We want holiness; a holy way

Holy. The entire point of ethics, the reason God goes to such great lengths to enumerate and repeat and explain what constitutes bad behavior and what makes for sane, stable and loving behavior, comes down to holiness. Apparently, and truly, holiness is not something we can do on our own. We need help. We need direction and correction and companions. Holiness, though, is somehow apparent to us. When we see it, we recognize it. Holiness is wholesome; it takes practice and it requires support from each other. 

“You shall not go about spreading slander among your kin; nor shall you stand by idly when your neighbor's life is at stake.”

Unfortunately, quite often the picture of holiness doesn’t match our homemade renderings. As we live together we change the landscape of holiness to better fit how we live together. We tweak it here and there. In a democracy holiness is compromised in order to accommodate a whole rash of desires and goals and expectations. For autocratic communities holiness also gets stifled. Stiff rules bend people’s wills, insisting upon conforming behavior rather than fostering it.

Both approaches may be constitutionally effective, but individual wills still fester, looking for a better construct, a truly holy way. 

God's will is not safe, but it is holy


http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/031119.cfm
Leviticus 19:1-2, 11-18
Matthew 25:31-46


When we hear this litany of “Shall Nots” in Chapter 19 of Leviticus many of us think of the 10 Commandments. In fact, this chapter does line them out, but differently from the traditional presentation of the 10 Commandments that takes place in two other locations of the Old Testament — in Exodus 20 and in Deuteronomy 5. 

This is the standard list of commandments:  

1. You shall have no other gods.
2. You shall not make idols. 
3. You shall not misuse the name of the Lord.
4. Remember the Sabbath, keep it holy.
5. Honor your father and mother.
6. You shall not murder. 
7. You shall not commit adultery.
8. You shall not steal.
9. You shall not lie. 
10. You shall not covet.

Leviticus details these same commandments in an entirely different way. Called God’s instructions to Israel on holy living, Leviticus outlines in exceptional clarity all kinds of specifics for the commandments, plus conduct, sexuality, worship, holy days, penalties, sanctity, purity, and on and on. Chapter 19 offers the rewrite of the tablets from Moses.

The book does a good job of reorganizing the commandments into categories that make sense to us. Three of them — numbers 3, 8 and 9 — are presented as one section. They make good companions.

“You shall not steal. You shall not lie or speak falsely to one another. You shall not swear falsely by my name, thus profaning the name of your God.” 

Our reading today cuts out quite a few of the verses, but if you get a few minutes review the whole chapter. They are quite helpful. Verse three, which was skipped today, begins the rewrite joining together honoring mother and father and remembering to keep the Sabbath — Commandments 3 and 4, plus a pointer to number 1. 

“Each of you revere your mother and father, and keep my sabbaths. I, the Lord, am your God.”

We also get some valuable conduct advice woven into the commandments that extends the breadth of the tablet's intent. In verses 9 and 10, for instance, we are told that, “You shall not pick your vineyard bare, nor gather up the grapes that have fallen. These things you shall leave for the poor and the alien.” Great wisdom for us today. The poor and the alien should be allowed to wander through our land and pick through what’s left from our abundance. The ramifications of that are tremendous.

The repetition of such useful ethical standards, especially when based upon the 10 Commandments, takes place throughout the scriptures by almost every author of the Old and New Testaments. In each case the point of identification for what we should do and what we should not do is based upon a surprising premise. Ethical behavior may well be good for government, family life, neighborhood stability, and even personal hygiene, but that’s not the real purpose. The purpose for these standards and outlines of conduct are for holiness. 

“You shall be holy, for I the LORD your God am holy.”

Holy. The entire point of ethics, the reason God goes to such great lengths to enumerate and repeat and explain what constitutes bad behavior and what makes for sane, stable and loving behavior, comes down to holiness. Apparently, and truly, holiness is not something we can do on our own. We need help. We need direction and correction and companions. Holiness, though, is somehow apparent to us. When we see it, we recognize it. Holiness is wholesome; it takes practice and it requires support from each other. 

“You shall not go about spreading slander among your kin; nor shall you stand by idly when your neighbor's life is at stake.”

Unfortunately, quite often the picture of holiness doesn’t match our homemade renderings. As we live together we change the landscape of holiness to better fit how we live together. We tweak it here and there. In a democracy holiness is compromised in order to accommodate a whole rash of desires and goals and expectations. For autocratic communities holiness also gets stifled. Stiff rules bend people’s wills, insisting upon conforming behavior rather than fostering it.

Both approaches may be constitutionally effective, but individual wills still fester, looking for a better construct, a truly holy way.   

Folks who’ve lived under autocrats learn to live by keeping their heads down, walking on egg shells, living secret lives, and eventually joining the policing activities of the regimen to keep the peace. Those in a democracy learn to compromise differently, but still end up accommodating the squeaky wheel extremes out of indeterminate goals of fairness and equality. Holiness has little to do with peace and accommodation. It's similar to mistaking happiness for joy, and satisfaction for love.

God knows this about us. His way is neither a democracy nor an autocracy. Holiness is defined by him, not us, so the only way to align God's will with society is by aligning our own to his. Neither force nor votes will align society to God. 

"For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, a stranger and you welcomed me, naked and you clothed me, ill and you cared for me, in prison and you visited me."
Matthew 25:35-36

God tells us to be like him. “Be Holy, for I am holy,” he says. We know that at the root of the Hebrew people that they were chosen to stand out, in fact to be a separate people, different from the rest of human populations. Their behaviors and conduct were to reveal how God’s holiness countermands the world’s view of holiness. Leviticus provides a picture for how holiness is translated into aligning our will to God's will.

“You shall not curse the deaf, or put a stumbling block in front of the blind.”

“Show neither partiality to the weak, nor deference to the mighty, but judge your fellow men justly.”

“Take no revenge and cherish no grudge against your fellow countrymen. You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

Proverbs and admonitions from various holy scriptures around the globe make similar statements, but none of them really base their concepts of holiness upon the makeup of the creator, which he has assigned for us to follow. We should do this in order to be like God. The purity expected from most rules of order primarily come from compromise and dictates for just and verdant societies. They are rules that drag our societies into honoring the lowest common denominator, or separating the privileged from the unlucky. 

For God, love lives in holiness, urging that all are drawn to the highest of expectations. The bar is so high, in fact, we can only grasp it as we become divine; separate from God but wholly like him. That's incredibly revolutionary. Holiness at the level of divinity. Whew. The commandments on conduct and purity outlined for the Jewish people were to reveal the holiness of God in order that they would be like God. 

God wants us to be like him. There is no better purpose for creation than to live with and be like the creator.

Yet, here we are in our shoes, holey from sin, rather than holy sinless. Our initial reaction to a shall not or you shall jolts at someone telling us what to do. What are we? Sheep? Are we just set out graze upon God’s admonitions and descriptions without our own wills? Yes, he became the lamb to show us how holiness works. Our will is blown into divinity when we join it to God. God jolts us for another reason than manipulated submission. "Be holy." He is expecting us to operate from the same place as he is, which is how he has made us. He shows us what constitutes both his will and his holiness. He reveals to us what holiness means in every way possible. He is not silent. His whispers are so loud we have to cover up our ears to escape his truth. He wants us at his side. Once we understand that being with God is not for our safety and our happiness but for his companionship and love, and the subsequent love of all that follow him, we are faced with a difficult decision. We are faced with a choice for holy community, the apex of creation's purpose.

“You shall be holy, for I the LORD your God am holy.”

We like our safety and peace in accommodation and forced order. God’s order of things is not like anything we know in human structure, but is true in every way when we hear it. “You shall not bear hatred in your heart.” Not because there is a penalty, but because to do so is to be like God.

Though we must operate within society, whether in our own family, the workplace, or the community, the holiness expected and projected by God supersedes. Nothing else, and no-one else should stop us from the holiness expected by God. God’s Holiness weighs more than anything else. And soon, when Jesus comes, and takes his place as our King, all will be reordered and he will call to himself those who have agreed and decided to be like him.

"When the Son of Man comes in his glory,
and all the angels with him,
he will sit upon his glorious throne,
and all the nations will be assembled before him. 

And he will separate them one from another,
as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.

Come, you sheep, who are blessed by my Father.
Inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.”
Matthew 25:31-34

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