Reepham Benefice

It’s not my fault! Whilst on a long journey along the motorway a couple decided to stop at the service station. And as they got back into the car and started driving down the road, the woman realised about 3 or 4 miles down the road that she had left her glasses on a table in the service station. Her husband was quite disgruntled by this and they had to go all the way to the next exit, round the roundabout and back onto the motorway again so that they could find her glasses. The man fussed and complained all the way back to the service station, telling his wife that she needed to be more responsible with her belongings. Well, finally they arrived and he parked the car and as his wife got out he said to her “whilst you are in there could you get my hat as well?”!

It’s not my fault! Well, it’s been a dreadful week in the news, a time I’m sure of much prayer. The cholera crisis spiraling out of control in Zimbabwe; the financial markets continuing to plummet and the shocking and saddening revelations of how a mother could have her own child abducted and claim the reward on her return. The world full of problems and pain, a world where sometimes it is easy to understand ‘why’, sometimes it’s easy to point the finger and say who is to blame, other times it’s not that easy. I don’t know how many of you watched the Panorama programme on Thursday evening following Karen Matthew’s conviction, it was harrowing to say the least and already investigations are being launched and questions are being asked about the various agencies involved. Did they do enough - could they have done more to safeguard this little girl, could they have prevented what had happened? Were they indeed at fault in some way? The police officer who led the investigation was clear who was to blame: not social workers, not teachers, not friends or family, but the mother herself who failed to take responsibility for what it means to be a mother.

Well this desire to apportion blame these days is not sadly unique. We live in an age of blame were people are ready to say “it’s not my fault” which tempts all of us to dispense with the responsibility for our own thoughts and actions so that when things go wrong, or that which is hidden finally comes to light, we can say with some sense of exasperation, that anyone would think otherwise “it’s not my fault”. True, there are times when we simply do not know when events snowball and we are somehow caught up in something that has nothing to do with us and for which we can take no responsibility...