Weekly Seeds: Heard Your Complaining
Sunday, September 20, 2026
Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost | Year A
Focus Theme:
Heard Your Complaining
Focus Prayer:
Holy God, transform our complaining into action and praise. Amen.
Focus Scripture:
Exodus 16:2-15
2 The whole congregation of the Israelites complained against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness. 3 The Israelites said to them, “If only we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the pots of meat and ate our fill of bread, for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger.”
4 Then the Lord said to Moses, “I am going to rain bread from heaven for you, and each day the people shall go out and gather enough for that day. In that way I will test them, whether they will follow my instruction or not. 5 On the sixth day, when they prepare what they bring in, it will be twice as much as they gather on other days.” 6 So Moses and Aaron said to all the Israelites, “In the evening you shall know that it was the Lord who brought you out of the land of Egypt, 7 and in the morning you shall see the glory of the Lord, because he has heard your complaining against the Lord. For what are we, that you complain against us?” 8 And Moses said, “When the Lord gives you meat to eat in the evening and your fill of bread in the morning, because the Lord has heard the complaining that you utter against him—what are we? Your complaining is not against us but against the Lord.”
9 Then Moses said to Aaron, “Say to the whole congregation of the Israelites: ‘Draw near to the Lord, for he has heard your complaining.’ ” 10 And as Aaron spoke to the whole congregation of the Israelites, they looked toward the wilderness, and the glory of the Lord appeared in the cloud. 11 The Lord spoke to Moses, 12 “I have heard the complaining of the Israelites; say to them, ‘At twilight you shall eat meat, and in the morning you shall have your fill of bread; then you shall know that I am the Lord your God.’ ”
13 In the evening quails came up and covered the camp, and in the morning there was a layer of dew around the camp. 14 When the layer of dew lifted, there on the surface of the wilderness was a fine flaky substance, as fine as frost on the ground. 15 When the Israelites saw it, they said to one another, “What is it?” For they did not know what it was. Moses said to them, “It is the bread that the Lord has given you to eat.”
All readings for this Sunday:
Exodus 16:2-15 and Psalm 105:1-6, 37-45 • Jonah 3:10-4:11 and Psalm 145:1-8 • Philippians 1:21-30 • Matthew 20:1-16
Focus Questions:
Why do we complain?
What aspects of our lives are we more likely to address through complaining versus acting?
How does action transform complaining?
How does gratitude transform complaining?
How can we release complaining without succumbing to complacency?
Reflection
By Cheryl A. Lindsay
Why is complaining so pervasive? Does it spark joy? Does it bring about resolution? Does it build healthier relationships, generate more efficient systems, or foster fruitful communication? This is not about lodging a formal complaint, such as in a legal matter, or sharing a health issue with a provider. Certain conditions do require acknowledgement and recognition of them. Respectful feedback and critical critique also serve valuable purposes in development and improvement. For this question, complaining is the persistent, relentless expression of dissatisfaction without any effort at improvement while expecting someone else to meet your demands.
Ponder this scenario: you have been held in bondage for generations. A son of your oppressor rises with compassion and conviction to lead you to freedom. The oppressor’s army follows you to a point of inevitable recapture…except the Red Sea goes dry long enough for you to cross but not your pursuers. For the first time in your life and the memory of everyone in your party, you are free. You can go anywhere and do anything. You stay together to face the challenges of building a new life in community. It’s not easy, but there is no more back breaking work to fill your days from waking until sleeping. Your children and their children will get to forge their own way. In fact, they will get to live without threat that a tyrannical despot who thinks he is god will declare they should be killed. Life has just gotten exponentially better.
Only, it’s not perfect, and it does not offer the one good thing that the old life provided: ready food and water. Thus, the complaining begins.
Elim is a welcome oasis in the wilderness. There are springs of water and palm trees in abundance. But leaving time comes, and forty-five days beyond Egypt it is back into the wilderness, the wilderness of Sin (not the English word, but apt!). The continuing interest in an itinerary is evident, though scholars remain puzzled regarding the exact route (see at 17:1). The text is clearly composite, evident particularly in verses 4–12. Its focus has to do with a food crisis, which leads to a faith crisis. The lack of discernment of God’s presence in the ordinary leads to a denial of God’s activity in the extraordinary. The complaints begin once again in earnest. This time it is food. Stress is laid upon the people as the “congregation” of Israel (rare elsewhere in Exodus), a recognition of the new identity they had received through God’s creative act. But their perceptions do not correspond to this new reality; they have not yet become who they are. They wish they had stayed in Egypt. If it is finally a choice of places to die, satiety with oppression—an idealized and selective memory—is preferred to starvation with freedom. Complaining turns to accusation: Moses and Aaron intend to kill them (see Num. 11:4–9)! Faith is eroding with the sand dunes.
Terence E. Fretheim
The time lapse between liberation and faith crisis was remarkably brief. The episode described in the text is the second time complaining erupted among them. The first was over the lack of water. In response to that crisis, the Holy One provided water through Moses. Did that experience strengthen their faith? The progression suggests that they found complaining to be an effective means to get God to respond. Yet, they did not take their concerns to the Holy One directly through lament or request. They could have prayed their way through. Instead, they decided to complain their way through and targeted the human leaders that God appointed to shepherd them through the journey.
Where was their sense of agency or responsibility? Did any of them volunteer to hunt or forage for food sources? They accepted leadership out of oppression but resisted leadership into freedom.
Pursuing freedom may be dangerous work, but they had already passed the most treacherous portion of the journey. Perhaps, that proved to be their problem. After the astounding miracles that enabled them to escape Egypt, they lacked the capacity to consider God working in the mundane.
For the various issues in this chapter, it is important to stress the naturalness of the manna and the quail (contra Durham, p. 224). It is precisely the “natural” that is seen as a gift from God. God’s gifts to Israel are to be found not only in the unusual but also in the everyday. If the provisions of God in the wilderness are all subsumed under the extraordinary or miraculous, then the people of God will tend to look for God’s providential care only in that which falls outside the ordinary. The all too common effect of this is to absent God from the ordinary and everyday and to go searching for God only in the deep-sea and mountaintop experiences. Consequently, the people of God will not be able to see in the very ordinariness of things that God is the one who bestows blessings again and again. The result will often be that, when the miraculous can no longer be discerned in one’s life, there will be a profound experience of the absence of God altogether.
Terence E. Fretheim
What might be a source of consistent complaint against leaders in God’s church that should instead lead us to prayer and faithful action?
It wasn’t until seminary that I looked at a map that depicted the probable routes that the Exodus people may have taken and realized that even at an incredibly slow rate that journey should not have taken forty years. There was no suggestion that they got lost or changed directions, which means that they did not move forward with any regularity during those years. They stayed in the same place more often than they moved forward.
That is what complaining does—it keeps the chronic complainer stuck. Yet, Gracious God heard their complaining and provided for their immediate needs with compassion and generosity. They will later complain about the nature of that provision. Yet, during forty years, they could have planted a garden. They could have cultivated livestock. They could have found the means to feed themselves. The journey might not have lasted as long and the generation that left Egypt might have reached Canaan had they embraced their freedom and agency to create their future. Instead, they seemed to want to trade an oppressive Pharoah with a more benevolent servant-ruler to provide for them as helpless children rather than empowered children of the covenant.
This narrative testifies to God at work in the lives of humanity. At the same time, we might ponder this and bemoan the lost opportunity of what God would do when we participate in our miracles with gratitude and faithful agency.
Reflection from Voices of People of African Descent
The 33rd General Synod adopted a Resolution to Recognize the United Nations International Decade for People of African Descent (2015-2024). As part of its implementation, Sermon and Weekly Seeds offers Reflection from Voices of People of African Descent related to the season or overall theme for additional consideration in sermon preparation and for individual and congregational study.
Excerpts from Maya Angelou, Wouldn’t Take Nothing for my Journey Now
“What you’re supposed to do when you don’t like a thing is change it. If you can’t change it, change the way you think about it. Don’t complain.”
“Each of us has the right and the responsibility to assess the roads which lie ahead, and those over which we have traveled, and if the future road looms ominous or unpromising, and the roads back uninviting, then we need to gather our resolve and, carrying only the necessary baggage, step off that road into another direction. If the new choice is also unpalatable, without embarrassment, we must be ready to change that as well.”
“Sister, there are people who went to sleep all over the world last night, poor and rich and white and black, but they will never wake again. Sister, those who expected to rise did not, their beds became their cooling boards, and their blankets became their winding sheets. And those dead folks would give anything, anything at all for just five minutes of this weather or ten minutes of that plowing that person was grumbling about. So you watch yourself about complaining, Sister. What you’re supposed to do when you don’t like a thing is change it. If you can’t change it, change the way you think about it. Don’t complain.”
For Further Reflection
“See if you can catch yourself complaining, in either speech or thought, about a situation you find yourself in, what other people do or say, your surroundings, your life situation, even the weather. To complain is always nonacceptance of what is. It invariably carries an unconscious negative charge. When you complain, you make yourself into a victim. When you speak out, you are in your power. So change the situation by taking action or by speaking out if necessary or possible; leave the situation or accept it. All else is madness.” ― Eckhart Tolle,
“I personally believe we developed language because of our deep inner need to complain.” ― Jane Wagner
“I have always found that actively loving
saves one from a morbid preoccupation
with the shortcomings of society.” ― Alan Paton
A preaching commentary on this text (with works cited) is at //ucc.org/SermonSeeds.
The Rev. Dr. Cheryl A. Lindsay, Minister for Worship and Theology (lindsayc@ucc.org), also serves a local church pastor, public theologian, and worship-practitioner with a particular interest in the proclamation of the word in gathered communities. You’re invited to share your reflections on this text in the comments below this post on our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/SermonSeeds.
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