THE BLAME GAME

The Reverend Dr. Lillian Daniel

November 25, 2007

First Congregational Church, Glen Ellyn, Illinois, UCC

www.firstconge.org

630-469-3096

Introduction to the Scripture:

⁴Or how can you say to your neighbor,… “Let me take the speck out of your eye”, while the log is in your own eye? ⁵You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbor’s eye.

And why is that? Because, Jesus said, sometimes we’re right in seeing the speck in our neighbor’s eye, but we’ve missed the log in our own.

Why do you see the little thing that your neighbor is doing wrong, and not see the big thing that you did wrong?

And here it is a question of vision, because when you have something in your eye, you really can’t see properly. So doing something wrong makes you blind to what you’ve done. You convince yourself you had your reasons, but your vision is left a little blurry.

Except when it comes to seeing what other people have done wrong, and then we think we are seeing 20/20.

But nobody has perfect vision in this regard, Jesus says. So the next time you want to criticize another, look first at yourself. You may find that in remembering the times that you made a mistake, or you let someone down, or you were disorganized or you were insensitive, it may be that after you’ve looked at those things, your own righteous anger has died down just a little.

Scripture: Matthew 7: 1-5

‘Do not judge, so that you may not be judged. ²For with the judgment you make you will be judged, and the measure you give will be the measure you get. ³Why do you see the speck in your neighbor’s eye, but do not notice the log in your own eye? ⁴Or how can you say to your neighbor, “Let me take the speck out of your eye”, while the log is in your own eye? ⁵You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbor’s eye.

Sermon:

I had two grandmothers, one, my father’s mother from Tennessee, was very stable, loving and nurturing. She was the one who made me waffles and read me stories, and whose memory makes me feel warm and safe.

My mother’s mother, my grandmother from South Carolina, was a card-carrying eccentric. She was almost the anti-grandma. In fact, we were not allowed to call her our grandma, Nana, or anything like that. Her fourteen grandchildren all called her Ms. Calhoun.

Ms. Calhoun was a brilliant woman, witty, with a devilish sense of humor. But she had her problems, and her mood could turn at the drop of a hat. As a child, it was an adventure having such a grandmother. When you opened the door to her house, you never quite knew what you were going to find inside. And it wasn’t always charming.

One minute she might be making you fudge, a normal grandparenting activity, but then the next she might have you making prank phone calls–at her initiative. “Ms. Calhoun, I don’t want to call any more of your friends and ask them if they have Prince Edward in the can. I don’t know a Prince Edward, and how could he fit in a can? And I’m tired of getting yelled at.” “Oh, come on, one more, and then we’ll make a run to the liquor store.”

No, at Thanksgiving and the holiday season, I think it’s always worth remembering that not only do families come in all shapes and sizes, but they also come with varying degrees of stability or eccentricity. I had one grandmother who taught me how to make waffles, and I had another grandmother who taught me how to make gin and tonics.

On many an occasion that second grandmother, Ms. Calhoun, could be found standing out in her yard in a bathrobe, firing a bee-bee gun, allegedly at her neighbors’ squirrels, but we all suspected she was firing at the neighbors themselves. For it may not surprise you to hear that this woman had somewhat strained relationships with those who lived next door to her. And it may not surprise you to hear that she has no idea what they had against her. She did however know what she had against them. They were unjust and unfair accusers.

What the neighbors said was that Ms. Calhoun’s large dog, Amos, ran wild around the neighborhood at night, knocking over everyone’s garbage. They would awake to find a mess all over the streets and the sidewalks, grocery bags shredded and torn up, cans thrown around, leftover food rotting on the front door mat, all because Amos had been at work.

Now, every dog escapes and does this once in awhile. My own dogs have managed to do this on more than a few occasions, as have yours, I suspect. But you, as dog owners, probably felt guilty, tried to prevent it from happening too often, and felt some guilt and remorse.

Ms. Calhoun, on the other hand, followed a defense policy of total deniability. Even when people had seen Amos at the scene of the crime, she would state without blinking an eye that her dog had been inside asleep by her side the entire night. Everyone knew it was nonsense. We all tried to get her to watch the dog, but she denied he had ever once knocked over a trash can.

Finally, Amos died, after a long life of adventure and a steady diet of tin can lids, newspapers and plastic wrap. The neighborhood breathed a sigh of relief. Finally, there would be peace in the valley. Yet, just two days after Amos’s sad death, the neighbors awoke to find trash and garbage everywhere–and then about a week later, the same thing again.

And a few weeks later, trash everywhere. Clearly, this was not Amos; and the community, which had been so certain of its culprit, had to rethink the mystery. They, in their smug superiority, had been so quick to judge the eccentric woman with the odd habits, and in turn, her eccentric dog. But now after his death, they had been proven wrong. It was as if, in pointing out the specks in her eye, they had missed the log in their own. The specks were her failings, but the log in their eyes was their snap judgment and criticism of another person.

As they cleaned up their garbage, they began to wander over to her driveway and speak a few awkward words of apology. “We were just certain it was Amos,” they said. “I mean, we saw him out there once or twice.”

In fact, years later, every time a critter knocked over the garbage, the neighbors would glance over toward my grandmother who eyed them reproachfully as they picked up diapers, bottles and cans. Ms. Calhoun would shake her head, acknowledging what we all knew, that they were uptight, judgmental people who had gotten it wrong, and she was the one who had been unfairly accused.

That strange mutt, Amos, lived on in all the children’s memories, as a reminder that we should judge not, lest we be judged, for years and years.

And then, a few years after his death, someone in our family actually spied the creature who was knocking over trashcans. It was not a runaway dog, not a sneaky raccoon, not a mischievous cat, but a much rarer species of scavenger heretofore unknown in the small Southern town. It was a Pall-Mall-smoking, lace-bathrobe-wearing grandmother, sneaking out every few months at three in the morning to knock over her neighbors trashcans and avenge the memory of Amos, years after his death. For she would not be judged.

What would the world look like if we were to all take Jesus’ words to heart from today’s gospel, and stop judging one another so quickly?

In this ridiculous story of a small Southern town, the cycle of judgment and defensiveness never ended, not even with the death of the perpetrating dog. These were people, and one hapless animal, who were so caught in a cycle of blame and excuse-making, the original offense had ceased to matter.

It was the flurry of accusations and excuse making and counter accusations and ridiculous defense strategies that had taken over. And in that cycle, they had ceased to see each other as real people.

They were so caught up in winning the blame game, it wasn’t fun any more.

Well, OK, maybe my grandmother was having a little bit of fun.

But after all those years, it must have gotten tiring to be out there in the cold at three am. At a certain point, we have to wonder, what’s the point?

And in so many families and friendships and communities, grudges have built up that no longer have anything to do with the original issue.

But now the hurt feelings are about the conversations afterwards, and the two sides keep piling it on, because they all feel like they have been wronged and that their judgment is right. And you know what, they may be right.

Someone behaved badly and someone was wronged. And so we make a judgment. And what do we do with that judgment? Well, sometimes, we take it right to the person and blast them with our righteous indignation–which, if they have ever been mad at us for anything, usually results in our getting a blast of righteous indignation back.

But worse still is the judgment that goes unspoken to the person being judged. And this is what most of us do when we see the speck in our neighbors’ eye. We tell all the other neighbors, and they talk amongst themselves, but nobody ever directly approaches the guy in need of the eye wash. He just feels himself awash in a vague sense of judgment for acts unspecified, mysterious and confusing, or perhaps just feels unliked or unloved.

“Well, he knows very well what he’s done wrong,” we say, but not to him. To which Jesus responds, “Do not judge, so that you may not be judged. For with the judgment you make you will be judged, and the measure you give will be the measure you get.” In other words, when you judge another person passively, behind his back, you may receive the same treatment one day, and wouldn’t you want to do it a different way?

Elsewhere in scripture, we are told that the right way to bring criticism is to bring it directly, and to bring it not in the spirit of judgment but in love, in the spirit of wanting to help someone, not just to vent. Now if directly to the person doesn’t help, you can go back with one other person, and only much later as a community. But in the Christian tradition you are never to bring it to other people first. And you’re supposed to think pretty hard about criticism first. Is it helpful and loving or is it just judgment and the blame game. Is this something that God really wants you to get into? It’s so easy for the back and forth of the blame game to become the thing itself, even when you’re right–and at that point, being right, stops feeling right.

Thanksgiving is a good time to ask that question. When it comes to judgment and criticism that has built up over the years, what’s the point? How’s it working for you? Could this be the season to replace it with something else?

We all have people who annoy us. We all have people who let us down. We all have people who have treated us badly. And sometimes, they are the same people who have loved us the most. Human relationships are a mixed bag. The biblical message today seems to be that while we can’t change other people’s behavior, we can look at ourselves and decide how to react.

In the Christian tradition, we prepare to come to the communion table by first searching our hearts to see if God likes what we are holding in there. After looking at ourselves, the logs in our own eyes, only then are we ready to receive the gift of Christ’s love at the table.

Nowhere in the Christian tradition does it suggest that in order to prepare for communion, you should first search your neighbor’s heart, to see if you like what is there. No, this sacred moment is between you and God. Why? Because God knows what’s good for us.

We can choose what kind of energy we want to send out into the world. Blame and judgment, Jesus says, will bring more of that back to you. Thankfulness, on the other hand, imagine what that could bring back.