Complaints and Hank

Frank Sinatra used to sing, "Regrets, I've had a few....I did it my way...."

Many church goers could sing, "Complaints, I've had a few....I want it done my way...."

Paul writes in Philippians 2:14, "Do everything without complaining or arguing, so that you may become blameless and pure."

John Ortberg gives us the story of Hank.

He writes:

“Hank, as we’ll call him, was a cranky guy. He did not smile easily, and when he did, the smile often had a cruel edge to it, coming at someone’s expense. He had a knack for discovering islands of bad news in oceans of happiness. He would always find a cloud where others saw a silver lining.

Hank rarely affirmed anyone. He operated on the assumption that if you compliment someone, it might lead to a swelled head, so he worked to make sure everyone stayed humble. His was a ministry of cranial downsizing.

His native tongue was complaint. He carried judgment and disapproval the way a prisoner carries a ball and chain. Although he went to church his whole life, he was never unshackled.

A deacon in the church asked him one day, “Hank, are you happy?”

Hank paused to reflect, and then replied without smiling, “yeah.”

“Well, tell your face,” the deacon said. But so far as anybody knows, Hank’s face never did find out about it.

Occasionally, Hank’s joylessness produced unintended joy for others.

There was a period of time when his primary complaints centered around the music in the church.

“It’s too loud!” Hank protested – to the staff, the deacons, the ushers, and eventually the innocent visitors to the church.

We finally had to take Hank aside and explain that complaining to complete strangers was not appropriate and he would have to restrict his laments to a circle of intimate friends. And that was the end of it. So we thought.

A few weeks later, a secretary buzzed me on the intercom to say that an agent form ISHA – the Occupational Safety and Health Administration – was here to see me. “I’m here to check out a complaint,” he said. As I tried to figure out who on the staff would have called OSHA over a church problem, he began to talk about decibel levels at airports and rock concerts.

“Excuse me,” I said, “are you sure this was someone on the church staff that called?”

“No,” he explained. “If anyone calls – whether or not they work there – we’re obligated to investigate.”

The suddenly the light dawned: Hank had called OSHA and said, “The music at my church is too loud.” And they sent a federal agent to check it out.

By this time the rest of the staff had gathered in my office to see the man from ISHA.

“We don’t’ mean to make light of this,” I told him, “but nothing like this has ever happened around here before.”

“Don’t apologize,” he said. “Do you have any idea how much ridicule I’ve faced around my office since everyone discovered I was going out to bust a church?”

Sometimes Hank’s joylessness ended in comedy, but more often it produced sadness. His children did not know him. His son had a wonderful story about how he met his wife at a dance, but he never told his father because Hank did not approve of dancing.

Hank could not effectively love his wife or his children or people outside his family. He was easily irritated. He had little use for the poor, and a causal contempt for those who accents or skin pigment differed form his own. Whatever capacity he once might have had for joy or wonder or gratitude atrophied. He critiqued and judged and complained, and his soul got a little smaller each year.”

Now then, to my words. Great story.

What’s the greatest tragedy of this story? Is it that Hank wasn’t changing? Is it that Hank didn’t realize that he needed to change?

Or is it this: that we in the kingdom get so used to Hank acting this way that we don’t expect that he would progressively become the way Jesus would be if he were in Hank’s place.

We don’t expect Him to change? Can Hank change, I don’t know. In my heart I doubt it. But I must never give up praying or Hank or encouraging Hank, believing that one day, God might do a miracle in His life.

And by the way, if I ever, I mean ever, show tendencies of become “Hank”, you have my permission to verbally spank me, and spank me hard.