Dear Faith Family,
I can't seem to get away from our spiritual companion's challenge!
When our family makes the annual trek to Colorado, I purposely leave "study" material in Texas. The point of the trip is to be together as a family in a space where we cannot help but be aware of and enjoy the goodness and grandeur of God--in one another and in his creation. While the return week's sermon might suffer for this (I apologize in advance!), my soul returns refreshed, even if it grieves for the cooler temps!
While "work" reading remains on my desk, I nevertheless take a volume or two every year that aid the intended reflection and enjoyment that alpine vistas evoke. A good book with a warm cup of coffee on a chilly mountain morning is a holy experience!
A few days into the trip, I noticed that every other page of my chosen titles contained an editorial marking. A scribbled comment or reference to Peter's letters in my handwriting! Neither composition had anything directly to say about this spiritual friend's commentary on life in Jesus. There was no explicit mention of Jesus' vocal, fumbling, courageous, and humbled disciple. Yet, there he was, Peter, continuing to challenge me in the sacred space of our family vacation.
Among the various insights and connections jotted and deepened in the margins, one stood out profusely: holiness. Peter used the word at least nine times in his first letter, most memorably in his opening chapter:
"As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, but as he who has called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct..."
(1 Peter 1:14-15)
Admittedly, Peter's charge to holiness has been a matter of--usually, but not always positive--tension for me throughout my life of faith. I hear his words often when confronted by interior or exterior forces to make a choice. A moral choice to do or not to do something, as well as practical choices for how to use time, energy, and resources. I don't always make the "right" choice, but our spiritual companion's exhortation is rarely absent in the tension.
While the tug of holiness is consistently there--whether heeded or not--I tend to reduce holiness to doing what is right. Do you land here too? Perhaps, like me, you also get too caught up in the "all your conduct" part of Peter's charge, too quickly narrowing the focus on our actions and attitudes.
Certainly, Peter has our real, daily living in mind in his exhortation to holiness. As one translation phrases it, "Don’t lazily slip back into those old grooves of evil, doing just what you feel like doing." The gospel is no excuse for "sloppy living," warns our spiritual friend.
Yet what struck me atop God's majestic creation this past week was the source of my holiness.
"as he who has called you is holy, you also be holy...since it is written, 'You shall be holy, for I am holy.'"
(1 Peter 1:15-16)
The source of holiness is not my conduct, though inevitably holiness (or lack thereof) manifests in actions and attitude. No, the source of holiness is in relationship...to the Holy One.
What if that tug towards holiness is not so much a pull towards doing something right, but a pull from God into life with him. A tug into "life shaped by God's life," not in theory but the daily practicals. What if Peter is exhorting us not with morality (do and think the right things) but rather with reality? The reality that God is with us, and for us--making us "holy" by his presence.
And what if the aim of our life is to live into the fullness of this reality? Not perfectly in a purely ethical or faultless sense--we know unequivocally that we struggle not just with sin but with mistakes, even the "holiest" of us. Instead, what if the aim of life is to live wholly responsive to the presence of God with us, God for us, and God at work all around us. What if our Father's directive to "be holy, for I am holy," is not a call to a reductionist vision of perfectionism but a "life energetic and blazing."? A decree to share His life?
As Peter elaborates throughout his letters, such a life is certainly distinct in our daily functions. And while the distinction manifests most often in backward actions and attitudes (that posture of submission, service, and suffering), its source is presence. Life lived in the Presence. A holy life.
The early church had a name for people living fully (completely or perfectly) in the presence of God: saints. These women and men could not be described without reference to their relationship to our Father. People present to the Presence with them and at work in those around them. I think "saint" is a name worth making our life’s aim. And as a true friend and spiritual companion, Peter challenges, encourages, and equips me to be a saint, to be holy because God is with me, and for me, and at work all around me.
Praying that you would aim to be a saint. And that as our aim manifests and matures in our vocations, offices, homes, and neighborhoods, that the grace brought to us through Jesus would draw others into a holy life too.
Love you, faith family! May grace and peace be multiplied to you this week. God bless.