"Holy Places, Holy People"

Peter S. Buehler
First Presbyterian Church
April 6, 2008
1 Peter 1:13-23

Instead, as he who called you is holy,
be holy yourselves in all your conduct…

I'd like us to think about the word "holy." It's at the core of our scripture text: …as he who called you is holy, be holy yourselves in all your conduct. 1 Peter quotes a verse from the Old Testament book of Leviticus to add weight to the argument: for it is written, "You shall be holy, for I am holy" (19:2).

What comes to mind when we hear this? How do we understand its meaning? The dictionary gets us started. Holy is Belonging to or derived from a divine power; it has to do with God and our beliefs about what God is and does. Worthy of worship; revered -- the Bible, for example, is worthy of a most special place, even a sacred place, in our lives. Living according to a religious or spiritual system. We think of our Catholic brothers and sisters, men and women in monastic orders, who live "holy" lives, lives spent in a religious system.

But do we apply the word "holy" to ourselves? I have a feeling is not something we're comfortable doing. Me, holy -- are you kidding? is something we can hear ourselves saying. We tend to be more at ease talking about our flaws. When was the last time we heard someone say "I am trying to live a holy life"? We're OK with "good" -- as in I'm trying to live a good life; we talk about having a "full" or a "balanced" life. Today we seek balance among the different parts of our lives -- work, family, church, and community -- and "full" is certainly better than "empty."
But we don't ever talk about a wanting to live a "holy" life; it sounds arrogant. So unfortunately we don't distinguish between "holy" and the expression "holier than thou" -- the last thing in the world we want said of us!

Though it's not as though we're uninterested in holiness. We're fascinated by it, as we are by the fact that we live in a world where we are often reminded of God's beauty and holiness. Blue skies, green mountains, white-capped waves, bright colors in flowers and sunsets and rainbows.

Kati and I were on the East coast last week; it was as though spring was unsprung. Late March there is definitely the season of gray and brown. Go outside and, with the exception the sky, everything is a variation of brown: light brown, dark brown, medium brown, and gray -- light gray, dark gray, medium gray. We were walking outside and noticed some daffodils poking up through the ground and we got so excited by the prospect of flowers and some yellow amid the dead grass and bare trees.

Holiness appears in places we expect and least suspect. We think of the places we've visited that have stirred us, that have made us grateful to be alive. Great cathedrals and beautiful churches. Magnificent and unforgettable places in God's creation: sites in our national parks, works of nature we've come upon in our travels: pristine lakes, wide rivers, mile-high peaks, mile-deep canyons. These are awesome; they take our breath away. But smaller, more ordinary spaces can be holy too. Rooms we've lived in for a long time; places where we've had wonderful conversations; places where we've fixed nourishing meals for our families; spaces where we've concentrated on important tasks, where we've spent hours getting things right; spaces where we've spent hours praying, sitting in silence waiting, hoping, believing. Unexpected places become sacred spaces. A hospital room becomes sacred when a friend visits and shows compassion. A meeting room becomes sacred when a group, or a board, or a committee reaches a decision that involves faith and courage. A street corner becomes holy when a person stops and shows kindness and generosity toward a stranger. Holiness is our word for seeing and celebrating the evidence of God's beauty and love that surrounds us, and moves us, and motivates us.

It also means wholeness, completeness. When an artist finishes a painting with a final touch of color, knowing that one more brush stroke would detract, that the picture is finished, it's complete. We need places in our world we don't have to touch, to do anything more with or improve upon -- they're perfect as they are. We recognize moments in our lives when God is present, when not another word needs to be said, when our work is done, when the Holy Spirit has taken an ordinary moment in an ordinary day and made it sacred.

But there is another meaning to the word holy. It also means set apart, consecrated. So in the scriptures, it's not just things that are holy, people are holy -- God's people are set apart because God needs them to represent him, to be different from everyone else, not for their own sake or for their own glory but for the sake of God's love, mercy, and truth.

The people in the first-century churches of Asia Minor, the people being addressed in 1 Peter, were different. They had decided to follow Jesus: to turn from the pagan gods of the gentile world -- the gods their neighbors venerated and trusted -- and instead embrace the One who did the opposite of what gods did and went to a cross, dying a shameful death for the sake of ordinary people stuck in their sins.

Peter tells them that everything is different because of Jesus and his Word -- and they are different because of it. You have been born anew, he writes. How else to describe it! How else to describe having a whole new life, one where the Spirit of Christ himself is at work in us, so that we're not helpless and we're not alone!
Eugene Peterson translates 1 Peter: "Now that you've cleaned up your lives by following the truth, love one another as if your lives depended on it. Your new life is not like your old life…Just think, a life conceived by God himself!"

Life in the church -- the gift of life in the church -- is not some holier-than-thou existence we don't want to mention out loud because we don't want to embarrass our unchurched friends, life in the church, its blessing, is being part of a community where Christ revives us, holds us up. The church is a flotation device for living and believing, like the water wings babies and small children put on in the pool, so that instead of worrying about sinking they're smiling and confident and ready to have the time of their lives in the water.

How many times have we felt that we were sinking, only to discover that the church -- worship, prayer, people -- has given us back our smile. That we are born anew, God's holy hand holding our humanity, is not just a one-time thing, it's something we can count on.

Given this promise, this new life, we are called to be different and to make a difference, not by pulling away from our world but by giving ourselves to the world. Peter puts it this way in our scripture: Therefore prepare your minds for action; discipline yourselves; set all your hope on the grace that Jesus Christ will bring you when he is revealed.

Prepare your minds for action. This is it, this is key. We think of holiness, of holy people -- Mother Teresa, Martin Luther King, Jr. -- as so far beyond us that we don't want to apply the word to ourselves, but the scriptures insist that God has done a wonderful thing in our lives and that in Christ we are holy people! Not that we have it all together and are never wrong, never discouraged, never unsure of ourselves, but rather that we can set all our hope on the grace of Jesus Christ, therefore we live without fear.

Holiness is not a spiritual state we reach, holiness is our commitment to live our lives differently. Holiness is knowing that we are set apart -- we do not belong to ourselves, we belong to our faithful Savior, that we represent him, that he gives us what we need to show his love and justice to the world.

Christ calls us to live holy and joyful lives. But neither does he leave us all alone as "orphans (John 14:18)," as he tells the disciples; he comes to us, he gives us strength and Spirit.

So I'm thinking of those of you who go to work and face all kinds of pressures and challenges, but instead of being overwhelmed, or angry, or frustrated, you stop and think about Jesus, how he walked in the midst of crowds, people reaching out to him and making demands on him -- how he trusted God, kept his focus, spoke the truth, and showed kindness -- and you know you can do that too.

I'm thinking of those of you who are facing other challenges, maybe personal or family issues, but instead of trying to figure everything out so that all the issues will go away and be resolved, you think of Jesus, how he lived with faithfulness and obedience and love, how he promised that to his followers, and decide that is enough for you and you will live with that same trust.

I'm thinking of those of you who wonder about your children, or your grandchildren, or your parent(s), what their future will be like, if you'll have what it takes to be there through their ups and downs. But instead of worrying you focus on Jesus, taking notice of how he opened himself to his Father, how he opened himself to his disciples, to strangers, even opponents -- and you decide once again to open yourself to the people in your life, to love them as best you know how, and to leave their future and your own in God's hands.

I'm thinking of those of us who read the newspaper and watch the news and live in the world, those of us who wonder if we can make a difference, if our actions have any effect, if we can help make our community more peaceful, more just, more hospitable. But instead of wishing the world were easier and less complex, we remember Jesus and the prayer he taught his disciples. We repeat its phrases often, in so doing we focus on the things that are most important:
gratitude for daily bread and for all the ways God sustains us, forgiveness for others the way we are forgiven by the Lord himself, and trust that as we turn from temptation we will have the strength we need to walk uphill, to live holy and joyful lives.

Holiness is living each day with gratitude, forgiveness, and trust.