1
Peter 1:13-16
The
Holy Ones
James
Sledge August
2, 2015
Many
letters in the New Testament are addressed “To the saints who are in such and
such a place.” Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians opens, "To the
church of God that is in Corinth, to those who are sanctified in Christ Jesus,
called to be saints.”
As
many of you know, the term “saints” is used differently that it often is today.
The notion of saints as super-Christians is not found in the Bible. In the New
Testament, all the faithful are referred to as "saints."
But lest you think the term “saint” just a different way of saying “Christian,”
the word is often translated “holy.” And so it is possible to read those New
Testament letters, "To the holy ones who are in…” or “to those called to
be holy ones.”
The
biblical idea of holiness is probably more nuanced and multifaceted than many realize.
It includes notions of purity and righteousness, but it also speaks of being
consecrated, set apart for a special purpose. Holiness is a kind of distinctive
mark that designates people for a special task.
And this distinctiveness is supposed to reflect in some way the
distinctiveness of God. Our reading from 1 Peter emphasizes this, quoting God’s
voice from the Old Testament. “You shall be holy for I am holy.”
One other thing
about holiness, or at least about saints, the holy ones; in the Bible they
never occur in the singular. There is no Saint so and so. There is no one
described as a saint, no holy one, other than Jesus. It is always corporate, a
designation for the community of faith. Individuals have specific calls and
tasks, but only the community is called “the saints.” In that sense, “saints” and
“the body of Christ” are very nearly synonymous.
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Those
of you who worship here regularly know that the sermons since last December
have followed themes laid out in Brian McLaren’s book, We Make the Road by
Walking. The book is meant to be used over the course of a year, with a
chapter for each week. We are approaching the end of the book, finishing up the
section begun at Pentecost and organized around the theme, “Alive in the Spirit
of God.” It’s been an interesting journey for me, and for some of you who’ve
been following along in the book. Staying connected to McLaren’s themes has
forced me to shift the way I prepare sermons, but I’ve found it rewarding for
the most part; not so much today's chapter, however.
I couldn’t quite
understand how a chapter about holiness spent most of its time trying to
explain how judgement isn’t really a negative thing, how it is about God
setting things right. Not that disagree with that. I just wasn't sure what it
had to do with holiness. Still, I wonder if McLaren's efforts to rehabilitate
the idea of judgment might not be applied to the notion of holiness, that
saintliness we are called to as the body of Christ.
Just as the
notion of judgment suffers from negative stereotypes connected to condemnation
and punishment, so too holiness has its share of negative connotations. From
notions of “holier than thou” to a hyper religiousness that can’t have fun or
act like a normal person to impossible standards of purity, holiness or saintliness
is not something many folks aspire to. I wonder if some of our problems with
holiness don’t come from a similar place as our problems with judgment, a place
that sees God more in terms of “No,” of “Thou shalt not.” I wonder if our
perception of God doesn’t mess up our understanding of God’s judgment and God’s
holiness.
This is the
closing paragraph from Richard Rohr’s daily devotional a few weeks back. He
writes,
Genesis began with six clear statements
of original blessing or inherent goodness (Genesis 1:10-31), and the words
"original sin" are not in the New Testament. Yet the Church became so
preoccupied with the fly in the ointment, the flaw in the beauty that we forgot
and even missed out on any original blessing. We saw Jesus primarily as a
problem-solver rather than as a revealer of the very heart and image of God
(Colossians 1:15f). We must now rebuild on a foundation of original goodness,
and not on a foundation of original curse or sin. We dug a pit so deep that
most people and most theologies could not get back out of it. You must begin
with yes. You cannot begin with no, or it is not a beginning at all.[1]
I wonder if we
are afraid of holiness because we think it is an austere, solitary, impossible
burden. Yet the one individual who was holy on his own, Jesus, was a social guy
who loved a good dinner party and a drink, who hung out with all sorts of
folks, especially the sort that “holier than thou” types would have nothing to
do with. Jesus’ model of holiness looked nothing like a withdrawal from the
world, even if it did model a very different way from the world.
Jesus called us
to follow him, and so to mirror the sort of holiness that he modeled. This
looks little like the world's stereotypes of holiness, but it also looks very
different from the world. Jesus promises his followers the Spirit so that we
can live differently, can live lives that say by their actions, "There is
a more hopeful, more joyful, more giving, more loving way." Such living
not only fills our deepest longings, it also invites the world to share all
this with us.
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Rachel Held
Evans captures well our vocation as God's holy ones in her book, Search for
Sunday. She writes,
The purpose of the church, and of the
sacraments, is to give the world a glimpse of the kingdom, to point in its
direction. When we put a kingdom-spin on ordinary things— water, wine,
leadership, marriage, friendship, feasting, sickness, forgiveness— we see that
they can be holy, they can point us to something greater than ourselves, a
fantastic mystery that brings meaning to everything. We make something
sacramental when we make it like the kingdom. Marriage is sacramental when it
is characterized by mutual love and submission. A meal is sacramental when the
rich and poor, powerful and marginalized, sinners and saints share equal status
around the table. A local church is sacramental when it is a place where the
last are first and the first are last and where those who hunger and thirst are
fed. And the church universal is sacramental when it knows no geographic
boundaries, no political parties, no single language or culture, and when it
advances not through power and might, but through acts of love, joy, and peace
and missions of mercy, kindness, humility.[2]
Living into this
sacramental holiness, we come to the table, whoever we are. Wealthy or poor,
young or old, gay or straight, distinguished or unnoticed, simple or
sophisticated, strong or weak, all are welcome. The invitation takes no note of
grades or SAT scores or rank or status. It does not care whether or not we
consider ourselves worthy. It cares only that we have somehow caught the sound
of Christ's voice, that we are drawn to him and his call to follow.
Come, all who
are hunger and thirst for the new life Jesus promises. Come, feast upon God's
love and grace. Come to be strengthened for life as saints, God's holy ones,
the body of Christ. Come.
[2] Evans, Rachel Held (2015-04-14).
Searching for Sunday: Loving, Leaving, and Finding the Church (pp. 273-274).
Thomas Nelson. Kindle Edition.
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