1 Peter 2:9-12; Romans 8:1-4, 14-17;
Genesis 1:31-2:3; Psalm 46

For the past several months, Angela and I have been enjoying a fairly intense study of the Middle Ages in our spare time. When I think of the Middle Ages, I often envision the era of knights and castles, and that kind of romantic vision that comes to us from stories like those of King Arthur and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. However, to fully understand the Middle Ages, one must actually look back further into history, to the time of ancient Rome to understand how society transformed from one giant empire into a jigsaw puzzle of small kingdoms. It is essential to comprehend the movement of people from cities into the country side, as well as the flow of ideas from global to local. Additionally, the spread of Christianity—from a very small group of a few hundred followers immediately after the resurrection, to becoming the dominant world religion of the known continents and tens of thousands—this merits our attention.

The question that always comes to my mind when I think about the expansion of Christianity in those early days is: What caused opinions to change? Here’s what I mean. We have documented evidence from Romans in high society during the very early days of Christianity. Governors, senators, poets, and playwrights all wrote down their thoughts about this new, annoying religious movement. Many of them found it strange and odd. Unlike the religion of Rome and Greece, and other parts of the known world, there were no sacrifices. There were no temples, really, because after the fall of the Jerusalem temple, the Christians just met in homes, or sometimes in tombs, and other places that were out of the way from prying eyes and ears.

This led some of the leading intellectuals of the day to consider Christian’s atheists because they did not believe in the gods. They did not work for the betterment of society, it was thought, because they did not support Rome or the emperor, or the things that the Romans believed made the world go round – such as slavery, extortion, boasting, violence. But another strange thing about these “believers” or “followers of the way,” as they called themselves, or “Christians,” as the ancient Romans and ancient Jews called them (which was really an insult meaning “little Christs”), was that these Christians were known for their radical hospitality. They cared for those whom society looked on as deserving their fate.

They cared about the mistreatment of slaves – instead of laughing at their deaths in the arena. They cared about the abandonment of infants to their fate by exposing them to the elements or selling them into slavery – instead of choosing only the strong and good-looking to survive. They cared about sick people who could not afford medical care – instead of letting nature take its course. They cared about people who had leprosy and other communicable diseases that society ostracized into colonies or worse – instead of cheering when they stopped needing the resources provided by the rich and healthy city.

And Christians gathered together and performed strange rituals. It was rumored, and confirmed, that they had practices of stripping naked and bathing in ritual water, free trading of clothes and household goods, and coming together to eat a meal. It was all so different from what made Roman society function. There was none of the competition, none of the social hierarchy, none of the working to appease the gods and secure the good fortune of the empire. And at the center of this faith was the worship of a man whom the Roman Empire had, in their minds, rightly executed as an enemy of the state.

The people of the Roman empire began noticing something paradoxical—how these Christians, even in the face of death, would forgive their tormentors and face the end with a calm acceptance that they could not fathom. It perplexed them, as it was unlike the usual desperation or defiance they expected from condemned individuals. Some people began to question the righteousness of such persecution, wondering if there was more to this faith that fostered such unshakeable fortitude. This was not a sudden shift. Rather, it was a gradual transformation that spread quietly within the empire. The rigidity of Roman belief in the pantheon of gods slowly started to waver. The empire itself was weakening, unable to hold the borders against invaders.  As people saw more and more Christian martyrs who lived their lives and faced their deaths with hope and peace, they began to want the same. Christians cultivated communities based on compassion and mercy, valuing the downtrodden, offering hope where none seemed possible. And they were living in a way that did not fear the end of the empire, but kept hopeful and positive not only AGAINST invaders, but WITH the foreigners.

Over time, the perception of Christianity began to change, moving from that of a dangerous superstition to a quietly compelling alternative that offered a new framework for understanding existence and one’s place within society. In just two hundred years, this transformation, quiet and relentless, would utterly reshape the empire from one that despised and hunted Christians, to one that not only tolerated, but actually embraced Christianity as an integral part of its identity.

The first mention of holiness does not speak of God, humans, animals, or any other physical created thing. The first mention of holiness actually speaks about a unit of time that God set apart. Or is it a state of being? More on that later. Let us focus on this strange little passage that, for many years, has caused me to scratch my head.

After God creates this beautiful universe—the first three days forming realms for creatures to fill: the sky, the earth, the heavens, and the waters—and then fills them with fish, animals, and plants, placing the image of God, the human beings, as the final creative act, the scriptures narrate God resting and God making the seventh day holy.

First off, what does it mean for God to rest? Secondly, why is the Sabbath holy? As I began to ponder these, I began to trace a thread that runs through scripture that’s fairly subtle but has helped me shift my own view of both Sabbath and rest. More than that, I believe this understanding will help us see that all human beings have the potential to become saints. All humans are holy by design, are made for holiness, are made for community, are made for God.     It is very understandable, given the powerful witness of those who would die rather than do sometimes simple and mundane tasks like placing a bit of incense on a burner before a statue, or eating food that came from a temple, or joining together in a celebration of the city, that their powerful testimony would be celebrated, passed on, and written down. Very early on in our Christian tradition, stories of these martyrs began to be written down, sometimes including their own writings in their own words. People like Perpetua and Felicity, and Polycarp, became known as Saints and Martyrs. The word “martyr” simply means witness, but most often it was used for those who had witnessed their faith by dying for it.

The word “saint,” over the course of Christian tradition, was generally reserved for those people who had lived extraordinary lives and modeled one or more of the Christian virtues. Perhaps they had worked miracles, were known for their life of prayer, or were known for confronting the powers and principalities of the world and dying rather than submit to evil. These saints began to be celebrated in the early church and sometimes even sought as examples to be looked up to. As the centuries went on, the veneration of saints became popular. Saints became objects of pilgrimage, and even the remains of the saints began to take upon themselves a power that people believed could work miracles. Throughout the Middle Ages, monasteries, abbeys, and cathedrals all over Europe traded in these relics of holy people. Even today, throughout Europe, you can visit museums, cathedrals, and other holy places to see these ornately shaped vessels that house perhaps a finger bone or an arm bone of one of these saintly individuals.

But were our Middle Age forebearers on the right track when they reserved the title of “saint” for only those who had lived these extraordinary lives? Were they on the right track by holding them so dear and so precious? This was a burning question for those who, in the run-up to the Renaissance and what became the Protestant Reformation, began to question some of the practices that emerged from medieval Christianity.

While in no way devaluing the lives of the saints that were celebrated in churches throughout Europe and the world, as a matter of fact, they began to question whether those were the only people called to holy lives. People like Martin Luther, Jan Hus, and others, who themselves were considered religious by their calling, as opposed to secular people who lived out “in the world,” who had set themselves apart in monasteries and abbeys throughout Europe to live holy lives as they were able, began to question whether even that distinction was valid.

What caused this change? During the Protestant Reformation and the years leading up to it, many scholars had rediscovered the ability to read the ancient languages in which the Bible was written. Martin Luther could read both Greek and Hebrew, and many throughout Europe began to do the same. As they studied the ancient languages, they began to see that the Latin translation sometimes didn’t do an adequate job of expressing the ideas contained in the original texts. When it came to the concept of holiness, which is at the center of the concept of being a saint, they realized that the church had gone off course.

Like all good theology, the Reformers and others began with their understanding of God and asked themselves what it meant for God to be holy. As we have sung this morning, which itself comes directly from scripture, the phrase “Holy, Holy, Holy,” to many of us, myself included at times, can be a little mysterious, even otherworldly. There is in the world a confusion about what holiness, sanctity, and sainthood really mean. For some, holiness is simply being like God, and that sounds very positive, like something we would want to pursue.

However, when some folks talk about being like God, they focus on what they call the moral perfection of God. In God, there is no sin, no evil, no darkness, only light. Thus, in the life of the believer, this must be expressed by an absence of anything that would cast aspersions upon God. Witness and testimony, therefore, must be evidenced by a sinless type of perfection that focuses on the do’s and don’ts, on the shoulds and should nots.

In the pioneer days of the United States, this was the emphasis of many, including some in our own Methodist and Wesleyan tradition. Some churches, like the Church of the Nazarene and others in the holiness movement, began to emphasize that humans could enter a type of sinless perfection in this life by a second act of grace. Many of these believers started looking around at society and focusing on things they saw as detrimental. Movements like the temperance movement and other social movements that targeted vice in the world were started by Christians in the holiness movement.

While I can freely admit that the dangers of excess are ever-present with any substance, I have to question whether by placing all their eggs in one basket, they were being true to the concept of holiness as the Bible presents it. That’s where we need to focus today: What does the Bible say about God, holiness, and our relationship to God and God’s holiness?

In our first Peter passage today, Peter writes, quoting some words from the book of Exodus that were spoken to the children of Israel. In this letter to believers who were suffering some form of persecution in the early days of the church, he applies to these Christians—these followers of the way of Jesus Christ—the same mission, the same status that was given to Israel: a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.

As discussed in our last sermon series, Israel was to function as a representative for God among the nations of the world. Israel was to be special, to be set apart for a purpose. That’s what made Israel holy. It doesn’t take a theology degree to recognize that Israel would not live up to the standards of holiness that many of us were raised with. Israel, by and large, was not more moral than those around her. Israel, many times, practiced the same sorts of things that the other nations were rightly called out on by the prophets: greed, arrogance, idolatry, exploitation, oppression. All of those things, which were not to be in a community of mutual love and respect in the presence of God, found their way into that society, corrupting it from the inside out. And yet, God still called them holy. God still called them His treasured possession. Like a faithful husband to an unfaithful bride, God pursues, God perfects, God remains faithful.

Any understanding of holiness cannot solely be based on moral behavior, because the example of Israel throughout the entire Old Testament gives the lie to that premise. Israel could not maintain a standard of morality for more than a generation. If, like under the period of the judges and some of the kings, they had made a turn for the better and reformed their ways, it was not long before old practices, historical convenience, or simple forgetfulness led them down the garden path to their old behaviors. So, if holiness is not entirely moral behavior, or keeping to a code of law, or following a list of do’s and don’ts, what is it?

Some scholars have argued that holiness is merely a status given to us by God. God says that we are holy, and therefore we are holy. These Christian theologians would argue that while it is ideal for humans to model moral behavior, it is not essential to the concept of holiness that they do so. And you see, I think they have gone too far to the other extreme. On the one hand, we have those that tie holiness almost solely to behavior—some call these people legalists—those that emphasize the law of do and do not as the marker of the status of being in or out of relationship with God. That is why you hear some people say, “If you do this or you don’t do this, then you are a Christian.” It is easy then, by looking at a list of criteria, to judge the in or out status of a Christian. That is one extreme.

But on the other end are those that say, “Well, I have committed my life to Christ. Sure, I am going to try to live up to the principles, but regardless of whether I do or not, I am holy, I am a saint because God says so.” Both of these extremes hold something of the truth, but both of these extremes can lead us away from where God would want us to be. As I have told you many times, I believe that the Bible is a book of wisdom. The Bible is not necessarily an encyclopedia or a dictionary. The Bible encourages us to think, to process, individually yes, but also as a group of people who gather around God’s word.

So, in this tension of law and grace, of freedom and bondage, holiness lies somewhere in the middle. The charge from God, reiterated by Jesus, is this: “Be holy as I am holy.” If you read the book of Leviticus and Deuteronomy—places in the Old Testament where the word “holy” or “holiness” are highly concentrated—you will notice something strange. While it is true that humans are called to be holy, especially in Leviticus, you will find that many times the reference to holiness is to things, to objects. And that should give us pause. What is it about a piece of meat that makes it holy? What is it about a firstborn child that makes it holy? What is it about an incense bowl or a candle snuffer or another vessel that was used in the temple that makes it holy? What is it about a piece of material that made of the same material by the same craftsman that can be used for something common?

Holiness, my friends, first and foremost, means being set apart for a purpose. As we go back to the story of Genesis, we find that the humans created in Genesis 1:26-28 are indeed set aside for a purpose. I believe everything in life has a purpose, and God has an intention for that which God has created. The animals have their calling, the fish theirs, the vegetation another calling, but for humans it is given the responsibility for it all.

Humans are set apart to be the lords of creation. Humans are set apart to watch over everything else. From the fish in the sea to the smallest microbe, we have been given power and authority to shepherd, to use, to all the resources of this world. With that responsibility comes a responsibility to one another—to encourage, to love, to care for other people who have been given the same task, and by being given that task, have the same status. Holiness, therefore, is part of our calling as humans. And as I emphasize again and again, and I’ll do it here one more time, that calling is universal. That calling is not for those who are called and set aside for religious lives.

It is my firm conviction that a monk in a monastery is no more holy than the trash collector who comes every Thursday night, late at night, staying away from his family to take away my dinner leftovers that I couldn’t be bothered to eat or remember. Or on our cruise, those that dealt with the waste or changed my sheets are no less holy than me because I’m a pastor.

The answer to that question is simply no. There are none more holy than others. Yet why do we humans play the game of “ier than thou”? Why do some Christians, especially, take it upon themselves to play judge and compare their own behavior to those that they meet? This leads some to wall off the church and to function as a gatekeeper. If there are degrees of holiness, and the sanctuary is a holy place, then, it behooves us, in their minds, to keep those out that would defile it. Thus, those less desirable people, sinners, those that don’t conform to our understanding of a churchgoer, are sometimes pushed to the margins of our churches and sometimes pushed right out the doors. I wanted to set this up a little bit more gently, but I think sometimes plain talk is better.

If there remains in us this attitude of comparison, this attitude of gradations of holiness, this attitude whereby we rank ourselves as “not as bad as that,” then we ourselves are repeating some of the things that the prophets and Jesus called out as being hypocrisy, as being against the principles that God desires for the world. God desires grace, mercy, forgiveness, generosity, long-suffering, and patience. After all, aren’t those the attributes of God, God’s self? Does not God declare that the Lord is long-suffering, forgiving those that disobey, those that go astray? Don’t all Jesus’ teachings about prodigals and going after the lost sheep—shouldn’t they put a temper on our judgment? I think they should. But too often, there is something inside of us that leads us to make distinctions and judgments. And those judgments are most certainly not holy.

And now, lest I put myself in the same boat of looking on other Christians, we need to come to a definition of holiness and a definition of “saint” that is faithful to the biblical vision and is life-giving to our Christian community. So, is holiness a status that we have before God? Or is holiness a set of behaviors? It is my argument that you cannot have one without the other. To thoroughly emphasize the status is to allow an “anything goes” attitude when it comes to behavior. To emphasize behavior over status is to lose grace and embrace law. Both of these extremes are spoken of negatively in scripture.

So, how do we resolve the tension? First, we need to admit that holiness comes to us first by status, by the fact that we are created in the image and likeness of God, and that encompasses the entirety of humanity, excluding none. We are holy. We have been set apart for a purpose. We’ve been given a mission. And for those who are in a relationship with God through Jesus Christ, we are now given tools and resources, namely the Holy Spirit and the communion of our fellow saints, to spur us on to love and good deeds. And it is love and good deeds that work together. Love, in this case, is more than an emotion. It is an emotion that is expressed in action, caring for our brothers and sisters, caring for others created in the image of God. And that’s all humanity—it is an act of love. When we love, we behave in loving ways.

The Spirit of God comes and lives in us when we come to know Jesus Christ. And our spirit, our own souls, work with this Spirit of God in us It cooperates to make us more and more like Jesus Christ. And Jesus Christ is declared as the image of God in a special way. Remember, he is the prototype upon which we have been made. And so, as we are perfected in love by doing good works, by positively influencing the world, by doing no harm, doing all the good we can, and remaining in a loving relationship with God, we, from one degree of holiness to the next, look more and more like Jesus Christ.

Brothers and sisters, at the end of the day, we all have the calling to be saints. Indeed, all of us who are in relationship with Jesus Christ by faith are saints. Saint Robert, Saint Barbara, Saint James, Saint Jim, Saint Timothy. Insert your name after “saint,” and there you go. You don’t need to have a statue made of yourself or a medal, or have a church named after you to be a saint. Instead, to be a saint is to live into our human calling; it is to become more human by becoming more like Jesus Christ.

During this sermon series, we will look at several people that the church has called apart for special mention. We’ll notice that they do indeed have some very positive characteristics. But they are not paragons of moral perfection. They have their issues like you and I, but they have demonstrated a love for God and God’s people, and indeed all created in the image of God, that can be instructive for us.