Don't #2

Don’t grumble against one another, brothers and sisters, or you will be judged. The Judge is standing at the door! (James 5:9)

           Here’s our second “don’t.” Don’t grumble against one another. To grumble is to “complain or protest about something in a bad-tempered but typically muted way.” This means that grumbling does not involve going to the person one grumbles about. It may not involve your saying anything to any specific person. Grumbling is quiet. No one else may hear it. It might be entirely in your head. Grumbling doesn’t even require a growling tone in our voices, though we tend to think of grumbling as quiet, deep rumbling.

              If grumbling is not those things, what is it? Let’s consider some parallels. Meditation is quietly going over things or over nothing, over and over. To worry is to meditate with fear. Dogs worry a bone. To hope is to meditate with anticipation and joy. Grumbling is meditating with anger. The problem with most of these forms of meditation is that they are like being on a gerbil wheel, you keep running but you don’t get anywhere. The problem isn’t solved.

           James said that the grumbler would be judged. Grumbling sounds like such a small thing to be judged for, but the greatest commandment includes loving our neighbor as ourselves, and grumbling isn’t loving. Jesus taught us how to handle conflict, and grumbling is not it.

            However, grumbling does seem like a good jumping-off point for a discussion of the spiritual battle in which we find ourselves. We’ll take that up tomorrow.