Diocesan
Life Columns
Bishop Paul V. Marshall
Bishop Paul's writes a monthly column for the Diocesan Newspaper, Diocesan
Life, edited by Communication
Minister, Bill Lewellis.
For more features from the life of our diocese, check Diocesanlife....ONLINE; and Bethlehem
News.
Give up Victimhood for Lent
Bishop Paul V. Marshall
Diocesan Life, February 2002
The Devil made me do it. For most of us, that expression is a
joke or a child's evasion of responsibility. It is worth thinking
about, however, as February brings us Lent's call to look within
ourselves. Who are the "devils" we invoke to avoid responsibility?
In the ancient story, Adam blames Eve; Eve blames the snake. Some
people blame psychological "addictions" or other boutique disabilities.
Others blame their parents, their bosses, their relative wealth
or poverty, their supposed experience of victimhood or oppression.
Unprincipled defense lawyers and well-paid expert witnesses of
the type lawyers think of as prostitutes argue that nobody is ever
at fault except, perhaps, those who seek justice.
There is something in us that would rather establish convoluted
theories or complicated patterns of alibi, rather than simply say, "I
was wrong. I'm sorry. I'll try to do better."
Clarence Thomas could have made short work of his confirmation
hearings with those few words, but ended up contradicting his own
principles by playing the race card. Bill Clinton could have said
the same thing, and would be remembered very differently today.
From cop-out to perjury, human nature seeks any tool to avoid
taking responsibility-and deprives itself of grace and growth.
There may be otherwise normal people who are so ill that they
have no power to avoid taking the first drink, the first snort,
using the first credit card, or whatever. I haven't met any.
For very complex reasons we may construct patterns of behavior
that feel good or at least stop the pain - when they are entrenched
enough to be habit, ways of life, is when we feel out of control
about them. Then, of course, we want to say that we are not responsible
for what we do. But the pattern began with an act, a decision,
a curiosity, a response to a hunger or a hurt.
Perhaps indeed a mother, a fifth-grade teacher, or a physical
pain, had something to do with a person's establishing a pattern
of destructive behavior. Those outside "devils" were the stimulus.
Adults, however, have the ability to examine what patterns of response
they allowed to develop or stay in place.
A fifty year-old huffily clinging to a nine year-old's behaviors
is pitiful. A fifty year-old taking responsibility to learn new
patterns of behavior is noble and courageous. There can be little
grace where people insist they don't need any.
Every one of us has a set of hurts, habits, and vulnerabilities
that make us more likely than some other people to commit bad behaviors
of one kind or another. That is merely sin, and is fairly easily
dealt with. When we lie to ourselves about it, we risk becoming
what is worse than sick, we risk becoming evil, and that is hard
to deal with.
The perpetrators of the Holocaust knew exactly what they were
doing. They had a detailed theory about why it was justified. They
had lost sight of the point at which they found believing and thoroughly
assimilating a lie was easier than taking responsibility for a
culture that had mad a series bad turns over decades (perhaps centuries).
On a small scale, the self-examination of Lent is an opportunity
to risk peeling the onion of the layers of convenient half-truths,
evasions, and self-serving distortions beneath bad behavior. Though
this may involve the companionship or guidance of a trusted friend
or professional, it is work no one can do for us.
"Dead to sin" is a New Testament expression for studied insensitivity
to our own special pleading - alive to the life of strength and
grace abundantly available only to those who admit they need it.
I pray that all of us may have a happy and arduous Lent.
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