Being Holy

 Knowing that I needed to talk to you about this passage from Leviticus I set out on Monday morning to be holy; I sprang from my bed with holy intentions, I said to myself, yes I will try to spend a holy day. By 7.35 - AM that is, the enormous red digger that was there, right there against the garden fence roaring and crushing great stones and boulders and being shouted at by the foremen of the site and disturbing my reflections was already causing me irritation. Moreover it was a chilly day and the best place to sit was in the sun facing the monster leaving me the impossible choice of being either cold and irritated or deafened and irritated. All attempts at holiness had leached away and my love for my neighbour, now an ugly red digger was non-existent. 

Yet Moses when speaking to the congregation of Israel, the nation set apart by God as his special people, is told to tell them “You shall be holy, for I, the Lord your God is holy.”  Which begs the question who shall we emulate? We hold an advantage over the Israelites of Moses’ time for we have Jesus Christ as our example and we may and I would argue we should set our sights on him. Faced though with inevitably falling short, what do we understand holiness to be? The book of Leviticus famously telles us many things that holiness is not of which only a tiny number are mentioned in this morning’s reading. It is not judging unjustly, and we might say in the light of Jesus’ teaching that it is not judging at all. You shall not hate your kin, and again in view of what Jesus tells us we shall not hate anyone at all even our enemies. 

Emulating God, “be holy for I am the Lord your God”, seemed too much for me and I am  not sure that Jesus makes it easier. A priest friend of mine used to say they preferred to emulate Peter, at least he had made notable mistakes and so there may be a sporting chance. I continue to say we should try to be like Jesus, after all he came to show us the way. But then what would it be like to try to be truly holy by being like Jesus? It seems I have to first love myself. This I can assure you is not easy, for I know, or think I know, or think I might know the terrible things in my heart, all the pent up unholiness past and present.  It would seem much easier to love someone else, Frances, my children, you, of whom I know comparatively little. 

Still there is that line from Plato to consider:

“Is that which is holy loved by the Gods or is it holy because it is loved by the Gods?”

So there we are, If God can love me despite those things that I know, think I know, think I might know but God does know then, maybe that makes me holy as a creation of God himself. So it is important for me to tell myself every day “God loves me” otherwise I shall forget and then red diggers or not I have no chance to be holy at all.

Amen