I think many of these answers put way too much emphases on blame when the emphases is elsewhere, blame and blame shifting as I see it does not enter into it. The primary example is being excused from jury duty. You give a excuse, such as you are entitled to a postponement at the first notice, and you are excused from the task and there is no blame.
An excuse is a appeal to power or mercy over the authority that is ordering the task. In the above example the state authority grants a higher power ‘right’ to be excused from jury duty. A simular situation is the excuse that you are talking care of a elderly person who needs full time care and are asking to be excused from jury duty, this is a excuse with a appeal to mercy.
An explanation in the judy duty sense is a reason that you are willing to complete the task but without expected results. I knew someone who got out of jury duty by her belief that she could tell guilt by looking at the person’s shoes, yes really and there was some truth to this as far as she believed it. This is a explanation, not a excuse, that she would perform her task but she could not do it to the standards they were presenting, and it is up to them to accept her humanness on the case or not.
In my own life I had sort of a hybrid of the 2. It was a death penalty case, and when given the opportunity to state any excuses or explanations I stated that because of my faith in Lord Jesus who does not condemn me I will not condemn this man. Which at first I would place it as a explanation that regardless of the facts my mind was made up which way to find him, but the judge excused it under freedom of religion, which was a appeal to a higher power or in other words that the judge found that I had the right to walk away from this case.
So when I hear the term ‘no excuses’ it doesn’t make any sense as a directive, because excuses come from higher then the person’s authority and the person has the right to be excused, though it can mean no appeal to mercy will be accepted.
Also to use another thread, in a military setting if a truck got stuck in the mud you may hear ‘we need every swinging dick out on the road to get this truck out’ ordered by a officer, which you may get:
1 - a excuse to authority, ‘Sir the general and I have a standing lunch date and I went there instead’ - there is no blame, just the regular order of authority
2 - a excuse to mercy, ‘Sir I was heading to my wife to have sex, we are trying to conceive’ - could be blame if no mercy was extended but hope and appeal to human kindness
3 - a explanation, ‘Sir we were doing some DBSM in the barrack and I was unable to get out of my restraints’ - No righteous blame for not being there because there was no way to do that, it was impossible, but there may be blame for getting into the situation.
