When you get caught in some sort of blunder, how do you get out of it? How do you take care of your guilt when you are weighed in the balances and found wanting?
Let’s say, just for the sake of argument, that you’ve shaded the truth. I will not suggest that you have lied; you have shaded the truth. You have exaggerated. Doesn’t that feel better? You have not lied, you put a spin on the truth. But they found you out. Somebody who knew more facts than you thought they did called you on your little trick. How did you deal with that? What explanations did you offer?
Here’s one I read in the newspapers this week. “Nobody’s perfect. We’ve all made mistakes. But I’m no monster.” That was a church leader in response to charges that he had embezzled thousands of dollars to support some very unsavory stuff. What was the answer? “Nobody’s perfect. We’ve all made mistakes.” What do you think of that? Have you ever used it? “I’m no better than we all are.” I may be bad, but you are just as bad. I may be a crook, but so is everybody else. Faultfinding, in order to show that your own faults are not any worse than theirs.
Am I a liar? Am I a cheat? Aren’t we all thieves? Then because I have found this fault in you, that means I don’t have to deal with my own, right? Because they are no better than we are, we have no real problems, right? Right?!
Wrong. Wrong. Because the issue is not how we measure up against one another. The issue is how we measure against God’s expectations. The issue is not whether we are no better than anyone else. The issue is how we test against what God wants from us. The measure is not how you stack up or how I do what I do; the measure is nothing less than the stature of the fullness of Christ. Not whether somebody else is no better than we are.
I’m announcing a new club today. It’s for chronic faultfinders. Along the lines of Alcoholics Anonymous, Narcotics Anonymous, Gamblers Anonymouse, it’s time to stand up and say, “My name is Smith, and I’m a faultfinder. I’m a faultfinder because I keep on thinking that you are no better than I and I am no better than you.” And that’s a dangerous illusion. We need to sign up for Faultfinders Anonymous.
I
Some of us find fault with others because we think they set themselves up so high and mighty and righteous. We love finding faults in those who have told us that they are beyond reproach. Something in us loves to find flaws in people who look too perfect.
Job’s first friend, Eliphaz, found fault with Job because to him it looked as though Job thought himself better than the rest of us. Eliphaz felt that Job had that air of superiority, just a little more spiritual, a little more righteous, a shade more correct, than ordinary mortals. To Eliphaz, Job had just always looked a little too good to be true. And now that Job was having problems, now that Job had lost all the props that made him look so good, Eliphaz gloated a little. Eliphaz enjoyed Job’s plight. You are just getting what you deserve, Job! Eliphaz found fault with Job; Job, you are no better than we are. You are getting what you deserve at last.
“See, you have instructed many, you have strengthened the weak hands. Your words supported those who were stumbling, and you have made firm the feeble knees. But now it has come to you, and you are impatient; it touches you, and you are dismayed.”
Job, you were all right as long as you were playing Lady Charity, helping other people. As long as it was other people who hurt, Job, you could be understanding and compassionate and helpful. You enjoyed having it all together and doing things for others, the poor slobs. But now the troubles have come on you, Job, and you can’t take it. You aren’t man enough to deal with it. The things you’ve given other people you don’t really have in yourself, Job. You are no better than we are.
Faulfinders find fault with people who have been succesful and whose lives look together. They find fault because out of their own insecurities they need to believe that others are no bwetter than they are. There are some folks who lead charmed lives. The rest of us can be down and out, and they will mysteriously have enough to eat, clothes to wear, the rent bill paid, and they want to know if you are going to Cancun this year or whether you like the latest fashions at Saks. When you hear all that, you get jealous. Here I am, sweating and straining just to get by, and this guy seems to have everything.
So Eliphaz thought that Job had been born with a silver spoon in his mouth, and now that it was all gone, Eliphaz was glad of it. One of the reasons we find fault with others is that we are jealous of them. We think they do not really deserve all the good things they have, and so we pick at them. We jab and poke and see if we cannot find some fault in them. It makes us feel better about ourselves if we can find the flaws in others. It makes us deal with our own self-esteem problems if we can find somebody else and put down his success. Aha, you are no better than we are!
That’s part of the way racism works. If I am a racist, I look at my own failures and I have to have some explanation. I cannot just admit that I’ve messed up. And so I go out to look for somebody else to blame. That black woman over there, she got the job I should have had. That Hispanic guy, they hired him just for show. Those Asians, they support each other until Kingdom come and shut the rest of us out. Do you see? Racism wants to explain things by suggesting that other folks who seem to be doing so well, they are no better than we are. And so it’s all right to find fault with them. It’s all right to put them down.
Faultfinders, like Eliphaz, find fault with others because, in our own deficits, in our own shortcomings, we think that we will come off all right if we believe that others are no better than we are. It’s time, however, for you and I and Eliphaz to sign up for Faultfinders Anonymous, for there is another measurement. There is another standard. It is the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. And against that standard all of us have deficits, all have sinned and come short. All. We cannot repair our own insecxurities by finding fault with others.
II
However, there is another kind of candidate for Faultfinders Anonymous. There is another person in this marvelous Biblical narrative who is good at finding faults. And that is Job himself. Job too is a faultfinder. It is not only that Eliphaz finds fault with Job; Job also finds plenty of faults with Eliphaz. Job too falls into the trap of finding fault because his friend is no better than he is.
Job finds fault with Eliphaz because Eliphaz does not deliver the goods when Job wants him to. Eliphaz does not fix Job’s problem. Eliphaz does not come up with the right advice, he does not speak the magic words, he does not conjure up the right formula. Job is there in all this misery; his friends come to sit with him, and they are struggling to find something to say. I know what that feels like, don’t you? Struggling to find something, anything, to fill up the silence. And Eliphaz, the first to speak, bless his orthodox, pious heart, he says what he knows to say. It’s not very profound, it’s not especially original, it’s not too good. But it’s all he has, poor Eliphaz. And he gives it. Well, don’t you know, Job turns on him and finds fault big-time:
“Teach me, and I will be silent; make me understand how I have gone wrong. How forceful are honest words. But your reproof, what does it reprove? ... You would even cast lots over the orphan, and bargain over your friend .. miserable comforters are you all. Have windy words no limit? Or what provokes you that you keep on talking?”
Job is telling his friend Eliphaz that all these windy words have brought no comfort; that, Eliphaz, for all his piety, for all his standing as a scholar, Eliphaz is an empty, wheezy windbag, no better than we are! Job finds fault with Eliphaz because Eliphaz cannot be his savior. Eliphaz is not his mommy who can kiss it and make it all better. Eliphaz does not have the right words to say, he does not have exactly the soothing whispers that reach the right place. And so, to Job’s tormented mind, that means that Eliphaz is no better than he is, no better than we all are. Job calls Eliphaz a miserable comforter.
You see, when we get desperately unhappy; when we are in a life-and-death struggle, we will believe that somebody out there should fix us, and, if they can’t they are worthless. We believe that somebody ought to scratch us where we itch, and if they cannot, well, we find fault. We put them down. They are no better than we are. We are constantly looking for somebody to take care of our problems for us, and we’ll never really find that person.
Folks stop by here sometimes and tell me about their problems: their rent is not paid, their car note is past due, they haven’t eaten in a week, and they are about to be evicted, and can they please have about three thousand dollars, just for a couple of months! When I tell them I can’t do all of that, but there are some things I can do .. some spiritual things as well as physical things .. they don’t want to hear that. Not only do they not want to hear it; they tell me that I am no pastor and this is no church if we won’t bail them out, right now! Fault-finding. They say that we are no better than they are, because we can’t fix their problem.
A minister friend told me this week of an encounter she had last Sunday in the church where she is a staff member. She had planned a youth activity, and only two teenagers showed up, one of them with his mother. This was a rebellious young man, who had been on the borderline of trouble for quite a while. His mother wanted the church to fix him. And so she dragged him, to this youth program. But it was a bust. Hardly anybody came. Nothing going on. So, says my friend, the anger came tumbling out. “You NEVER do anything for these youth. I’ll bet you didn’t even plan this activity. You wanted this evening to fail. You don’t care about these kids. You don’t care about my son. He could just disappear for all you care.” Wow! On the attack! This mother was hurting, and the only thing she could do was to find fault with someone she wanted to be her savior.
Hurting people become faultfinders because they need so much for somebody to fix them. Hurting people build up unrealistic expectations for their doctors, their counselors, their spouses, their friends, their pastors. And when all none of these folks have the magic answers, hurting people, like Job, act out of their pain and their anger, they turn like wolves and tear. They find fault, because their friends are no better than they are. Their helpers are no better than they are. And, worst of all, they begin to feel that God Himself is no better than they are, that God has no answers, and is the biggest windbag of them all.
When you get to that point, it’s time to join Faultfinders Anonymous. When you get to the point that your anxiety makes you turn on those who have tried to help you, then it’s time to admit that you have a problem. It’s time to join Faultfinders Anonymous.
III
This morning every faultfinder can echo Job’s cry. Every one of us can identify with his shout,
“Oh, that I knew where I might find him, that I might come even to his dwelling! I would lay my case before him, and fill my mouth with arguments. I would learn what he would answer me, and understand what he would say to me.”
“Oh, that I knew where I might find him.” This morning I want to point us, the members of Faultfinders Anonymous, elsewhere. I want to point you to a place where you can put your faults and deposit your deficits. I want to point you to Jesus Christ. Jesus, whom even the hostile Roman governor Pilate examined and said, “I find no fault in him at all.” Jesus, against whom the torrents of hostility were leashed, but instead of retaliating, He offered a prayer, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” Jesus Christ, on whom all the sin and shame of humanity was poured; Jesus Christ, about whom it was said that God has made him to BE sin who knew no sin; Jesus Christ, who loves us to the end. I want to point us, Faultfinders Anonymous as we are, to Him.
For He is better than we are. The best of men, suffering the worse of fates. Like Job, out on the town garbage heap, there to end his life in shame and spitting. Like Job, stripped of everything he owned save one garment, and then that taken and gambled over by rude soldiers. He is better than we are, for there, where all of us would complain, all of us would find fault, all of us would point to the scum of the earth and lash our tongues to remind them that they are no better than we, there he spoke to a criminal and offered salvation, hope. He is better than we are. And we need that. Desperately we need that.
And He is a great savior, wounded as He is. He does have the words of eternal life, even in His dying. His is no empty rhetoric, his no pious drivel worn out by constant windy repeating. He has the words of life. In His pain crying out, “God my father, why have you forsaken me?”, wondering with us whether God matters, whether God will do anything; but then in faith and peace, “It is finished, Father, into Thy hands I commend my spirit.” He is a great savior, wounded as He is. And He is what we need, we faultfinders.
My minister friend says that after that young man and his mother left, she looked in the bag he had given her, and in it this young man, troubled as he was, had put a picture of himself, and with it a short note. The note said, “You’ve helped me more than you know just by listening to me. Please put this picture on your shelf so you will remember me every day.” Somebody was helped, even by the wounded pastor. And Jesus is a great savior, wounded as He is. He is what we need, we faultfinders.
“Tempted and tried, I need a great savior; one who can help my burdens to bear; I must tell Jesus, I must tell Jesus; He all my cares and sorrows will share.”
Tell Jesus. He is better than we are. Tell Jesus. He does have the words of life. Tell Jesus and come see His cross. Stand there a while, and see. Taste and see. Feel and see. All of us belong in Faultfinders Anonymous. But in Him there is no accusation, no faultfinding, no hostility. Only love. All love. For every fault and every faultfinder. Come and see. I find no fault in Him at all.
