Two neighbors were speaking across the fence separating their homes when a third walked up and asked one of them, "Sam, can I borrow your lawn mower today?"
Sam nonchalantly replied, "'Fraid not today, cause I'll be leaving for town later on." And with that Sam went back to his conversation and the third neighbor left without a mower.
"Excuse me a moment," interrupted the neighbor to whom Sam had been talking, "but what has your going to town later on got to do with loaning out your lawn mower?"
"Oh nothing really," he responded. "But if you don't want to do something, one excuse is as good as another."
And that is my subject for today — excuses. We are a culture exceptionally qualified in the excuse-making department. This is especially so in the arena of church attendance. Might I take this well-honed ability of our culture a degree further in stating that during the summertime we raise this ability to the level of an art form.
As a child growing up in one of those families that attended church every time the doors of that facility were open, I remember often hearing my father's favorite saying: "Some church folks are Too People. It's always too cold or too hot, too rainy or too nice. They can always find a reason not to go."
Recently a fellow staff member here at the Riddle Center reminded me of the song recorded by the Kingsmen, "Excuses." Do you recall the words? "Excuses, excuses, we hear them every day/and the devil, he'll supply them if the church you'll stay away. When the people come to know the Lord, the devil always loses/So to keep them folks away from the church, he offers them excuses."
There are several other pertinent verses, and I would encourage you to listen to the entire song for the truthful and timely message, but my favorite lines are, "In the summer it's too hot. And in the winter it's too cold/In the springtime when the weather's just right, you find some place else to go. Well, it's up in the mountains or down to the beach to visit some old friend/Or, just stay home and kinda relax and hope the kin folk will start dropping in."
Many years ago when I first entered the ministry, I lucked upon the friendship of a psychologist who had not only a lot of age on him but a great deal of wisdom as well. He was so down-to-earth and ordinary, had one not known his profession to be that of a professional counselor, he would more likely to have supposed perhaps a store clerk or barber. He was just laid back and filled with a common-sense approach to life and rarely ever spouted off about the academics of psychological theories. Of all the things he ever shared with me, one particular quotation stands out most: "Folks generally just do what they want to; everything else is just an excuse."
Whether the message is brought home in a gospel song or in the words of a sage, they are still true.
Gabriel Meurier once said, "He who excuses himself, accuses himself."
But I like the wit and wisdom of Michael Gerber even more: "Life is about choices; it's not about excuses. Excuses only trap us into believing that we cannot take control of our own lives."
Johnny A. Phillips is the Clinical Chaplain of the J. Iverson Riddle Developmental Center.
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