Friday, June 24, 2005

Here's one last piece from Stanley Hauerwas for a while.

"The name used to indicate the inseparability of worship, evangelism, and ethics is holiness….To be made holy is to have our lives rendered unintelligible if the God who has claimed us in Jesus Christ is not the true God. To be made holy is to have our lives 'exposed' to one another in the hope that we will become what we have been made."

"Holiness" is not likely to be a favorite word for many Lutherans, and maybe with some good reason. The word conjures up images of arrogance and empty moralizing-no one wants to be labeled "holier than thou" or associated with "holy rollers." We hear "holiness" talk and think of closed-minded withdrawal from the world or pretentious fire-and-brimstone preaching. With those mental pictures in mind, it's no wonder that Lutherans are not eager to pursue "holiness," whatever it is.

The problem for us Lutherans, however, comes the moment we read almost any of the New Testament, which unflinchingly calls the followers "a holy nation" and summons us to be holy as God is holy. But of course, to hear Jesus tell it, our holiness is never about abandoning an ungodly secular world because we are too wise or good for it. Rather, it is about being so profoundly shaped by the grace of God that our lives and our faith appear foolish. It is, as Cardinal Suhard of Paris once said, "to live in such a way that one's life would not make sense if God did not exist." For us, holiness is another way of saying that we will be so taken by the reckless love of God that we will really let it guide our actions and living-eve if it means we are dismissed as reckless and silly ourselves. Holiness, then, is the gift of being willing to be marked by love, even when-especially when-that love looks like silliness. What a gift to be so recklessly holy!

Connection: The extravagant love of God frees us to foolishly and recklessly love others. So here is a dare-think of some way that love of God might show up in your day if you had no inhibitions-and then let it happen. There is nothing to lose.

Holy One, pry open our fists clenched tight around our fears, and teach us to let go. And in open-handed surrender, let us become who you have declared us to be. Make us wholly holy. Amen