Sayings

I’m sure that we have all heard of the phrase ‘Sour grapes’. Again we turn to the Old Testament to read of its origin. 

“In those days people will no longer say, ‘The parents have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge.” (Jeremiah 31:29) God promises to cease holding subsequent generations responsible for the transgressions of previous ones by making a new covenant with Israel and Judah. In fact he says,, ““I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people.

Turn on any news source these days, and you will probably find someone blaming someone else for some problem or another. And when you get tired of seeing this on the news, turn to a sports outlet, and you’ll find the same thing. Someone is blaming someone else for the problems with their team. The blame game has been going on for a very long time, and shows up everywhere. 

It reminds me of a song that was a hit back in the 1980s: “The Living Years.” Remember that one? The chorus goes like this: 

Every generation 

blames the one before, 

and all of their frustrations 

come beating on your door. 

I know that I am a prisoner 

to all my father held so dear, 

I know that I’m a hostage 

to all his hopes and fears. 

I just wish I could have told him in 

the living years.

A favourite way that people today make excuses for their mistakes is to simply blame somebody else, and the blame most of the time is given to someone that is not there to defend themselves. It is the parents' fault, or the husband's, or the wife's, or peers', or society's. or it’s the previous generations fault that we have the troubles that we do now. It’s not my fault. 

Harry Emerson Fosdick once suggested that there are three kinds of people in the world. First are the proud and self-satisfied, the impenitent (feeling no sorrow or regret) who do not even realise the mess they are in. Second, there are the penitent who are so crushed by their contrite self-reproach that they wallow in their self-pity. Thirdly, there are people like the prodigal son (Luke 15) who hate themselves for their failure, but who find in that shame the stimulation to say, “I will rise up and go to my Father.”

Dear loving Father, you always love us as your children, help us dear Father not to be sour grapes but good grapes.  Help us to be mindful of our actions and recognise you Lord as a loving Father. We open our hearts to love you and one another in truth so that through your love we may be good grapes not sour grapes. We ask this through Christ our Lord who lives and reigns with you, one God forever and ever, Amen.