THE BLAME GAME

1 Kings 18:1-46; Acts 11:1-30; Psalm 135:1-21; Proverbs 17:12-13

“’I have made no trouble for Israel,’ Elijah replied. ‘You and your family are the troublemakers, for you have refused to obey the commands of the Lord and have worshiped the images of Baal instead.’”

“Soon the news reached the apostles and other believers in Judea that the Gentiles had received the word of God. But when Peter arrived back in Jerusalem, the Jewish believers criticized him. ‘You entered the home of Gentiles and even ate with them!’ they said. …[Peter replied,] ‘Since God gave these Gentiles the same gift he gave us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I to stand in God’s way?’”

“I know the greatness of the Lord—that our Lord is greater than any other god…. For the Lord will give justice to his people and have compassion on his servants.”

“If you repay good with evil, evil will never leave your house.”

This week, another athlete “confessed” to using steroids. Alex Rodriguez was called out by ESPN after it got hold of some supposedly confidential drug tests taken in the early 2000s. Caught red-handed, Rodriguez at least had the honesty to admit his wrongdoing instead of denying it like so many others. But he did not miss the opportunity to blame the security of the supposedly “confidential” testing, either. The implication: clearly, he never would have come clean had his malfeasance not been revealed first. He was just a victim of the system. His defense was that he was young and impressionable and just responding to the overwhelming pressure of Major League Baseball. Mule muffins! If his was old enough to command all those multi-million dollar checks, he was old enough to be held to some standard of integrity.

Bank CEOs have been testifying before Congress this week as well, trying desperately to justify their use of the first, $350 billion bailout money to pay bonuses and perks. “It’s not our fault,” they cried. “We had to pay or we would lose our people!” Two questions: 1. Where would they have gone in the economic mess they helped create with any hope of making even the “paltry” hundred of thousands they were guaranteed as salary; and 2. So, what’s the downside of having the people who got us into this mess leave? Still, the CEOs rationalized their decisions were not about greed. They were just victims of evil market forces. Beagle bagels!

The human tendency to claim victimization, to blame something – or anybody – else for our errant ways is just another way of lying to ourselves. We get so upset when others lie to us! Why then, do we tolerate it from ourselves? Yet it seems that, in our sinfulness, our instinctive first reaction is to lie, to blame someone else, to make excuses. Wouldn’t it be refreshing to see someone who rejects defensiveness in favor of the simple truth of upfront confession, just because it’s the right thing to do?

Ahab certainly had his chances. The King of Israel led the people down the road to spiritual ruin, blatantly disobeying the Lord’s commands, for years. As punishment, Yahweh imposed a severe drought. Ahab promptly blamed Elijah, God’s mightiest prophet. When Peter’s change of heart revealed the Jerusalem disciples’ bigotry for what it was, their first reaction was to blame instead of congratulate Peter for reaching out to the Gentiles. What is a man of God to do? Exactly as both those men did: stand behind the Great I Am.

With Christ, there should be no reason to play the Blame Game. God can defend Himself. People need to get back to living as if they are playing to an audience of One. It is amazing how that level of accountability will strengthen a soul. This week, I have been working with a number of younger lawyers, training them on a new analytical process. At the beginning, they were full of themselves, defensive about errors and resentful of correction. But they hung in there. They knew they were accountable only to me, and that I was not going to take advantage of their mistakes or broadcast their errors to others, so they ventured on. As they did, they also began to see the beauty and greater accuracy of what we were working to accomplish. By week’s end, they were actually grateful for having learned a new way of looking at things. It’s not the easy way, but the best option rarely is.

Only those who pull themselves out of the Blame Game ever see the light that honest evaluation and correction can bring to a life. Putting it another way, the more we play the Blame Game, the less we have of Christ in our lives. There’s a red flag for the next time we find ourselves resorting to misdirection and defensiveness when answering for sin. Those with Jesus in their lives have no need of such tools; they are already forgiven and freed from the bondage. When we resort to blaming other things or people for our shortcomings, when we feel the need to do so, what does that say about our security in the Spirit and our appreciation of grace?