The Holiness Of The Sacred
Sermon
Sermons On The Second Readings
For Sundays In Advent, Christmas, And Epiphany
In the April 7, 1999, issue of The Upper Room, Merial Scott of South Dakota wrote the following:
One summer morning when I was very small, Mother woke me with the words, "Get up and dress quickly now. I'm frying trout for breakfast." Astonished, I wondered how we could have newly caught fish when the day had just begun. At the table, I learned that my father had driven at dawn to one of his favorite streams and gotten a strike on almost every fly he cast.
The unexpected breakfast was less of a surprise than the startling realization that my parents lived a life quite separate from mine. Their activities were not limited to my waking hours. A whole world operated without my knowledge.
As an adult, I find that God also moves in ways and places of which I am totally unaware.
Did you hear that? The writer was shocked to learn that his parents lived a life quite separate from his. Their life was connected intimately with his, but there was a whole part that was unknown, and the realization jolted him into a new awareness of his world and theirs.
"Separate." What an eye-opening thought it was for me when I learned that the fundamental meaning of the word "holy" in Hebrew and Greek is "separate." Something that is holy is separate from the common things of life. Therefore in the scriptures we see holy rituals and traditions which depended on disciplines of separateness as a means to glorify God. Separate dishes for separate foods. Separate leaders for separate, holy functions. Clean, separate from unclean. Holy. Separate.
Unfortunately, over time, these traditions became human devices, human laws defining what and who was holy and worthy before God. Such laws and traditions began to exclude more and more of God's creation. Instead of promoting the holiness of God by setting aside separate places and rituals, such rituals began to separate people from people and people from God.
Clean and unclean became clean people and unclean people. For example, those with leprosy were unclean, and with the undergirding of the religious establishment lepers were ostracized from the community. The poor and the tax collectors and the adulterers also began to be separated out of community, with the support of, if not by the very initiation of the religious community. It all seemed so right; after all, God is holy and clean and righteous, and hates sin.
And then along comes Jesus. And what does he do?
Well, take those, for example, who suffered from that terrible disease called leprosy. How did Jesus relate to them? It was crystal clear what he was supposed to do. Jesus knew the law. Listen to the "holy" law about how to deal with lepers:
The leper who has the disease shall wear torn clothes and let the hair of his head hang loose, and he shall cover his upper lip and cry, "Unclean, unclean." He shall remain unclean as long as he has the disease; he is unclean; he shall dwell alone in a habitation outside the camp. -- Leviticus 13:45-46 (RSV)
It was the religious establishment that set up those rules. And many in the church today still want to follow some of those old laws which cut people off from the community.
Ah, but what did Jesus do? Listen.
Behold, a leper came to him and knelt before him, saying, "Lord, if you will, you can make me clean." And he stretched out his hand and touched him, saying, "I will; be clean." And immediately his leprosy was cleansed. -- Matthew 8:2-3
Jesus touched the leper. His compassion was greater than the law which required separation. Do we cut people out of our lives because they are "unclean" according to society or an old church tradition?
Jesus was able to stand with those who were either different or sinful, and love them. In so doing, he unleashed a power for healing and change that came straight from the heart of God.
You see, Jesus showed us that the holy life consists in recognizing how separate God's way is from our ways. Jesus lived a life that clearly articulated the fact that the holiness to which we are called involves embracing the amazing way of God. This way assumes that God will work in ways totally different from the way we might expect. God's ways are separate from our ways, as the prophet Isaiah said so beautifully (Isaiah 55:8). They might include a tiny baby. They might include using someone seen by the world as repulsive. They might include a moth shutting down a whole computer system, or a man on a cross shutting down a whole system of "doing religion," of relating to God.
My what a stir it causes when we follow God's radical ways. Society and friends and family call us naive. We are do-gooders. We are fools. Loving our enemies. Turning the other cheek. Emptying ourselves of power so God can use us in powerful ways.
Saint Paul said very plainly that "the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved, it is the power of God. For it is written, 'I will destroy the wisdom of the wise ...' " (1 Corinthians 1:18-19 RSV).
And then he nails it down further with these words, in verse 25: "For God's foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God's weakness is stronger than human strength."
Someone who lives according to Jesus' way will be seen by the world as a fool. Have you ever felt like a fool when you have followed the way of Jesus? Have you ever been kind to the nerd at school and felt the eyes of your classmates on you?
God's way is so different, so extraordinary, so separate from that which we are encouraged to accept as normal. God's sacred, holy ways which Jesus lived out, are astounding, astonishing, and unexpected.
In fact that was why the Jews simply could not accept Jesus as the Messiah. They had certain expectations of what the Messiah would do. Because Jesus did not fit that expectation, they could not see him as the Messiah. As the rabbi said in a recent Newsweek magazine article about Jesus, "Jesus didn't obey the Torah, so of course he could not be the Messiah!"
The way of Jesus is different. The way to holiness, to God, to the abundant life, is not to be discovered simply by thinking it through. It comes from a separate realm. It is of God. It is holy. Which is why the scriptures call us to pray constantly (1 Thessalonians 5:17) and remain an intimate part of the Body of Christ, the Church (Acts 2:42). It's the only way we will have the wisdom and the strength to live the Christian life.
The way of the cross, such things as radical compassion for all people, voluntary weakness, and crushing defeat, all of these, when offered to God, can bring new life. That, to the world is utter foolishness. But if we can stand the ridicule of our friends and maybe even our family, it is the way to the meaningful and exciting and fulfilling life which we all long for.
As Michael Card wrote: "When we in our foolishness thought we were wise, he played the fool and he opened our eyes."
Jesus calls each of us now not to figure it out -- but to live it out.
One summer morning when I was very small, Mother woke me with the words, "Get up and dress quickly now. I'm frying trout for breakfast." Astonished, I wondered how we could have newly caught fish when the day had just begun. At the table, I learned that my father had driven at dawn to one of his favorite streams and gotten a strike on almost every fly he cast.
The unexpected breakfast was less of a surprise than the startling realization that my parents lived a life quite separate from mine. Their activities were not limited to my waking hours. A whole world operated without my knowledge.
As an adult, I find that God also moves in ways and places of which I am totally unaware.
Did you hear that? The writer was shocked to learn that his parents lived a life quite separate from his. Their life was connected intimately with his, but there was a whole part that was unknown, and the realization jolted him into a new awareness of his world and theirs.
"Separate." What an eye-opening thought it was for me when I learned that the fundamental meaning of the word "holy" in Hebrew and Greek is "separate." Something that is holy is separate from the common things of life. Therefore in the scriptures we see holy rituals and traditions which depended on disciplines of separateness as a means to glorify God. Separate dishes for separate foods. Separate leaders for separate, holy functions. Clean, separate from unclean. Holy. Separate.
Unfortunately, over time, these traditions became human devices, human laws defining what and who was holy and worthy before God. Such laws and traditions began to exclude more and more of God's creation. Instead of promoting the holiness of God by setting aside separate places and rituals, such rituals began to separate people from people and people from God.
Clean and unclean became clean people and unclean people. For example, those with leprosy were unclean, and with the undergirding of the religious establishment lepers were ostracized from the community. The poor and the tax collectors and the adulterers also began to be separated out of community, with the support of, if not by the very initiation of the religious community. It all seemed so right; after all, God is holy and clean and righteous, and hates sin.
And then along comes Jesus. And what does he do?
Well, take those, for example, who suffered from that terrible disease called leprosy. How did Jesus relate to them? It was crystal clear what he was supposed to do. Jesus knew the law. Listen to the "holy" law about how to deal with lepers:
The leper who has the disease shall wear torn clothes and let the hair of his head hang loose, and he shall cover his upper lip and cry, "Unclean, unclean." He shall remain unclean as long as he has the disease; he is unclean; he shall dwell alone in a habitation outside the camp. -- Leviticus 13:45-46 (RSV)
It was the religious establishment that set up those rules. And many in the church today still want to follow some of those old laws which cut people off from the community.
Ah, but what did Jesus do? Listen.
Behold, a leper came to him and knelt before him, saying, "Lord, if you will, you can make me clean." And he stretched out his hand and touched him, saying, "I will; be clean." And immediately his leprosy was cleansed. -- Matthew 8:2-3
Jesus touched the leper. His compassion was greater than the law which required separation. Do we cut people out of our lives because they are "unclean" according to society or an old church tradition?
Jesus was able to stand with those who were either different or sinful, and love them. In so doing, he unleashed a power for healing and change that came straight from the heart of God.
You see, Jesus showed us that the holy life consists in recognizing how separate God's way is from our ways. Jesus lived a life that clearly articulated the fact that the holiness to which we are called involves embracing the amazing way of God. This way assumes that God will work in ways totally different from the way we might expect. God's ways are separate from our ways, as the prophet Isaiah said so beautifully (Isaiah 55:8). They might include a tiny baby. They might include using someone seen by the world as repulsive. They might include a moth shutting down a whole computer system, or a man on a cross shutting down a whole system of "doing religion," of relating to God.
My what a stir it causes when we follow God's radical ways. Society and friends and family call us naive. We are do-gooders. We are fools. Loving our enemies. Turning the other cheek. Emptying ourselves of power so God can use us in powerful ways.
Saint Paul said very plainly that "the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved, it is the power of God. For it is written, 'I will destroy the wisdom of the wise ...' " (1 Corinthians 1:18-19 RSV).
And then he nails it down further with these words, in verse 25: "For God's foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God's weakness is stronger than human strength."
Someone who lives according to Jesus' way will be seen by the world as a fool. Have you ever felt like a fool when you have followed the way of Jesus? Have you ever been kind to the nerd at school and felt the eyes of your classmates on you?
God's way is so different, so extraordinary, so separate from that which we are encouraged to accept as normal. God's sacred, holy ways which Jesus lived out, are astounding, astonishing, and unexpected.
In fact that was why the Jews simply could not accept Jesus as the Messiah. They had certain expectations of what the Messiah would do. Because Jesus did not fit that expectation, they could not see him as the Messiah. As the rabbi said in a recent Newsweek magazine article about Jesus, "Jesus didn't obey the Torah, so of course he could not be the Messiah!"
The way of Jesus is different. The way to holiness, to God, to the abundant life, is not to be discovered simply by thinking it through. It comes from a separate realm. It is of God. It is holy. Which is why the scriptures call us to pray constantly (1 Thessalonians 5:17) and remain an intimate part of the Body of Christ, the Church (Acts 2:42). It's the only way we will have the wisdom and the strength to live the Christian life.
The way of the cross, such things as radical compassion for all people, voluntary weakness, and crushing defeat, all of these, when offered to God, can bring new life. That, to the world is utter foolishness. But if we can stand the ridicule of our friends and maybe even our family, it is the way to the meaningful and exciting and fulfilling life which we all long for.
As Michael Card wrote: "When we in our foolishness thought we were wise, he played the fool and he opened our eyes."
Jesus calls each of us now not to figure it out -- but to live it out.
