Jesus replied with this story: “A man prepared a great feast and sent out many invitations. When the banquet was ready, he sent his servant to tell the guests, ‘Come, the banquet is ready.’ But they all began making excuses. One said, ‘I have just bought a field and must inspect it. Please excuse me.’ Another said, ‘I have just bought five pairs of oxen, and I want to try them out. Please excuse me.’ Another said, ‘I just got married, so I can’t come.’ Luke 14:16–20 (NLT)
Making excuses is a common human trait. “The dog ate my homework.” “The sun was in my eyes.” John L Mason, the inventor of the Mason jar, said, “When you are good at making excuses, it is hard to excel at anything else.” George Washington Carver said, “Ninety-nine percent of failures come from people who have the habit of making excuses.”
My grandfather often quoted Billy Sunday who once said, “An excuse is a skin of a reason stuffed with a lie.” He would add, “No matter how you slice it, it comes out baloney.” We use excuses for things that we do not want to do, but whether it is to avoid hurting someone’s feelings, or to be absolved from responsibility, the substance of excuses is lies.
Someone might argue that excuses are harmless like “little white lies,” but can we afford to be caught in an inconsistency? What will it do for our credibility? Could there be much more at stake for us?
Excuses or Facts?
When Jesus told the story of the man preparing to give a great feast, he was not talking about any ordinary feast but “a banquet in the kingdom of God!” The magnitude of the occasion cannot be ignored. There is no reason to doubt that each individual summoned to the banquet was not speaking the truth. There were certainly fields to inspect, oxen to exercise and happy newlyweds.
Facts became excuses because they were not being invited to the in-laws for leftovers, but to a banquet of great significance. When God summons us to a banquet, everything else is of lesser importance. When Jesus said, “Come, follow me,” the only appropriate response was to leave everything behind and follow him.
Facts are good. Truth is good. When the King summons us, everything else is of lesser importance. In our postmodern world, people are fond of saying, “You have your truth, and I have my truth.” We may debate the merits of postmodern philosophy, but when the master of the feast gives an invitation, his is the only truth that matters.
On the great and final day of judgment, excuses, no matter how factual, will be found to be worthless.
It’s Not Your Agenda
“But I did obey the Lord,” Saul insisted. “I carried out the mission he gave me. I brought back King Agag, but I destroyed everyone else. 1 Samuel 15:20 (NLT)
King Saul “forgot” whose agenda he was serving. The Lord said to annihilate the Amalekite nation. He “almost obeyed,” but he deviated from God’s explicit instructions. Saul may have reasoned to himself that the finest of the livestock was too valuable to destroy. Serving his own agenda would cost him the throne.
It was at this time that God spoke to Samuel: “I am sorry that I ever made Saul king, for he has not been loyal to me and has refused to obey my command.” 1 Samuel 15:11 (NLT). Saul was either so deluded or so full of himself, that he actually insisted that he obeyed the spirit of God’s command.
Undoubtedly, there are excuses with minor significance, but God is not impressed with our excuses. When confronted with his disobedience, Saul insisted that he saved the best as a sacrifice to God. Samuel then countered Saul’s excuses: “What is more pleasing to the Lord: your burnt offerings and sacrifices or your obedience to his voice? Listen! Obedience is better than sacrifice, and submission is better than offering the fat of rams.” 1 Samuel 15:22 (NLT)
Proverbs sums it up: People ruin their lives by their own foolishness and then are angry at the Lord. Proverbs 19:3 (NLT). God has a plan for us, and if we proceed in his strength rather than our own it is not too difficult. Every day we must remember that it is not our agenda, but God’s that matters most.
Deflecting the Blame
The man replied, “It was the woman you gave me who gave me the fruit, and I ate it.” Genesis 3:12 (NLT)
Adam’s statement proves that man has been making excuses for his actions since the very beginning of time. Why do we have so much difficulty accepting responsibility for our words and actions? Most likely, except for those whose consciences are dead, it is a mixture of shame and embarrassment that causes us to deflect and make excuses.
Excuse-making is nothing new, as we have seen, but that does not mean that we are incapable of creating new excuses. A relatively new excuse is “church hurt.” Countless people have excluded themselves from God’s instructions to gather together as the body of Christ because they claim that somebody in the church hurt them. They believe that they are so wounded by the church that they have the right to stay away.
These excuses do not ring true. Just because we have a bad meal does not mean that we stop eating. Some sports fans endure season after season of losing, but they keep coming back. I am certain that we can cite many other examples where hurt, or disappointment does not keep people away.
One day we will all be held accountable for our excuses. We will not be able to blame anyone else if we fail to receive all that God has for us. Don’t excuse yourself by saying, “Look, we didn’t know.” For God understands all hearts, and he sees you. Proverbs 24:12 (NLT). We have the witness of the Holy Spirit, and even nature reveals his glory, so in the end there will be no acceptable excuses.
Steve Ekeroth