Bible laws
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Quoting Leviticus seems to be all the rage these days, so I thought I’d give it a go.
Leviticus 19:1-2 says something like the following, “The Lord said to Moses, “Speak to the entire assembly of Israel and say to them: ‘Be holy because I, the Lord your God, am holy.’” Now at the risk of sounding like a cross between a Methodist Andy Rooney and Jerry Seinfeld, “What’s the deal with our continued forced dichotomy between personal and social holiness?” Isn’t it time we stopped beating this dead horse? Is this not one of the reasons we’re in the mess we’re in, because we’ve lived in this under this bipolar, schizophrenic definition of holiness within the Wesleyan tradition for so long such that the two can no longer co-exist in the same body, the body of Christ, in the psyches of the people called Methodist.
The quest to be holy in two different ways has literally driven us insane and pushed our denomination into some dissociative personality disorder-clinically speaking. Or, as my grandmother, who never went past the eighth grade, would have said, “we have lost our ever-loving minds.”
All through the Torah, especially Deuteronomy and Leviticus, we hear this same injunction repeated: you be holy because I (God) am holy. God doesn’t make the distinctions between social and personal holiness. A human being created these artificial divisions. Some of us feel more comfortable emphasizing one form of holiness over another. I think it’s clear from reading the text that God is a God of the community. We discover our personal and individual identities within the community and the society created by the larger community. Our communities, tribes, and clans tell us who we are. That’s what the Old Testament says.
I am a United Methodist by accident of birth and geography and no other reason alone. My community and family determined my religious affiliation. Had I been born in Pakistan in March of 1974, I would be a Muslim. Society forms our beliefs long before we develop a sense of individual identity. Creating a sense of social holiness is the first step toward teaching and achieving personal holiness. We are defined and shaped by our cultures.
Ultimately, I am encouraged that the God of Israel shows no distinctions between personal and social holiness. God sets a goal and enables us to follow along, knowing we will fail at our tasks. We will never be as holy as God. It is impossible. We can never match God’s holiness. Does this mean we should stop trying? No. I think it means we should go about our quest for holiness with greater humility, kindness, and justice, realizing we will never figure it out. Just when we think we’ve got holiness locked down, we’re probably in as unholy a state as we’ve ever been. It’s time to hop off our high holy horses, find someone else, and tell them how sorry we are for getting our cart before the Lord’s horse.