When I was working in industry, on quite a few occasions I was asked to help with the training of apprentices and trainees. On the whole, that was something I enjoyed doing. It was quite satisfying to help someone learn new skills and to see them grow in confidence about what they were doing and become capable of doing the job without help and supervision. I do say on the whole though because on some occasions it could be very difficult to help people and in fact, on one or two occasions it proved to be all but impossible to help someone learn the job. And when that happened it was invariably because they had an ‘I know best’ attitude. They simply wouldn’t listen to what they were being told, wouldn’t do things the way that they’d been shown how to do them, and they couldn’t learn because they simply refused to accept that they were ever wrong.
For example, on one occasion I asked a trainee to fit a new contactor to a lift control panel. It was simple job of disconnecting the wiring, unclipping the old contractor to remove it from the panel, fitting the new one and then reconnecting the wires. It was the first time he’d done this so I made it as simple as I could for him by marking the wires so that wire 1 went to terminal 1, wire 2 to terminal 2 and so on. When he’d finished we switched the lift back on, but it wouldn’t run. So I checked what he’d done, and he’d put some of the wires in the wrong terminals. But he simply wouldn’t accept that. He said that he hadn’t connected those wires. Well there were only the two of us there and I hadn’t done it but when I said that he then said that I’d numbered them incorrectly. I pointed out to him that he hadn’t reconnected them the way I’d numbered them, but he still wouldn’t accept it. So I suggested that if we put the wires back the way I had numbered them, and the lift ran, would that prove that they were numbered correctly but hadn’t been connected correctly. He accepted that but when I did it and the lift ran, he again refused to accept that he’s done anything wrong and said that it was my fault because I hadn’t told him what to do properly. I’m sure you can understand how frustrating it is trying to help someone with an attitude like that. And it was sad too because it seems he was like that with everybody he worked with and, in the end, he was sacked because he never learned how to do the job.
That’s perhaps an extreme example but that kind of thing isn’t uncommon because that kind of attitude isn’t uncommon either. I’m sure we all know people who always think that they know best, can never accept that they’re wrong and blame other people when they clearly are wrong.
What this attitude is really showing is a refusal to take responsibility for one’s own actions, and perhaps especially a refusal to accept the consequences of one’s own mistakes. It’s about people wanting to do just exactly what they want to do but not wanting to suffer any consequences if things go wrong for them. And trying to escape the consequences of their own mistakes by blaming someone else for the wrong decisions and bad actions that they’ve freely chosen to take.
This is a problem in society, a very big one I would say, but it’s also a problem within the Church because it’s a problem, an attitude, which affects individual Christians. I can think, for example, of quite a few people who’ve offered themselves for ordination to the priesthood who’ve thought that they knew better than their parish priest and the vocations team. People who haven’t listened to what they’ve been told, haven’t done what they’ve been asked or advised to do but then, when they haven’t been accepted for ordination (and some people seem to think that they should be accepted immediately they’ve applied), have left their church and gone to another, perhaps another denomination, or perhaps even set up their own Church. And all the while blaming everyone else for their not being accepted for ordination. Saying people haven’t helped or encouraged them, haven’t given them the right advice and so on. Never for one moment have they accepted that they have been helped and encouraged and well advised but they haven’t been prepared to listen to the advice they’ve been given or do what they’ve been advised they need to do. And that’s just one example of how this kind of attitude can adversely affect individual Christians and the Church.
In this morning’s Gospel, we hear a teaching of Jesus that, perhaps not directly, but nevertheless does have something very important to say to us about the danger that this ‘I know best so I’m never wrong and so everything that goes wrong for me must be someone else’s fault’ attitude poses to us.
In the Gospel, Jesus says,
“Hear me, all of you, and understand:There is nothing outside a person that by going into him can defile him, but the things that come out of a person are what defile him.”
Strictly speaking, in this instance, when Jesus says that nothing outside a person can defile them, he’s talking about food and drink. But the important point with regard to the kind of problem I’m speaking about is Jesus’ assertion that it’s what comes out of a person that defiles them. Later in this teaching Jesus speaks about the evil things that come from the heart being what defiles a person and we know that for ancient people the heart was the centre of person; it was the seat of reason and will as well as emotion. So the message is clear. It’s not external things that defile a person but what they freely decide to do and their resulting actions that defile them.
Of course we could say, and with some justification, that what happens to a person does affect their thoughts and their decision making. But even that doesn’t defile a person. If something bad happens to someone, it’s quite understandable if it has an effect on them, and very probably a lasting effect on them. We could even say that the experience defiles them. But that would be a defilement of mind and perhaps body. The kind of defilement Jesus is speaking about here is spiritual defilement, defilement in God’s eyes and even the worst human experience can’t do that. God doesn’t look down on us because another human being has done something bad to us. Only we can defile ourselves in God’s eyes and we do that ourselves through our own thoughts and our own actions.
We know that, very often, when someone has gone through a bad experience at the hands of another person, it can lead them to treat others in bad way too. Bad experiences can leave people feeling angry, betrayed, hurt, vulnerable, mistrustful, and with all kinds of negative feelings and emotions. And these feelings can lead people to see fault in others where there is none, to take offence where none is intended, to see threats where none are posed. They can make people vengeful; they want to get their own back on those who’ve hurt them but very often they end up taking it out on people who’ve done them no harm at all. All that is understandable. But as the saying goes, ‘two wrongs do not make a right’ or to put it in scriptural terms,
‘Do not repay evil with evil.’
And the reason we should never do this is because it’s not what’s done to us that defiles us in God’s eyes, but what we do to ourselves and to others.
This is not always easy. Our own bad experiences can sometimes make it hard for us to treat people as well as we should. But also, to treat people well in the light of our own bad experiences requires us to take responsibility for our own actions. It requires us to think about the consequences of our actions to other people before we act. It most certainly too requires us to accept that we can be and sometimes are wrong. And when we’re wrong it requires us to admit it rather than trying to blame someone else for what we’ve freely decided to do and done and blame them for the trouble we’ve got ourselves into and that we’ve caused for others. This is something we must do as Christians because if we don’t, if we choose to act in ways that cause problems and trouble both for ourselves and others, and then try to blame others for the problems and trouble we’ve caused, what are we doing other than denying our own sins by imposing them on another? From a Christian point of view isn’t that exactly what we’re doing when we blame someone else for something that we’ve done?
It’s a natural human trait to try and get ourselves out of trouble if we can, but unfortunately, people very often try to do that by blaming someone else for what they’ve done wrong. As common as it is, it isn’t acceptable behaviour in any walk of life, and we only have to think about how we felt when it happened to us to understand that (and I’m sure it has happened to all of us at some time). It most certainly isn’t acceptable behaviour from Christians. Whatever happens to us, or has happened to us, it’s up to us how we respond. And it is our response, our thoughts and our actions, that defile us in God’s eyes, never what others do or have done to us.
Jesus warned us,
“…do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.”
In this respect, we can be our own biggest enemy because rather than acting as though we fear the one who can destroy our soul in hell, we can help in our own soul’s destruction through our unwillingness to accept that we can be wrong, our unwillingness to accept it when we are wrong and our only too eager willingness to blame others for what we’ve done wrong. Jesus is speaking here about the evil one, the devil, call him what you will. But there’s no one better at defiling us in God’s eyes than us ourselves.
Amen.
Propers for the 22nd Sunday of Ordinary Time (Trinity 14) 1st September 2024
Entrance Antiphon
I call to you all day long, have mercy on me, O Lord.
You are good and forgiving, full of love for all who call to you.
The Collect
Almighty God,
whose only Son has opened for us a new and living way into your presence:
give us pure hearts and steadfast wills to worship you in spirit and in truth;
through Jesus Christ your Son Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
Amen.
The Readings
Missal (St Mark’s)
Deuteronomy 4:1-2, 6-8
Psalm 15:2-5
James 1:17-18, 21-22, 27
Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23
RCL (St Gabriel’s)
Deuteronomy 4:1-2, 6-9
Psalm 15
James 1:17-27
Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23
Parish Church of St Mark Chadderton 