“Held accountable?”
By Rev. Michael Stonhouse
Meditation – Saturday, March 12, 2022
1 Corinthians 4:1-7 (Forward, p. 42) CEV p. 1192
One of the buzz words in many circles, government especially, is the idea of ‘accountability’. Together with the concept of transparency, our elected and appointed officials are expected to be accountable for their actions. But, then, we often ask, and indeed, question whether this does exactly happen in practice. Far too often, at least to the casual bystander, it does not.
Here, in today’s passage, the apostle Paul also speaks about accountability. However, he rules out accountability to any group of humans, or even to himself. He insists that it is God who has called him to his particular ministry, not any human, and so he is particularly called to account only to God. He grounds this assertion in two facts. Firstly, the time is not quite right for any type of human judgment or assessment. The facts are not fully ‘in’; the story is not yet finished, so wait, wait for God to do the job. And secondly, he says that any human judgment will always be inadequate. Our data, especially about someone’s motives and inner character are always incomplete, and even our own feelings and perceptions about our own behaviour are inadequate and limited and prone to error. Only God knows us fully for who we are, so only God can judge. And, so for this reason, any matter of comparison, comparing one person with another, simply won’t work, as God/ Jesus Christ is our only model and standard. So, all in all, it is best to leave the judging to God.
However, does all this mean that we are ‘off the hook’? No, not in the least. We are accountable to God. But what does that mean? On the one hand, God probably has much more stringent, much more demanding standards than any human, but on the other hand, God is much more caring, understanding and merciful than any human being or tribunal. And so, we take our accountability towards God very seriously, no matter what we think or say or do. Amen.
Forward notes: “Think of us in this way, as servants of Christ and stewards of God’s mysteries” (verse 1).
“My friend likes to read mysteries. She pays close attention to the details and tries to solve the mystery before she reaches the end of the book. She talks about clues she has discovered and suspects she has in mind. She is so focused on solving the mystery that she doesn’t enjoy the experience of reading the book.
“As a servant of Christ, Paul strives to follow Jesus’s example of loving and ministering to others. He also understands how Jesus’s life and teachings bridge the gap between Jews and Gentiles. That Jesus transcends barriers and extends love to Gentiles is a new way of thinking for the church in Corinth. It is a strange notion to them, a mystery.
“Jesus ate with sinners, loved the outcast, and welcomed the stranger. The Good News he proclaimed was that God’s love extends to all. Today we, like Paul, are called to be servants of Christ, exemplifying God’s boundless love. This is the mystery of faith we profess and the gospel to which we are called.”
MOVING FORWARD: “Serve Christ today through your love and care for others.”