“Ask not for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.” These were the words of John Donne, a pastor in England in the 17^th century. It was common practice to ring the church bell when someone in the community died, and often people would say, “I wonder who died.” John Donne said that when someone dies, the tolling of the bell signals not only the loss of the life of an individual but also the loss of life of the community. A few lines earlier he had said in the same sermon, “No man is an island,” meaning that we all are connected together and the loss of one is a loss for all.

Most of us have experienced this at one time or another. Over the years members of my congregation have passed on to glory, and they always leave a vacant spot. A part of the congregation dies with them. Two such occasions are significant. Dirk was a man of about 94 years old when he died from a short bout with cancer. Up to the end his mind was sharp, and my conversations with him were always good. When he died, all his wisdom became unavailable to his family and the church. I had a similar experience with Sylvia. She was a quiet woman who didn’t say much when I visited her, but for some reason, when she died, I found myself missing her deeply. I wasn’t all that close with either Dirk or Sylvia, but I felt their loss profoundly. I felt that the bell was tolling for me along with the rest of the community as well.

But it doesn’t take a death to cause the bell to toll and for us to experience a loss. In the last few months a number of churches in our denomination have been moving toward disaffiliation from the Christian Reformed Church. They have found the decisions made by our synod (a body which meets once a year made up of representatives from across the denomination) to be untenable. They feel that they can no longer be part of the denomination, and they have begun the process of cutting ties with the CRC. While those who remain committed to the CRC believe that their understanding of Scripture is faulty, we are saddened by their departure. We have been in fellowship with some of those churches for as long as 70 years. We have shared their joys and struggles. We have worshipped with them, learned with them, encouraged them and been held accountable by them. They have been an integral part of the life of our church for a long time, and when they decide to separate from the denomination, while we still can be in relationship with them, it is a little like a death. The bell tolls, not because a church has died but because the separation has the same feelings as a death. No longer will we enjoy the close fellowship we once had.

It’s not that we should compromise our beliefs to remain together. That would be impossible because we who are left believe firmly that our understanding of the social issues that have caused differences is biblically based and theirs is not. In fact, the denomination has clearly stated that what they espouse and teach is sin, and they have been called to repentance, and if they do not, they no longer have a voice at denominational tables. Our congregation believes firmly that while we all sin, if we remain in unrepented sin, we are breaking fellowship. They are remaining in unrepentant sin, and that is unacceptable.

Yet, we mourn the separation. The bell tolls when a church leaves, but it tolls for the separation, even if it not tolling because of the death of a church. We have lost life as well when the church is no longer united, and we mourn that loss. It is a sad time for our denomination and our congregation.

Death, by its very definition, is separation. Whether it is physical death (separation of body and spirit), spiritual death (separation of an individual from God) or the death of a relationship (separation of churches, for example), it is death, and it hurts. We miss the fellowship that once was.

I suppose that this experience of loss should make us long for the resurrection even more. Resurrections bring back together that which is separated (body and spirit, God and people, and churches and individuals who are at enmity with each other). We long for the resurrection which will happen when Jesus returns. Beyond the most wonderful joy of seeing Jesus face to face, I love for the renewed fellowship we will experience when we are reunited with our brothers and sisters who, at this point, have been separated by sinful perspectives and behaviour. We all are guilty of that, and we all experience the loss. In the resurrection, however, we will be brought together again, all of us who put our faith in Jesus, and we will live in unity again before our Father’s throne and in the presence of Jesus.

I suppose the brokenness that we are experiencing right now in our denomination should make us long even more for the sure hope of the resurrection. I look forward to spending eternity with fellow believers without the divisions caused by human error and sin. That will be a wonderful time, and I don’t think we will ever tire of it. May it be that Jesus returns quickly and does away with all the brokenness we create and brings us back to full and beautiful relationship both with the Father and with others. May that happen soon.

Theologians have often talked about two kinds of attributes of God: communicable attributes and incommunicable attributes. These are big words to describe something quite simple: as human beings, we share some (communicable) attributes with God (the ability to love, do good, and be fair and just) while we do not share others of his (incommunicable) attributes (eternality, unchangeable, infinite, almighty, etc.). There may be a third category, namely attributes that we have a small part of, but what we have is nothing in comparison what God has. We have knowledge, for example, but our knowledge is like a drop of water in the ocean compared to God’s knowledge. We have power, but our power is less than that of a snail in comparison to God’s power which is greater than that of an elephant. While we might use words like knowledge and power to describe human beings, it is almost ludicrous to think that we have anything that can really compare to what God has.

Yet, throughout history, it seems that people want to make believe that we have a lot more of these attributes than we really do. As a good example, we can think back to the late 1800s and early 1900s. These years followed the Enlightenment, a period of time when philosophers began to teach that if everyone on this earth really worked at it, we could solve all of our problems all by ourselves. God began to be removed from the picture as being the one who provides a solution to the problems faced by humanity. About 150 years ago, with huge advances being made in the fields of technology, manufacturing, medicine, transportation, and so much more, it looked like we were unstoppable. In 1900 it was quite common for many to think that in a short time, because of all the progress, there would be no problem common to man that would be insurmountable.

How wrong they were. In 1914, after a single shot was fired in Sarajevo, war broke out in Europe, and countries around the world were drawn into the battle. It was evident very early on that all the human ingenuity that had been used to find solutions to problems could also be used to create new ones. Weapons were fashioned such as had never been seen on the earth, weapons that could kill many people in seconds from a great distance. When the war ended four years later, the world was shaken. Millions of people had died, and many declared that we had learned our lesson, and WWI was known, however briefly, as the War to End All Wars. How wrong they were. Twenty-one years later a second massive war began, and it was more deadly than the earlier war, for we had figured out how to make even more powerful weapons with more deadly results. In addition, we had learned to vilify others and make them into non-humans so that we did not feel guilt when we killed them in gas chambers or by dropping thousands of bombs on a single city. The 20^th century saw more violent death than all of the other previous centuries combined.

What went wrong? A lot of things, but perhaps one of them was the attitude that we believe that we are more like God than we are. We have knowledge, but our knowledge has limitations. We might know how to create many new things, but we do not know how to stop at creating only good things, and we make things that are harmful as well. When God knows something and when he puts his knowledge into action, what results is always good. This is not true of humanity. Similarly, God uses his power for the benefit of others. Human beings do not. In fact, when people become powerful, the more powerful they are, the more corrupt they become, or so says Lord Acton.

It’s not that knowledge and power are bad things. If they were, would have a huge problem with God, for he is all-knowing and all-powerful. Rather, the problem arises when we begin to think that we have more knowledge and power than we really do and when we use that knowledge and power inappropriately. In other words, when we act independently of God, believing ourselves to be like him in ability, we run into all sorts of problems.

As people 150 years ago made huge advances in so many fields of study, they did not maintain an awe of God. With all that we can do, they began to think that God’s knowledge and power were really not all that special and that what God had to offer could be set aside. Humanity has come to believe that we have the same quantity of those somewhat communicable attributes as God has, with devastating results.

Today, God is largely forgotten, while at the same time humanity no longer believes that we can solve all of our problems. We have come to understand that we create more problems than we solve, and that leads us to a sense of despair. There is nothing we can do, and we have come to realize that. Analysts of the current western culture sense that there is a deep feeling of hopelessness today that was not present at the beginning of the last century. What we know is not enough, and what we can do is insufficient.

Perhaps the pendulum has begun to swing, and perhaps the hopelessness will bring people back to a recognition of a need for someone bigger than themselves. If that is true, then it is also true that we, as Christians, have what they are looking for, for we know God, and we know how we can know him. It is through Jesus of course, so it does appear that Jesus is the solution to the world’s problems, for he brings us back to God. When we know God, we realize how small our accomplishments and abilities are, and we are more willing to listen to him and learn from him and, then, in an act of humility, seek his help. We have knowledge, but God’s knowledge is better, and we have power, but God’s power is far greater. Living without God results in all sorts of problems; living with him and before him will enable us to use our knowledge and power, as insignificant as they may be, for the good of humanity.

When in school I worked part time in the kitchen as a student, mostly cleaning and washing dishes. On Saturdays, a crew of students was called in to do a deep cleaning that involved taking apart the air make-up unit above the stove and cleaning every part. It was a lot of work, and one week one of my fellow students suggested to the supervisor that we clean it every other week. The supervisor, who was very experienced, gave permission and that week we did not clean the unit. The next week when we began cleaning, we found that it was four times as dirty as it would have been had we cleaned it the previous week. The supervisor knew the consequences of neglecting the normal cleaning regimen, and he knew that if left just one week, the job would be so much more difficult.

A large city in the United States was having a problem with a dramatic increase in major crimes – murder, assault, and the like, and the chief of police was looking for a solution. A decade or so before, the police, because they were short staffed, decided to overlook some of the more petty crimes – shoplifting and vandalism and the like – and did not arrest of prosecute the offenders. Someone suggested that if the police began to crack down on minor crimes as well as dealing with major crimes that this would lead to a decrease in major crimes. Because nothing else seemed to work, this is what the police force did, and in a few years the number of major crimes began to fall. The conclusion was that when people who commit minor crimes, if left unpunished, will escalate into committing major crimes.

We could say the same about sin. We recall the story of David and Bathsheba. David happened to see a woman bathing on the roof of a neighbouring house and instead of turning away, he sent for the woman and one thing led to another, and she became pregnant. Because she was married, this posed an additional problem, namely that her husband could charge him with adultery, so he had her husband killed. A minor sin, left unchecked, turned into a major sin and, technically, according to the law, David could have been put to death for causing the death of another. If David had repented of his first sin, voyeurism, he would not have become a murderer.

The last of the 10 Commandments is the command that we not covet anything that belongs to our neighbour. Coveting is a sin that unseen and does not seem to be that significant, for, after all, what harm is there in desiring something that belongs to another. Yet, we would have to admit that if we didn’t desire something that was not ours, chances are we would not break any of the other commandments either. For example, if I didn’t covet the chocolate bar in the convenience store, it’s unlikely that I would steal it. Similarly, if no one ever looked with desire at someone to whom they were not married, it is unlikely that anyone would commit adultery. Some have said that coveting is the first step toward breaking the other commandments, and if we avoid coveting, we will be much more obedient to God’s will in all aspects of life.

The Heidelberg Catechism, in its discussion on the 10 Commandments, doesn’t say much about coveting as a sin in and of itself. Instead, when it answers the question, “What is God’s will for you in the tenth commandment,” it says, “That not even the slightest thought or desire contrary to any one of God’s commandments should ever arise in my heart.” Clearly the authors of the Heidelberg Catechism believed that the sin of coveting was tied to all the other commandments and was the beginning point for breaking those commandments.

Thus, while coveting seems to be the most insignificant of all the commandments, it is more like the minor crime which, if left unchecked, will develop into major crime. It is like the dirt on a ventilation unit that if left uncleaned will result in the more rapid accumulation of more dirt.

So, how do we avoid coveting? It’s not easy, but perhaps the first step is to be grateful for what we have. People who covet are counting the things they don’t have while people who are grateful count the things they do have. If we are grateful for our relationships, our possessions, our friends, our place in life, everything that God has given to us, we will have far less time to covet that which we don’t have.

Thanksgiving Day is in a few days, and we will be reminded to give God thanks for all his blessings. It would be good if we could count our blessings over the next few days and give God thanks for all of them. We might well find that as we name our blessings, we don’t really have room for that which we don’t have. Perhaps being grateful is the best antidote to coveting, and if we avoid coveting, we might be just a little better at avoiding those other sins as well.

In John 3 we find Jesus having a conversation with a Pharisee named Nicodemus. We do not know much about Nicodemus except to say that he showed an interest in what Jesus had to say, and in his first words to Jesus, he shows that he believes that Jesus has come from God because he is able to do things which only God can do. Nicodemus, being a Pharisee and a leader of the Jewish people, was very interested in what God was doing in his world. Thus, he has an interest in what Jesus is doing.

In response to Nicodemus’ interest, Jesus says something that could be construed as being rather insulting to Nicodemus. He says, “No one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.” This could be construed as being insulting to Nicodemus because Nicodemus believed that he was very much part of the kingdom of God, for, after all, he was a Pharisee who was born into God’s covenant community and did his best to live in obedience to God’s commands. He saw himself as being a faithful citizen of the kingdom of God, and for Jesus to talk about seeing the kingdom of God was to say that perhaps Nicodemus was not yet a citizen of that kingdom.

It is helpful to understand that the concept of being born again was not foreign to Nicodemus. From time to time a Gentile would become convinced that the God of the Jews was the only true God, and he would seek to become part of the covenant community. Through circumcision and obedience to the commands, a God-fearing Gentile could become a Jew, and his conversion was often referred to as being born into the new community. His new life began at the moment he was welcomed into the covenant community. For Jesus to suggest to Nicodemus that he needed to be born again was a kind of an insult, for Jesus is implying that Nicodemus was outside of the kingdom of God.

Nicodemus displays a little puzzlement and frustration with Jesus when he asks how it would be possible for someone like him to be born again. Would he have to enter into his mother’s womb a second time to be born a second time? He seems to be implying that he doesn’t need to be reborn because he is already in the community. A rebirth would make no sense to him.

Reading this exchange in the English causes us to miss something that is far more evident in the Greek. The Greek word for “again” is more commonly understood as “from above.” While both understandings are equally valid, the more likely understanding is that Jesus meant “born from above,” but Nicodemus heard “born again,” perhaps because he did not want to admit that he needed something more than just his birth and his obedience to God’s commands to become part of God’s kingdom. It seems that Nicodemus is not willing to admit that it was not his own work that made him part of God’s kingdom but rather it was God’s work as God caused the new birth.

As the conversation continues, it becomes evident that Jesus was thinking of the more common understanding “from above” while Nicodemus decided to hear “again.” But what Jesus was saying to Nicodemus is this: being born into the covenant community and living obediently to God’s commands doesn’t make you part of God’s kingdom. What needs to happen is something that God does to you, not that you do yourself. Nicodemus needed to be born “from above” meaning that God had to act upon his life in such a way that he was included in the kingdom. In other words, inclusion in the kingdom is God’s action, not ours, meaning that all of Nicodemus’ striving to be the possible Pharisee he could be was for nothing, at least as far as becoming a faithful citizen of God’s kingdom is concerned.

Jesus explains a few moments later that flesh gives birth to flesh and spirit gives birth to spirit. In other words, all the human efforts that Nicodemus might put into being included in God’s kingdom do not result in him becoming part of the spiritual kingdom of God. Only that which is spiritual (not fleshly) can give bring about spiritual birth. Thus, it is only by the work of the Holy Spirit that we can be born into the spiritual kingdom of God.

What Jesus has done in his conversation is make being part of God’s kingdom an impossibility for all human beings if it is up to them. For a Pharisee that was not good news, for Nicodemus had been believing that he could, by way of his physical birth as a Jew and by being obedient to the law, become part of God’s kingdom. Of all the people who lived in Jesus’ time, the Pharisees were the most likely to have been the ones who were part of God’s kingdom. And Jesus has, in effect, told Nicodemus that not even he, a leading Pharisee, was able to accomplish that.

It is in this context that John, the one who records this conversation, gives us the solution to the problem: God loved the world so much that he sent his one and only Son so that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life (which, in John’s gospel, is equivalent to being part of God’s kingdom). As John explains further, light has come into the darkness, and by that light we can “see” the kingdom of God, to use Jesus’ earlier words. To become part of God’s kingdom is not something that Nicodemus could accomplish through his good works and by the good fortune of being born to the right parents. Nicodemus had to accept the work of Jesus who was raised up on the cross as being that one thing that would cause him to be born anew from above.

Nicodemus, it becomes evident, did believe in Jesus, for we see him participating in the burial of Jesus, something that he would not have done if he had thought that Jesus was not from God. I am fairly certain that we will see Nicodemus the Pharisee in heaven. The same can be said for all who believe in Jesus.

Eagles generally lay two eggs per year although some eagles have been known to lay up to four eggs in one year over a period of four days. Immediately after the first egg is laid, the mother eagle begins to incubate it. When she lays her second egg a day later, she also incubates that one and when the eaglets hatch, they come out of their shells a day apart. It is quite often the case that when it is obvious that the first eaglet will survive, the second eaglet receives only the leftovers. If there is not enough food, the second eaglet will probably die.

Chickens are very different. A hen will lay as many as a dozen eggs, one per day, but she will not incubate them right away. Rather, she waits to incubate the eggs until the last one has laid, and then she sits on all of them. Surprisingly, although the eggs were laid over a period of almost two weeks, they all hatch on the same day, and the same is true of ducks and geese. Although I have seen a hen with a dozen chicks, all the same age, it never occurred to me that though their eggs were laid on different days, they all hatched on the same day.

We could divide birds into two categories: predators and prey. Although it is not always true, predatory birds such as eagles and hawks and owls lay fewer eggs and their young hatch on different days. Birds, such as chickens and ducks, which tend to be prey (and also tend to be domesticated), have more offspring and their offspring hatch on the same day.

Although I didn’t think about this until I was in my late 40s, I was startled by how creation works. To this day, I am filled with wonder because of this phenomenon as simple as it is. Truly we have a wonderful Creator. I would never have thought to make predatory birds and their prey to be so different. It is truly marvellous, when we think about it.

When we look at creation, we do see the wonders of God, as the Belgic Confession teaches us. Creation is the first book of God’s revelation of himself, for in creation we can see the mind and heart of our Creator. The Bible, of course, is the second book of God’s self-revelation and focuses our attention on how God saves his creation, something that we cannot learn from creation itself. Yet, creation should always move us to marvel about God’s intricate wisdom.

Over the past few centuries, we have learned to understand creation more than anyone else who has ever lived. Many scientists who do not believe in God’s existence want us to believe that one day we will have all of creation completely figured out and when we do, we can become self sufficient. Now there is nothing wrong with wanting to understand creation, for God has built into us a curiosity that moves us to discover and learn, but when we believe that understanding creation will eliminate the need for us to believe in God, we are wrong. Some fear that learning too much will result in us feeling that we do not need God.

Christians, in a sense, have created a bit of a problem for themselves. Over the centuries, if something was unexplained, what was unknown was attributed to God. If there were gaps in our knowledge, the explanation was that it was God’s work. God became a God-of-the-gaps, but as the gaps were filled, it seemed that God became more and more unnecessary. For example, at one time people did not understand weather systems, and they attributed the movement of the clouds to God. Today, we know that the moon causes ocean currents to flow, those currents cause changes in the atmospheric temperatures, and that results in the cycle of condensation and precipitation. Some of the most complex machines that enable us to understand the very building blocks of the physical world (electrons, protons, etc.) have given us answers to questions about how the foundation of all matter works. With our greater understanding, we might be tempted to say that believing in God is no longer necessary.

But if only those things about creation that we do not understand cause to marvel in wonder, we are missing the point of God’s revelation of himself through creation. God doesn’t want us to look at creation and be amazed at how much we don’t know as if that will cause us to trust him more. He wants us to know how creation works and thus come to marvel at the Creator. The more we know about creation, it would seem, the more we become aware of how absolutely intricate and complex it is. Since God understands it all (and he didn’t have to create particle colliders and weather balloons to understand it), we can marvel at how great the wisdom of our God is. In fact, the more we understand about creation, the greater our awe of God should become.

For centuries, perhaps millennia, farmers have known the difference between birds who are predators and birds which tend to be their prey. They knew that hens brood on their clutch in such a way that all the chicks hatch on the same day. That truly is marvellous, especially when we compare the chicken to the eagle. More than just understanding creation and marvelling at how it works, our ancestors also learned how to use the creation for the benefit of humanity. Thus, when we have domesticated chickens and ducks and geese and can now make a three-egg omelette while being assured that the species we know as chickens will not die out. And that too is marvellous. So, not only is the phenomenon of a chicken producing chicks that all hatch on the same day, that same chicken can provide us with a vital food source, making our lives better. We might understand chickens and eagles quite well, and there may be little to learn about either species of bird, but that does not cause us to cease to marvel at how wonderful God is to have thought through how creation works. The more we learn about God’s creation, the more we will marvel at the God who made it.

Mount Zion is not a particularly large mountain. In fact, if you search for images of Mount Zion on the Internet, you will have trouble identifying anything that looks like a mountain. It’s a small hill in Jerusalem, and today it happens to be covered by a variety of buildings, including the Dome on the Rock, the third most sacred place for Muslims. Yet, in spite of the fact that Mount Zion is nothing more than an insignificant hill, the Bible proclaims that it is the most significant mountain in the world.

Mount Zion, earlier in Scripture, had a different name. In Genesis 22, we read that Abraham travelled to Mount Moriah to offer his son, Isaac, as a sacrifice. Mount Moriah is located in what is now Jerusalem, a hill that became known as Mount Zion. Most pictures that depict this scene of sacrifice show Abraham in a deserted area, but we know from Genesis 14 that Melchizedek was king in the city of Salem (the Hebrew for “city of Salem” would sound like Ir Salem, from which Jerusalem is derived), making the place where Abraham offered Isaac an inhabited place. Melchizedek, as we know, was a priest of the Most High God, who is identified in the book of Hebrews as the same God that Abraham worshipped. Even though the hill which has become identified as Mount Zion had a long history with God’s people, it did not become part of the territory controlled by the nation of Israel until David conquered it early in his reign.

David built himself a palace on the hill we know as Mount Zion, and his son, Solomon, built the temple of the Lord. The temple was known as the house of God, or, better, God’s palace from which he ruled over his people. In the Old Testament, God ruled his people through the king who had his throne on Mount Zion. Thus, Mount Zion becomes the place from which God reigns over his people in the Old Testament. But God’s reign was not limited to a particular territory as was the case with the Canaanite gods (who also were believed to rule from mountains). God ruled over the entire world from Mount Zion, the small hill in Jerusalem. And that is what gave it significance, not its size or physical stature among mountains. It was God’s presence and reign that makes Mount Zion the greatest mountain in the world, at least in Old Testament times.

Many have compared Mount Zion to the fulcrum or pivot point for the world. This is a helpful comparison, especially when we consider the essential nature of the pivots on our irrigation system. So important is the pivot, the centre point for the irrigation, that the whole assembly is referred to as the pivot, while we know, in fact, that the pivot is technically just the centre point. The centre point, the pivot, is essential for it is through the pivot that water flows, and it is essential for without the pivot, the irrigation assembly would wander off course. In the same way, Mount Zion is understood to provide life (water) to the world, and it is from Mount Zion that the world remains on track and functional. Without Mount Zion, Scripture teaches us, the world would not survive.

Mount Zion, then, becomes symbolic for the reign of God. In Psalm 44, a psalm which extols the virtues of Mount Zion, we see some of the impact of the reign of God over the universe. While the psalm does not cover every aspect of God’s reign, it does tell us that the nations of the world will find the mountain to be unconquerable. For God’s people who dwell within the city, they will experience safety and security, no matter what happens in the rest of the world. And, although mentioned almost in passing, Mount Zion will be a place of righteousness, a place where all people will be treated with justice, respect, and compassion. It is noteworthy that the name Melchizedek is translated as “King of Righteousness,” for he foreshadowed the reign of God as providing a kingdom where everything is made and kept right. These are just some of the benefits of having God as king as revealed to us by Psalm 44.

Since Jesus returned to heaven, the small hill in Jerusalem has lost much of its importance with regard to the reign of God. If, in the Old Testament, God reigned through the Davidic king, in the New Testament, he reigns through the descendant of David, Jesus Christ, who is seated at his right hand. In fact, in Hebrews 12:22 we learn that Mount Zion is no longer considered to be located in Jerusalem but rather is understood to be where God’s heavenly throne is and from which he will reign for all eternity. Yet, even while the location has changed, the reign of God continues.

Thus, when we are reading Scripture and encounter Mount Zion, we should be aware that what makes that small hill in Jerusalem so significant is that it is representative of God’s reign. It is the pivot which makes life on this earth possible, for from that place God accomplishes his will. Extolling the virtues of Zion, God’s capital city, is equivalent to extolling the virtues of God’s Kingdom, a Kingdom where all things will be made right and which will never end. A small hill is seen as a great mountain, for what happens on and from that small hill changes everything.

Routinely inspections are carried out on public buildings as a way to keep the building safe and up-to-date. Fire extinguishers, exit signs, and elevators need to be inspected regularly to ensure that they are in good working order. A fire extinguisher might hang on the wall, but if a fire breaks out and the extinguisher has lots its pressure, a small fire could rapidly become a large one, even destroying the entire building and taking lives. If we never had people inspect our building, it’s likely that we would let things slide, to our detriment. It is true that quite often these inspections cost the owners of the building some money, for fire extinguishers need to be replaced from time to time.

We often balk at rules and regulations, and sometimes they are a bit onerous, but we also understand that most of them are there for our own good. We don’t like to admit it, but most of us need someone else to hold us accountable so that we do what is expected of us. If things aren’t inspected, chances are we won’t do what is expected. As has often been said, we tend to do what is inspected rather than what is expected.

Perhaps another example: a few years ago two similar houses were being built in the lots next to our house. The framers for the first house were able to finish all the framing in one week while the framers for the second house took more than two weeks, and both crews had about the same number of guys with the same level of experience. The contractor for the second house wondered why his workers were so slow, and the answer came back: because the contractor for the first house was on site and made sure that his workers knew what to do and ensured that they did it. This second contractor showed up once or twice a day, if at all. While his workers were not incompetent, they were not being guided to do what was expected of them, they tended to be inefficient, and there were times when they were inactive.

We tend to do what is inspected not what is expected. In other words, if we are going to do what is expected of us, someone needs to hold us accountable. This is also true of living for Jesus. If we are not inspected, we may find ourselves not doing what is expected. For this reason, we need others to inspect our lives and hold us to what we should be doing. We call this being held accountable.

1 Corinthians is a prime example of the apostle Paul holding a church accountable. In that letter we find about ten different problems in the church that Paul has heard about from others, some of them more harmful than others but all of them significant. For example, a man was having sexual relationships with his stepmother, and Paul challenged the Corinthian church to discipline that man with the intention of leading him back to a Christ-like lifestyle. Or, as another example when the Corinthian church celebrated communion, they did so in such a way that they drew sharp lines between the various kinds of members. Because they did not treat their fellow believers are brothers and sisters, Paul warns them that they were eating and drinking judgement on themselves and putting the whole church in danger. Or, as another example, some of the members of that church were adopting dress codes and hair styles that would identify them as participating in the worship of the Roman pantheon of gods. Paul challenges the Corinthian church to consider what they are doing and urges them to live in unity with each other even while they are fully obedient and committed to following Jesus Christ.

If Paul wrote a letter to our church, and if he identified some of the things that we are doing that are not fitting for a follower of Jesus Christ, how would we respond? I suspect that we might be offended following the pattern of the world which tells us that when we identify an unsuitable behaviour in another, we are being judgemental. And judgementalism, according to our culture, is one of the greatest sins we can commit today. “You may not judge me,” we are told.

It becomes very difficult to hold each other accountable if accountability is seen as being judgemental. But there is a difference between the two. Being judgemental is to be condemnatory at the same time. Holding someone accountable is to do so for their own good. Paul, when he wrote his letter to the Corinthians, was not being judgemental, for his goal was not to condemn the church but to bring it back so that it conformed with the will of God. His purpose was for the Corinthian church to thrive and grow in Christ so that it could be a faithful witness to the gospel.

A few weeks ago someone went through our church building and inspected our fire extinguishers. The person who went through our church building and evaluated them was not being judgemental when she noticed that some of them need to receive a more thorough inspection and thus need to be replaced by new ones. She was not condemning our church, but, rather, she was given the task of evaluating our present situation so that we our building is kept safe so that it can be useful to us for ministry. We might chafe at the cost, but we know it is for our own good that our building is inspected, for we are well aware that we do what is inspected not what is expected.

So, who is given the responsibility of holding us accountable? It is all of us. All of us hold the rest of us accountable. Sometimes this task has been left to the pastor and elders and deacons, but they step in only as a last resort, after fellow believers have done all they can to urge their brother or sister to live by God’s Word. And we should all be willing to accept that others will hold us accountable. This is hard, especially when accountability is misconstrued to be judgementalism, but as followers of Jesus Christ, we can distinguish between the two. It is for our benefit that we hold each other accountable, and, ultimately, it is for the glory of God, for when we serve him well, God is indeed glorified.

In the book of Ruth, we are introduced to a family from Bethlehem. The father’s name was Elimelech which means, “My God is King.” His wife’s name was Noami, (pleasant) and they had two sons, Mahlon (weak, sickly) and Kilion (frail person). They had been living in Bethlehem (house of bread), but when famine came, Elimelech took his family to Moab purportedly to “save their lives.” While they were there Elimelech, Mahlon, and Kilion died, leaving only Naomi and her two daughters-in-law.

We are told, further, that this family lived during the time of the judges, who we can read about in the book of Judges. During that era, the people regularly turned away from the Lord, the Lord withdrew his hand of blessing and protection leaving the people in distress, they cried out to the Lord for help, and he saved them by sending judges or leaders to vanquish their enemies. As we know, the book of Judges shows us a whole series of judges/leaders who become increasingly sinful and disregarding of God’s ways until we reach the last listed Judge, Samson, who was a womanizer and violent murderer. The cycle of Judges (turning away from God, distress, crying out to God, salvation) should have taught the people that they could and should depend on their covenantal God for everything, yet they failed to do so.

As we read the opening verses of the book of Ruth, we should be somewhat disturbed. Elimelech, whose name professes that God is King, takes his family from Bethlehem, the place where God would provide food for his people, to go to Moab where the Lord was not known or worshipped. Elimelech made the decision to leave the Lord and put his trust in the Moabite god, Chemosh. We should be disturbed because Elimelech abandoned the God who had promised to provide for his people to put his trust in a different god. The NIV translates the Hebrew saying that he went there for a time, having us believe that he was only going to wait out the famine, but the Hebrew doesn’t need to indicate that. Rather, the Hebrew can be understood as saying that he went to Moab and was seen as an obvious foreigner, but he tried to overcome that by integrating his sons into the Moabite community by having them marry Moabite women. Years earlier, in the book of Numbers (Numbers 31), we see a similar integration and the purpose of that integration was to intentionally turn the Israelites away from the Lord to worship other gods. Elimelech’s intention to save his family from famine by bringing them to Moab resulted the removal of God’s covenant protection and in Elimelech’s death and the death of his sons, thus, in effect cutting his family off from history.

Added to all of this, because the Moabites years earlier had refused to provide for the Israelites as they travelled to the Promised Land but rather tried to bring a curse upon them through Balaam (the one of the talking donkey), any Israelite who had a Moabite ancestor in their previous 10 generations could not become fully integrated into the Israelite community (Deuteronomy 23:3-6). Elimelech, by finding Moabite wives for his sons, in effect, was preventing his grandchildren for the next 9 generations from being recognized as full Israelites and consequently, from being able to worship the Lord. The opening verses of the book of Ruth, thus, show us a faithless Israelite man who put his trust in foreign gods and bore in himself and his family the punishment for his unfaithfulness. Elimelech brought disaster on himself and his family because of his bad decision.

Meanwhile, back in Bethlehem, we see the people prospering. Further, we see the people there faithfully serving the Lord and thus experiencing his blessings. What is left of Elimelech’s family (his wife and two daughters-in-law) decide to return and perhaps be able to survive in Bethlehem and receive a small piece of the prosperity of that place. Naomi, when she returns, speaks of the bitterness of her life, and she seems to want to blame God for the disaster that befell her family. She says, “the Almighty has brought misfortune upon me” (Ruth 1:21). It sounds like she is blaming God, but we do not have to take it that way. In her words we can also see a recognition that leaving the Lord to trust the foreign false god, Chemosh, was a bad decision, one worthy of God’s anger and his withholding his blessings. It is unlikely that Naomi is accusing God but, more likely, is recognizing that God gave her family what covenant breakers deserve: a difficult and empty life.

What follows, however, in the book of Ruth is a complete reversal of fortune. As we know, Ruth, who commits herself to the Lord (in contrast to her late father-in-law), becomes the wife of a prominent Israelite and the eventual ancestor of one who would become king of Israel, David himself. What is particularly incredible is that God “forgets” his injunction that anyone who has Moabite blood less than 10 generations back not be included in the Israelite community and not be able to worship God and puts in place a descendant of Ruth the Moabitess who then becomes the king of God’s people and his son the builder of God’s temple.

What is more, Elimelech’s name is not forgotten. True, we remember him as a faithless one, an example which we should avoid following, but there is more. When Boaz marries Ruth, their children, in effect are Elimelech’s descendants to the effect that Elimelech’s name “does not disappear from among his family or from his hometown” (Ruth 4:10). Elimelech’s faithlessness does not result in his being excluded from among the people of God.

The story told in the book of Ruth, then, is not a story of one man’s failure or of one woman’s (Ruth’s) faithfulness. It is the story of God’s redemptive work in faithless man who did the best to erase his name from history by turning away from the Lord and who, by God’s grace, circuitously, is included in the story of Jesus’ ancestry. Elimelech sought to save his family and ended up doing just the opposite where as God worked through the failures and brought salvation not to Elimelech and his family but also to a member of the Moabite nation, something that we would never have believed could have happened. The story told in the book of Ruth, then, is a story of the power of God’s salvation in spite of the oft-times best efforts of humans to make the opposite true.