I’ve been praying with this passage from I Thessalonians (5:23), “And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Blameless was the word here that jumped out at me. It means to be innocent, without fault. How many of us feel that way?

I know for my part I’ve been blamed for all sorts of things. From the minute I was born, when wasn’t the hoped for boy, to being a general non-conformist with fresh ideas, who folks usually want to suppress and squeeze into their concept of convention, to being a macro thinker, who is often criticized by those that prize detail… the list of my infractions can feel boundless. (Also, of course, I make mistakes, thereby clearly breaching any aspiration of  blamelessness…)

And I wasn’t even reared on theology that labeled me from the outset as a miserable sinner, as so many people I know were. Imagine being taught you were culpable at the outset, designed wrong before you even did anything at all, let alone made any mistakes!

It is obvious to me that babies are innocent of guilt at the beginning, so where does all this feeling of blame come from, despite our best efforts? I think it is more than self-censure over our blunders.  Here are some ways to think about it: it is just story, a record of dreams, or suggestions looking for acceptance, but never inherent to your identity.

What is the baseline of your actual identity? The first chapter of Genesis explains that you were/are made in the image and likeness of God, as very good. That means you have all of God’s stellar qualities and attributes (there are no bad ones) and that you come pre-approved.

So who is this true for? Everyone, regardless of what they seem to be doing in the dream/story, no matter how many egregious things they might have done, or are are doing. Yikes!

Sanctify, in the quote above, means to “cause to be morally right,” to be absolved or cleansed from sin, made pure. When? All the way at the end, after a bunch for wrongdoing has gone on? No, I think it is ongoing. We are perpetually maintained in our original innocence.

Does this mean it doesn’t matter what we do?  The good we do definitely does make a difference. Any evil, however, will destroy itself. If you can’t see outside the story or dream, evil can feel pretty frightening. But from God’s perspective?  Only good is going on, because God is infinite, all powerful, and ever-present good. All the good we are and do God sees and uses.

I think it is easier to do good when you feel blameless, so forgive yourself for wherever you feel your guilt may actually lie. Forgive yourself for not knowing or doing better. Make reparations wherever you have done wrong. Lead your life governed by an honest attempt to do what is your highest sense of right.

This quote about Mary Baker Eddy, the remarkable founder of Christian Science, shows the power of accepting your own blamelessness:

“By her own blameless and happy life, as well as by her teachings, our Leader has induced a multitude — how great no man can number — to become gladly obedient to law, so that they think rightly or righteously.” (The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany, p. 40:31)

Don’t we need more of that? Imagine if each of us, by embracing and doing good work, sourced from our own intrinsic wellspring of  essential innocence, could influence countless others to do that as well!  It would be the salvation of the world, of which we can have an important part.

So please join me in nurturing a self concept of yourself as blameless, sanctified, forgiven, and cherished, always able to do what is right and good. And tricky as it is, this includes not blaming or finding fault in others no matter how much you might think (from within the dream/story) they deserve it!

–