Holiness - The ultimate lifestyle choice

Preached at St Alphege, Solihull at the 11am Eucharist.
Sunday 25th May 2008, Trinity 1 – Year A (Readings from Epiphany 7)

Readings Leviticus 19: 1-2 & 9-18 1 Cor 3: 10-11 & 16-23 Matt 5: 38-48


Our readings today focus on the theme of becoming holy; holiness as a lifestyle choice. There is quite a lot in the readings about what it means to be holy. There is quite a lot about how we might become holy. But the theme of our readings that stands out most clearly is the call for us Christians to work towards personal holiness as individuals and collective holiness as Church.
The call to holiness is one of the themes of the New Testament (e.g. John 17 17-19, Phil 2:14, 1Thess 4:7 5:23, 2 Tim 1:9, Heb 9:13 13:12, 1 Pet1:15). In our gospel reading today we heard Jesus say to his disciples, “Be perfect therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” And this call to holiness is not something new that arrives with Jesus. God has always called his people to holiness. When Jesus says, “Be perfect and your heavenly Father is perfect,” he is making a reference to the book of Leviticus, which we also heard read today. In Leviticus God himself says to the people, through Moses, “You shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy.” So God has always called his people to holiness, but Jesus gives this call new impetus and he provides new resources to help us on the journey towards holiness.
People often think, “I am a good Christian…I go to church,” without realising the full implications of being a Christian, without realising that the Christian life is a journey, a journey towards heaven. And heaven is not just a place that we go to when we die, rather heaven is a experience, a state of being. Heaven is where God dwells. To be in heaven means to dwell with God, to rest in his presence, to be illuminated completely by the light of his love, like a crystal of cut glass in a chandelier. Our journey to heaven is therefore about drawing closer to God. It is about improving our relationship with God; about getting to know God. It is about getting better at living in the presence of God. It is about growing up into Christ (Eph 4:5). It is about being formed into Christ (Gal 4:19). It is about being made complete in the love of God (1 John 4:12). It is about being purified from all sin (1 John 1:8). It is about being pure so that we can see God (Matt 5:8, 1 John 3:12-13). And these things take time, they can take a lifetime, perhaps even more than a lifetime. But this journey can be walked much more effectively and much more profitably if we are aware of it, if we welcome it and if we work with it.
Holiness is our true destination. Ultimately our personal fulfilment comes from becoming holy. God created us. He knows us better than we know ourselves. He wants us to fulfil our potential, to become what he created us to be. His plan for us is greater than anything we could imagine for ourselves, it satisfies completely our most profound desires and aspirations. Growing in holiness is therefore the logical and sensible way to live our lives. It is the way to self-realisation. It is the way to heaven.
The raw material for this journey of faith, this holy journey towards heaven, is all the circumstances of our everyday lives. There are many different ways of interpreting the circumstances of our everyday lives. Suppose for example we catch a cold. We can interpret this in different ways. We can think, “it’s so-and-so’s fault – he sneezed near me, yesterday.” Another interpretation might be, “It’s my own fault for getting cold on the bus and not having enough victim C.” Another interpretation might be, “I need to take good care of myself for the next few days until I am better.” And all of these interpretations might be true to a greater or lesser extent, but there is one interpretation which is always going to be the most helpful interpretation from the point of view of our journey towards heaven. This is the interpretation that, “God, in his great love for me, has either willed or allowed that I should catch this cold in order to help me to grow closer to Him.” This attitude trains us to find God’s love in everything. It helps us to understand suffering. It helps us to grow in love. This attitude is especially helpful when we deal with other people. Cardinal Van Thuan apparently trained himself not to think, “This person is a nuisance”, but rather to think “This person is sanctifying me”.
Perhaps we have never thought of becoming holy. Perhaps we can’t imagine ourselves as a saint. Perhaps we think, “but I am just very normal…I can’t be something really extraordinary like a saint.” Perhaps we are aware that sin runs deep within us so we feel we can’t become a saint. Perhaps we think, “Ah well, holiness, that is for the enthusiasts…it’s not for me.” If we are thinking like this then we need to think again. We need to remember that we are created for heaven. One day, by hook or by crook, we have to get to heaven. Of course we always have the option of rejecting God completely and going to hell, but assuming that is not what we want, then it makes sense to start work on the journey to heaven right now. This is the journey to life and hope and joy and the sooner we can start making progress the better.
And the good news is that we are already part holy. The embryonic saint already lives within us and is keen to grow and develop and to mature into the new life in Christ. The bad news is that we are also part sinner. Despite our good intentions we are slaves to sin and our behaviour often falls well short of holiness. The devil does his best to convince us that holiness is unattainable. But the devil is a liar. We have been baptised into Christ’s death and resurrection and this has broken the power of sin. If we concentrate on living in the saint and growing in the life of Christ then, in the fullness of time, it is inevitable that the sin within us will be overcome.
So today I invite you to make the ultimate lifestyle choice. Let’s commit ourselves to holiness. Let’s commit ourselves to becoming saints. Let us offer this project to God and let us pray to God for his help. Let us ignore the great liar who says that holiness is irrelevant, or unrealistic or impossible, or not desirable, or not for me. Let’s commit ourselves to walking the way of Christ. Let’s forgive ourselves when we fail. Let’s pray for the grace to start again each time we fail. Let’s not be put off by our failures but rather entrust them to the mercy of God and make a fresh start. And let’s walk with confidence. Christ’s death and resurrection has broken every barrier. If we want our place in heaven, and work for it, then ultimately we cannot fail.