BY John Stallings
If you saw the movie The Passion of The Christ, I’m sure you were struck by the constant parading of Jesus before the High Priest, then Pilate, the Governor of the region Herod, then back to Pilate, then back to the High Priests, all of whom agree He is guilty of causing civil unrest but none of whom want to be responsible for dealing with Him.
Obviously everyone wants to pack this “Jesus responsibility” off on someone else. If you didn’t see the movie, I’m sure you picked up on that in your reading of the New Testament or as a child in Sunday school.
This trait of "passing the buck" & shirking responsibility isn't new in human history is it? That's what I want to talk about in this article.
If you’ve read my blogs, you’ve noticed that I usually opt for the shortest words I can find, mostly because it fits my mentality. But I like the sounds of several big words, even if they’re out of my league. One word is—obfuscation. [I also love the words ubiquitous, & jambalaya.]
Now I have many years of edumacation. So I know what obfuscation means. It means… “Concealment in communications, making the meaning confusing & hard to interpret.”
We’ve had some exquisite examples of shirking responsibility & trying to conceal the truth in the last few years furnished to us by politicians. I think the prize has to go to William Jefferson Clinton when he testified about his relationship with Monica Lewinsky. After saying he didn’t have sexual relations with her one Congressman asked him, “Mr. President, were you physically intimate with Monica Lewinsky?”
The president responded, “When I was alone with Ms. Lewinsky on certain occasions in early 1996, and once in early 1997, I engaged in conduct that was wrong. These encounters did not consist of sexual intercourse. They did not consist of sexual relations, as I understood that term to be defined at my January 17th, 1998 deposition.”
This left the congressman curious & befuddled & he followed up with a question about the meaning of part of Clinton’s testimony, whereupon the president responded,” It depends upon what the definition of the word “is” is. If is means is & never has been, that’s one thing. If it means there is none, that was a completely true statement.”
A lot of folk decided right then & there they’d never want to buy a used car from this man.
The Clinton’s aren’t the only ones in national leadership who indulge in blaming others but both Bill & Hillary are blamers. You may remember during the sex scandal that Hillary blamed a “vast right-wing conspiracy” for their problems instead of placing the blame at the feet of her guilty husband.
This blog isn’t a tirade against the Clintons but if history has taught us anything, it’s being a Clinton means it’s never your fault. Before her surprise win in New Hampshire, they were trying to lay the blame on anything but her poor performance.
Forecasting a loss, Bill blamed New Hampshire for moving the primary. He ranted about how Obama had waffled as much as his wife on the issue of Iraq calling his position a “fairy tale.” In the aftermath of the Iowa loss, Hillary’s first reaction was to belittle Iowa as a state with no real impact.
She’s happy now but it doesn’t take a rocket- scientists to know her love for blaming others will return the moment she starts losing again.
As I said, the Clintons aren’t alone. There’s a strong mentality in our culture that you never admit a mistake. Instead you find an excuse that explains it away. It’s called “blowing smoke” or “spin.” At some point late in last century we morphed into the non-apology- apology. Leaders will now say, only if put on the spot “I apologize if I’ve offended anyone.” Cold-blooded murderers will utter as their last words, “I’m sorry if I hurt anyone.”
Our society is plagued with “It’s not my fault” mentality. I’m not excluding myself from this mentality & I often catch myself blaming others silently or even subconsciously. Since God raised my awareness of this problem I no longer get away with it but I still try it from time to time. I trust reading this will help someone who needs the same help I needed & still need.
We need to take responsibility for our lives & realize we’re exactly where we are in life because of the things we’ve done or haven’t done. Every time you catch yourself blaming others say, “STOP BLAMING OTHERS AND ACCEPT THE RESPONSIBILITY.”
Recently I came across the somewhat humorous retelling of the story of Noah;
And the Lord said unto Noah:
“Where is the Ark which I commanded thee to build?” And Noah said unto the Lord, “Verily, I have three carpenters off ill, Lord. Plus…the gopherwood supplier hath let me down----yea, even though the gopherwood hath been on order for nigh upon twelve months. What can I do, O Lord?”
And the Lord said unto Noah: “I want the ark finished even after seven days & seven nights.” And Noah said: “It will be so.”
But it was not so. And the Lord said unto Noah: “What seemeth to be the trouble this time?” And Noah said unto the Lord; “Mine sub-contractor hath gone bankrupt. And….the pitch which Thou commandest me to put on the outside & on the inside of the ark hath not arrived. To maketh matters worse, the plumber hath gone on strike.
This is not to mention the fact that Shem, my son who helpeth me on the ark side of the business, hath left to form a hip-hop group with his brothers Ham & Japheth. Lord, I am undone.”
And the Lord grew very angry & said: “What about the animals, the male & female of every sort that I ordered to come unto thee to keep their seed alive upon the face of the earth?”
And Noah said: “They have been delivered unto the wrong address but should arrive on Friday.”
And the Lord said: “What about the unicorns, & the fouls of the air ?” And Noah wrung his hands & wept, saying, “Lord, unicorns are a discontinued line; thou canst not get them for love nor money. And fowls of the air are sold only in half-dozens. Lord Thou knowest how it is.”
And the Lord in His wisdom said: “Noah, I do knowest. Why else dost thou think I am causing a flood to descend upon the earth?”
This is a humorous retelling of the story of Noah but I’d venture to sayest that thy grins comest readily because this story hit-eth home, right?
Sure it does….because just like Noah in this story we human beings have been making excuses to ourselves, each other & to God since the very beginning when Adam & Eve excused the first sin by blaming each other. Adam blamed Eve & Eve blamed the snake. It was the strategy then & it’s still very much in vogue; “Minimize your guilt by making others look bad.”
THE BLAME GAME
A nine year old boy is having an argument with his mother. [He must have been in training to be an insufferable jerk!] When the mom was trying to get the kid to shape up & start pulling his weight around the house he said,--“Hey, I didn’t ask to be here you know. I wouldn’t be having these problems if you & dad never had me.”
The mothers come-back was platinum, if a little sarcastic; she said, “Yeah, well I never asked to be here either, & yes we did have you, but we didn’t know it was going to be you.”
All this kids issues could easily be blamed, or at least he thought they could, on his parents for having him.
I recently read the story of a baseball center fielder; let’s call him Joe, who during one game let several fly-balls slip right through his glove. Four or five pop- up fly balls came right to him & he would get his glove on the ball then drop it.
The coach came out to talk to him & Joe explained it was just a fluke & he’d start doing better. But Joe dropped two or three more fly-balls & the coach had no choice but to remove him & send out John as his replacement.
Well, the first fly-ball that came to John he dropped it. He dropped the second & third fly-ball. Again the coach had no choice but to take John out of the game for a rest because these errors were allowing the other team to start putting runs on the board.
A very enthusiastic player named James ran up to the coach & said, “coach, please put me in, I’ve been playing since I was a boy & I can’t remember ever dropping a ball, especially in an important game.” Well the coach put James out in center field & you guessed it, James dropped the first ball that came to him & then he dropped the second & third ball.
As the coach started out to talk to James he noticed James was already walking off the field in disgust. He walked past the coach fuming & said, “Coach, Joe & John have got that center-field so messed up, nobody can play it now.”
To me that’s hilarious. It also sounds like some of us, who don’t like to face up to the fact that we’ve “dropped the ball” so we conveniently blame someone else.
IT’S EASY AND IT FEELS SO RIGHT TO PLAY THE BLAME GAME.
The reason blaming others for our mistakes or boo-boos is done so often is that it’s so easy to do & well, it just feels so right.—“Did he say easy?” Yes, it’s so easy a child can do it as smooth as silk & they almost always do. Just look how easy it is;
• If you’re late turning in a report at work, that’s easy, just say, “I would have gotten it in but Frank didn’t get the statistics to me soon enough.”
• Do you need to explain the loss of a job? That’s easy, it’s because the boss was unreasonable, he didn’t understand you, and he had it in for you & he hated you from the moment you walked into the office.
• If you didn’t keep a promise, that’s easy, you got snowed under doing other things.
• You didn’t do your homework, that’s easy, what about; -- “my roommate borrowed my textbook & wouldn’t give it back?”
• If you lost a friend, that’s easy, it couldn’t have been your fault. Of course not. You’re a nice, reasonable person. The other person was a creep, that’s all there is to it.
• If you blew your stack & cussed someone out, that’s easy, he made you do it. You got sick of his yakety; yakking & you haven’t been sleeping well lately. You were victimized by this person.
We hear people making great excuses all the time don’t we? We hear; “I drew the wrong hand in life,” or, “I’m poor or black,” or “I’m Hispanic & never had a chance.” We hear, “I was locked up by bad cops.”
I’ve been told the most common excuse convicts use in prison is, “My Lawyer was a crook.” We hear, “I was flunked out by racist schoolteachers,” “I was abused by heartless welfare investigators.” “I got my credit all messed up so I need to live on charity,” “I was just handed the short end of the stick.” The bottom line is, ---“Look what’s been done to me.”
The way many people get through life is by saying, “I’m a victim, I was dealt a lousy hand of cards.” The battle-cry of the victim is, “It’s not my fault.”
Now if it’s not us, it must be someone else. How about our parents, possibly? How about some psychological illness? It’s my sibling’s fault. Mom always liked ------ best. The world is full of candidates; maybe we could blame our grandparents. Yeah, that’s the ticket. We can even blame our friends or our spouses. And while we’re at it let’s don’t forget those nerds you work with.
There seems to be an open door in so-called “Christian media” for people pushing seventy years of age, whining about a hurt they endured twenty-five years ago, blaming someone other than themselves for the calamity, conveniently forgetting to include their own culpability, & calling it a “ministry.”
And the beat goes on. We’re all innocent victims, just ask us. If you’re smart, there’s never any reason to take the blame for anything.
The impact of Hurricane Katrina in 2005 allowed us to witness the blame game in full bore. The problem wasn’t necessarily trying to find real answers to what happened & why, the problem was that so many people were pursuing their own private agendas.
Everyone had their own “private Katrina.” The disaster was used an all purpose “frail-pole” with which to beat someone they’d always wanted to beat. That explains why there were so many ideas about who was to blame for the fallout from Katrina.
Some people said it was the judgment of God on the hedonistic sinners of New Orleans. The mayor of the city was blamed; the Governor of the state of Louisiana was blamed, FEMA was blamed, & President Bush was blamed, & that’s just the short list of the culprits who were blamed for the storms aftermath.
I’ve said this before but I’ve been to New Orleans dozens of times over the last several decades & I can remember being shown around the city by life-long residents & they knew well over fifty years ago the levies wouldn’t hold if a killer storm ever hit them.
Now I’m going to make the golfers mad at me. Back about thirty-five years ago I took up the game of golf. No one told me the way I played golf I’d need three courses lined up side by side. Also, nobody reminded me I already had so many other aggravations & frustrations in my life that I really didn’t need the aggravation of a game like golf.
But do you know why I quit golf? I quit golf because everyone I met on a golf course was a victim. Everybody out there was blaming something for their less than spectacular golf game.
The wind was blamed, the sun was blamed, the humidity was blamed, planes overhead were blamed, even the cars going by blocks away, birds & squirrels were blamed, the movement of the stars in their orbits was blamed & chunks of grass that were dug up & not replaced were blamed. Backs were blamed, feet & ankles were blamed, worn-out elbows were blamed, eyes were blamed, not to mention flat-feet & fallen-arches.
A preacher friend in California once told me; “John, golf is a highly psychological game.” Right, meaning; even your heart beating may mess up my timing. Forget about it.
LAW SUITS REPLACE PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY
Josh Hancock was a pitcher for the St. Louis Cardinals; he died a few years back in a car accident. Hancock’s blood alcohol was twice the legal limit when he reared-ended a car leading to his untimely death.
Hancock’s father sued the restaurant for serving his son, though he was an adult & made the decision to drink all night & get into a car when he had no business doing so. As I understood it, Hancock was also on his cell phone when he died & wasn’t wearing his seat belt. Should the father sue the cell phone makers, the seat belt manufacturers or the car company?
It’s a tragedy that Mr. Hancock died but suing the restaurant isn’t going to bring him back or make his father feel better about his death. This might sound cold but wouldn’t it be the mature thing to do to admit that this accident was the son’s fault?
People are suing these days for hot coffee sold to them & thieves are suing for getting hurt while in the process of breaking & entering homes. The shocking part is many of these spurious law suits are being won.
BLAMING OTHERS DESTROYS MARRIAGES
Think about it. When you continue to blame you can avoid having to forgive. Blaming is a powerful defense mechanism because it lets you find a target for your anger & frustration. It protects you from having to own up to your own shortcomings & your own contribution to the problems between you & other people. By making everything the other person’s fault it relieves you from any responsibility in having to make things better.
You reason like this; “They messed things up, so they have to fix it.” This may sound & feel good but in actuality it places you in a passive role & steers you away from a proactive position. Now you will start to behave like a victim & you won’t be attractive to anybody, even your spouse. By taking this—blame others/victim approach, you’ll win most all the battles but eventually you’ll lose the war.
In marriage & in all our relationships, if we can’t forgive & put things behind us, we will never build satisfying lives for ourselves because we’ll expect others to do all the work for us.
I don’t know about you, but to me getting ahead in life is much more important than getting even. If you find yourself in a position where you know you need to take the initiative & make a mea-culpa, here are a few helpful hints that have helped me. I can’t say I’m what I want to be & will be but by God’s grace I’m better than I used to be.
1. Admit to yourself that you were wrong.
You & I have to own our mistakes. This is often hard to do especially if the mistake was public. If we throw all our creative powers into proving ourselves right when we’re wrong, soon we’ll begin to confuse the truth with lies. People can become so self-diluted that they lose any kind of authenticity in their lives.
Do you think you always need to be right? Get over it. The Bible says if we say we haven’t sinned we’re liars & have deceived ourselves. If we want to be accepted by others we’ll do it quicker when we crawl off our high-horses & get real.
Come on, let’s be honest; this latest mistake you made is just the latest in a string of mistakes & if you’re blessed to live a long life you’ll be making more. We should admit our mistakes but don’t wallow in them.
2. Use accurate words in your apology.
Other people want to know if you truly “get-it” and understand what your stuff is. Don’t beat around the bush. Just because you made a mistakes doesn’t mean you have to apologize for the whole situation or the whole world. State as accurately as you can what your stuff is & don’t take the blame for things you know aren’t your fault. If you constantly apologize for things that aren’t your fault it will come off as self-pity & you again lose your authenticity.
3. Don’t apologize for the wrong thing.
If you’re apologizing for forgetting the birthday of a spouse, it isn’t productive to add that you are so overworked that you forgot. If you try to deflect attention by blowing smoke, you’ll increase the mistrust & others will think you’re boneheaded or not trust worthy, & probably a combination of them all of the above.
4. Don’t apologize & blame someone else in the same breath.
Don’t try a Kumbaya or group apology. People will notice. If we treat others with respect, we encourage them to respond to us with respect.
5. Don’t go vague & say things like “I want to apologize.” I want to trim down & look like Stallone too but that doesn’t mean I have any intentions of doing so.
Let go & let God. If you’ve admitted you were wrong it’s now out of your hands & out of your control. You can’t control the response of other people. Jesus told us to do things but he never said any of them were easy.
In the fullness of time things will improve & sometimes we’re not dealing with forgiveness but trust. Repair takes a long time but humility puts us on the right track.
A few years ago a minister in our area obviously backslid, got into drugs & alcohol & started frequenting the strip joints in the coastal area near his home.
Almost nightly there was film of him walking around with ladies of the night & painting the town like a drunken sailor. He was so into denial that it took a while for his Church to finally reel him in & still he was belligerent & refused to own up to his guilt.
Of course we could say that the substances he was taking took away his judgment but he was still responsible for the drugs & drink he put in his mouth.
When confronted with his pictures in all kinds of compromising situations, he denied it was him & went so far as to say it was his brother who looks a lot like him. He was finally relieved of his pastorate & I believe spent some time in jail, rebellious & accusatory right to the bitter end. I’ve often wondered how he got things straight with his brother.
If we can’t admit small mistakes, bigger things are crouched, waiting in the wings to become part of us. Pride turned angels into devils & it can lead to our destruction.
In Matthew 15 Jesus told the parable of a great supper a man had & sent out invitations to many people. The story says;
And they all with one consent began to make excuses.--vr. 18
The people first invited to the supper made excuses as to why they couldn’t come, so the host passed them by & sent his workers out to find the poor, the maimed the crippled & the blind to enjoy his provisions.
Jesus said the gospel or the invitation to come to God’s table will be extended to every nation before heaven’s end-time clock strikes midnight & He appears to split the eastern skies.
Maybe you’ve offered excuses to God as to why you can’t avail yourself of the awesome invitation to life He’s extended to you. But whatever your excuses are, keep this in mind;
They’re just that, --excuses.
Blessings,
John
PS.--If you apprecaite these messages, please tell a friend about us. We aren't selling anything, we just want to be helpful. If the blog seems hard to pull up, go to Google & use either of the following adresses;--John Stallings Wisdom and Wit----or John Stallings blogspot.---Thanks.--JAS
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