“Holy” isn’t a word that’s used much nowadays. Outside Church, I doubt if ANYone says it; and inside Church, we’re all too busy assuring each other that we’re Good Enough. “Holy” implies strict standards and high hurdles. Some people train to jump higher and higher, but most of us just say that it can’t be done. There’s a recognizable fear that we can’t maintain our pampered-child lifestyle if we get too holy….which, of course, this week’s lessons address.
Leviticus? Are you kidding? Isn’t that the book with all the prohibitions about eating bacon and getting tattoos? Today’s text, 19:1,2, 9-18, reminds its hearers, “You shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy….”, then gives some f’rinstances: leave some of your harvest for the poor; don’t lie or cheat; don’t take advantage of your employee or the physically challenged; neither slander nor attack others; “love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord.” Like any parent, God expects us to do our best work!
Paul begins the Epistle reading well: “According to the grace of God given me…” (I Corinthians 3:10). Train as hard as we can, we’ll still have a “holiness ceiling” which can only be surpassed by such grace. No saints have realized their potential due to their human exertions, they had to have Divine Help. The key is to acknowledge this Help and thus to align their aspirations to it. Oft-quoted are verses 16 & 17, “Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you? …For God’s temple is holy, and you are that temple.” Lord, help me to know what you’ve created me to be!
And we continue to explore the Sermon on the Mount, this time in Matthew 5:38-48. Jesus contrasts the Old Way with God’s Way: don’t retaliate like kids on the playground, but gain the respect of the bully by going one better. Don’t question the beggar’s worth, but share what you can. Go outside your comfort zone to love the unlovable and those from other cultures and religions. And then, right between the eyes, “Be perfect, therefore, even as your heavenly Father is perfect.” Omigosh.
The Methodist movement was built around this concept of holiness for everyone. At Oxford, John & Charles Wesley and some other students met “methodically” in what they called “the Holy Club” to study scripture and inform their lives around its integrity. They became convinced that holiness involved taking food to the slums, standing by those in hospital and the drunk-tank, and offering hope to the prisoners. As Methodism spread to America, Wesley instructed his missionary preachers to “spread scriptural holiness throughout the land”. As a preacher this Sunday, I hope to inspire others to know themselves as Children of God’s Perfect Creation: sustained by Grace and taking their Holiness as an amazing gift!
God Bless Us! Every One! Horace Brown King
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