst. So God opens a rock and gives
them water.
Then the Israelites murmur to one another, “Bread and water, bread and water… That’s all we ever
get. Remember the salad bars back in Egypt? Remember the cook-outs we had? Boy, those were the
days!”
Mumble, mumble. Grumble, grumble. Murmur, murmur.
Do you see a pattern here? It seems that the more God gives the Israelites, the more they find to
complain about. What we receive in life is never enough in itself to make us thankful. That’s why we
meet so many people who have received life on a silver platter, but instead of being grateful, they are
self-absorbed, demanding, and indignant when they don’t get their own way.
Now let me share a secret with you. These Old Testament stories? They aren’t really about Israel.
These stories aren’t about a bunch of people who died thousands of years ago. These stories are really
about you and me. These Old Testament stories hold up a mirror in which we see ourselves with
frightful clarity.
And when I peer into that mirror, I see a murmurer looking back at me. Lately my hobby has been
complaining about gasoline prices. I’ve griped and groused for weeks. But I can’t recall the last time I
gave thanks for owning a car, a luxury denied to most of the world. I can’t remember the last time I said
a prayer thanking God that I own this expensive piece of machinery that allows me to visit a store or a
restaurant in Cincinnati in twenty minutes or to drop in on my parents seventy miles away and only have
to walk a hundred yards to be there.
Oh, I can find stuff to murmur about. I can complain about my aging eyes and how hard it is to read
that tiny print in the phone book. But how blessed I am compared to a friend whose vision is so weak
that she takes notes with a broad-tipped magic marker, scrawling two or three huge words on a single
sheet of paper. I wonder what she would give to be able to read a newspaper or a menu or a street
sign.
I can murmur about how hard it is to take off a few pounds, which is like complaining about living in
the wealthiest nation in the world, complaining that I still have a job, complaining that our refrigerator is
always full.
I’d be ashamed to admit this murmuring in public except that I’m pretty sure I’m not the only one
who was murmuring in the wilderness this week. Israel’s story really is out story. We are quick to take
our blessings for granted, impatient when things don’t go our way, and slow to give heart-felt thanks for
God’s goodness.
As I said, no amount of blessings will make us grateful, because thankfulness begins in the heart, not
in the situation. In some deep place within we decide whether we will be thankful, trustful people or
murmuring people. Those who choose to murmur will always find reasons for doing so. Somebody else
has something I don’t. Or there’s something God won’t give me. Some unfair thing has happened to
me. The murmuring heart can always justify its murmuring.
On the other hand, some people choose to thank God for what has gone before and to trust God
for what lies ahead. Those folks also find reasons to justify their practice. The thankful, trusting person
discovers that life is covered with God’s fingerprints. The grateful heart finds endless evidence of God’s
goodness.
As far as I can see, that’s the only way to explain the attitude of someone like the apostle Paul. As
he writes to the Philippians, Paul is in once again in prison, and he’s not sure he will get out of jail alive
this time. In spite of his awful circumstance, you’d be hard put to find a more joyful letter than this
epistle to the Philippians.
Paul says, “If I live through this, then I can go on serving Christ, and that’s great. On the other hand,
if I die in jail, then I go to be with Christ and that is even better. So whether I live or die, I give thanks
to God who has granted me the great privilege of suffering for Christ Jesus!”
That’s our story, too. There is something of Israel’s murmuring in us, but there is also in us
something of Paul’s thankfulness. In our best moments, we do believe that God is at work for our good,
and that God will surely provide what we need. Sometimes we murmur and sometimes we sing.
Sometimes we gripe and sometimes we praise.
The mix—the proportion of murmuring and singing—is entirely up to us. We have the power to
decide what kind of people we will be. We make our own habits. The Bible compares human character
to an animal tamed by bit and bridle. The heart can be trained. We may never in this world learn to
celebrate life with perfect praise or to follow Christ with absolute trust, but we can choose our basic
approach to life.
We can be murmuring people for whom existence is always bitter and nothing is ever good enough
and God can’t be counted on. Or we can praisers who refuse to let bad things blind us to the good,
singers who face hard knocks without losing faith, thanksgivers who never run out of reasons for
thankfulness.
Which one are you?
Which would you rather be?
Which will you decide to be?
Soli Deo Gloria!