holiness

Holiness is a church word, which is to say that it has baggage–popular usage that has diminished its helpfulness for contemporary discourse. If someone seeks holiness, they are seen as aloof and odd. But what does holiness mean? Is it about moral superiority, escapism, and self-righteous finger-pointing? No. Holiness is about the elimination of things that destroy.

It is important to note the connection between the word 'holiness' and wholeness and healing. David Bosch brought this out briefly in discussing the mission of the church. I wonder if many people who are put off by the current connotations that come along with the word 'holiness' would be more willing to seek it if they understood it in terms of wholeness and healing. Would it not be good for us to find that in our lives, the relationships around us, and society in general?

Holiness is about breathing life, and not death, into our actions and relationships. We often see people who eliminate certain actions which are, no doubt, destructive, but still hold close other actions and attitudes which, though more socially acceptable, are equally as dangerous and destructive. Arrogance about one's abstinence from certain destructive behaviors is itself a sure sign of sickness. The holy person is not the one who shakes his finger at 'sinners,' but rather the one who helps her fellow brothers and sisters to see the way toward healing.

I hear our call to holiness as a call to consider everything that destroys and to refuse to embrace those things–embracing, instead, things that breathe life, love, justice, healing, and beauty into the world around us. No wonder these acts come from God and require our dependence and cooperation. We need to reclaim holiness as a word, as an idea, and most urgently as a practice.

we believe in the resurrection

We believe in the Resurrection of Jesus. We don't just believe that the resurrection happened. We don't just believe things about the resurrection of Jesus. We believe in the Resurrection of Jesus.

In a world where it appears that death wins, where violence, murder, disease, and terrorists might cause us to fear and lose heart, we say that we believe in the Resurrection of Jesus. We say that there is a power beyond our understanding that is able to give life back to those who've lost it. And not metaphorical life, but real, actual, fish-eating, hand-touching, word-speaking, bread-breaking, sitting down at the table life.

We believe in the Resurrection of Jesus. In a world that teaches and trains us to protect and secure ourselves, we say there is a power at work now in this world that exposes the fragility and short-sightedness of such so-called securities, and offers, no, promises and has proven the ability to deliver us through, not merely from, danger and death.

We believe in the Resurrection of Jesus. And so we refuse to accommodate ourselves to the fear, despair, and cynicism all around us. We choose, instead, to give words and expression to the groaning of the creation. We say that a new day has begun, and the darkness all around us will find no more safe quarter, for the light of life has dawned. Death's teeth have been pulled; it holds no threat any longer.

So we live our lives with abandon. We stand up for and alongside those who are most at risk, and we say in word and in action that we believe in the Resurrection of Jesus. God has begun His good revolution, and change is on the way. Oppression, violence, deception, rejection, selfishness, apathy, brutality, manipulation, malice, murder, hatred and all their kind are living on borrowed time.

We believe in the Resurrection of Jesus. So we refuse to be seduced or coerced into sharing in the behavior of that which will be removed and replaced. Instead, we love rather than hate, we share rather than steal, we give rather than take, we show kindness rather than brutality, we tell the truth rather than deceive, we hope rather than despair, we believe rather than doubt, we help rather than oppress, we heal rather than destroy, we embrace rather than strike, we lose rather than win at any cost. Because we believe in the Resurrection of Jesus.