Thoughts on Holiness

This summer, in addition to reading and going to the pool with my brother, I have been thinking a little about holiness.  It may have begun one Sunday at Southeast Church of the Nazarene when John Denney, the Southern California Church of the Nazarene District Superintendent, preached.  In his sermon, Denney said something like, "The good news is that just as we are, God loves us and accepts us.  And the good news is also that God loves us so much that he will not leave us as we are."  I see that statement to be about holiness; God not leaving us as we are is the process of God making us holy.  The statement raises some important questions for me, which I will discuss near the end of this post, but first I would like to explore what holiness means.

The dictionary defines "holy" as something or things that are set apart to be revered, things that help us connect to God.1 Scriptures say that God is holy.2  God is distinct from us; God's ways are beyond our ways.  At the same time, the Holy One calls us to be holy.3  For the early church, to be holy meant to be like Christ and to be united with God.  Their scriptural foundation for holiness as Christlikeness was 1 John 3:2 (NIV): “Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.”  Adding to the conversation, theologian Gregory of Nyssa believed that Jesus' resurrection made it possible for humans to become divine (another word for holy) through sacramental union with God and through prayer.4  More recently, at the Second Vatican Council, the Roman Catholic church defined holiness as "perfect union with Christ," and said that this union is attained through individuals' membership in the church and cleaving to the saints.5

At a slightly different angle, author Madeleine L'Engle has written that the root of the word "holy" is the word "hale," which is also the root for "whole," "health," and "heal."  For L'Engle, to be holy means to become healed, whole, and hearty.6  (Similarly, we see the word "salve," which means an object that heals, in the word "salvation," which I consider yet another synonym for holiness.)  So there are different definitions of holiness.  As I see it, to be holy means to be like Christ, to rhyme with the Holy One, and in becoming like Christ we become whole and healed, fully mature in Christ.  This is the goal of our faith.

Now then, what does it look like for the people of God to be fully mature in Christ, to be holy?  I think of three perspectives:  that of the Nazarenes, that of many Quakers, and that of Madeleine L'Engle.  Pastor Steve Rodeheaver of Southeast Church of the Nazarene has said that historically, the Church of the Nazarene has expressed holiness in three streams:  purity, compassion, and missions.  In seeking purity, many Nazarenes, particularly in the Midwest, have abstained from things they consider to be of the world, such as watching movies in theatres, wearing wedding rings, and dancing.  This may be in response to the following passage in James:  "Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this:  to care for orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world."7

While the Nazarenes who emphasize purity pursue holiness by keeping themselves unstained by the world, other Nazarenes pursue holiness by committing to compassion.  One source for this stream is the founder of the denomination, Phineas F. Bresee, who felt a call to minister to the poor in Pasadena, California.8  "Let the Church of the Nazarene be true to its commission; not great and elegant buildings; but to feed the hungry and clothe the naked, and wipe away the tears of sorrowing, and gather jewels for His diadem," Bresee once said.9  Out of this commitment to ministry among the poor living in the city, many of whom are damaged by alcohol and alcoholism, Nazarenes abstain from alcohol, so as to not cause the people they are serving to stumble.

The third stream of holiness among Nazarenes is missions, following Jesus' commission to go throughout the world, making disciples, baptizing them, and teaching them to obey Jesus' commandments.10  For Nazarenes, holiness is not limited to purity, compassion, and missions, but these are three major streams.  

How do we become holy, in the Nazarenes' view?  I cannot speak for all Nazarenes, but Pastor Steve has preached that "Discipleship is a miracle."  In other words, being discipled, learning of Christ, is not something we achieve as much as something we receive.  Just as it took Christ's touch to heal the blind and the deaf, it takes the work of the Holy Spirit within us--and our cooperation--for us to walk well with God.  Being pure, having compassion, and preaching good news to the world are efforts that begin with the Spirit.

Similarly, holiness among many Quakers expresses itself from the inside out, as I understand it.  Robert Barclay was a Quaker theologian in the 17th century whose writings on Christian perfection (or holiness) influenced minister John Wesley's doctrine of entire sanctification (holiness again)11, which is an important part of holiness theology for Nazarenes.  Like Pastor Steve's message "Discipleship is a miracle," Barclay wrote that it was God's responsibility to make God's people holy.12   To be perfected, Barclay wrote, one must turn to “the light and spiritual law of Christ in the heart,” and partake “of the fellowship of Christ’s sufferings, and be made conformable unto his death, that thou mayest feel thyself crucified with him to the world by the power of his cross in thee”.13  For Barclay, holiness involved turning to the inward light of Christ and dying to the world in Christ.  

The phrase "turning to the light of Christ" describes corporate worship for many Quakers, in which Quakers commune with God by sitting in silence, setting their minds on God, and rising to speak to the meeting when moved by God.  Professor of spirituality Carole Spencer writes that for the early Quakers, union with God in worship was the beginning of holiness.14  Further, “[t]o live in the Light meant moral, ethical, social and political holiness”.15  In other words, holiness began in worship and continued in an outward motion through Quakers' relationships and interactions with other people. 

Quakers today live by certain testimonies, which I see as expressions of holiness just as purity, compassion, and missions are key expressions of holiness for Nazarenes.  The Quaker testimonies include Truthfulness/Integrity, Justice, Equality, Simplicity, and Peace.

An example of someone who lived these testimonies is John Woolman, a Quaker living in the 18th century in the New World.  Convicted by God that slaves and colonists were equal in God's eyes, Woolman sought to convince many members of the Religious Society of Friends to free their slaves.  His life embodied the Quaker testimonies, and is an example of someone whose actions flowed out of his relationship with God.

Madeleine L'Engle takes a different approach when she discusses holiness and wholeness.  In Walking on Water, her reflections on being a Christian artist, L'Engle writes that the creative process makes us more holy because it makes us more whole--that is, if we are truly listening to and serving the work and not trying to control it.

In prayer, in the creative process, these two parts of ourselves, the mind and the heart, the intellect and the intuition, the conscious and the subconscious mind, stop fighting each other and collaborate. . . . When mind and heart work together, they know each other as two people who love each other know; and as the love of two people is a gift, a totally unmerited, incomprehensible gift, so is the union of mind and heart.16

When the mind and heart unite, we become whole persons, and thus holy.  While it may sound like L'Engle is saying that wholeness is something we obtain on our own efforts, she emphasizes that holiness is not something we acquire.  "[Becoming holy] has nothing to do with virtue or job descriptions or morality.  It is nothing we can do in this do-it-yourself world. It is gift, sheer gift, waiting there to be recognized and received."17  Could L'Engle be saying that as we pray and create, God collaborates with us?  That the act of creating is a means of grace which makes us more holy, like partaking in a sacrament?

I see two themes throughout my exploration of holiness as expressed by Nazarenes, Quakers, and L'Engle.  The first is, holiness is a gift.  It is not something I earn or deserve, but something given in love from God.  It is a miracle, and while I cooperate with and trust in God's work in making me more like Christ, the responsibility is ultimately God's.  This is a relief, one of which I need to continually remind myself because of my constant forgetfulness of God's grace and faithfulness.  The second theme is, outward expressions of holiness come from the inward work of God in our lives.  Just as grapes grow from branches that are connected to a vine, I too come alive and bear grapes--not of wrath, but holiness--when I am rooted in God through worship and prayer.  As I am nourished in the vine, the grapes come in their own time.

If John Denney had said only that "The good news is that just as we are, God loves us and accepts us," and left out the part about God not wanting to leave us as we are, then could Denney (and I along with him) truly say that God loves us?  For Christians, love is expressed most clearly in God's sending Jesus to die so that we might be reconciled with God.  This implies that we had once been estranged from God, that all was and is not yet well.  Put simply, we need God's help.  In saying that God desires to make people holy, to heal people, I am assuming and affirming the doctrine that we are wounded, and that this woundedness keeps us from maturity in Christ.  Holiness is God's work in healing our woundedness.  If we love someone, will we not try to help them the best we know how in their struggles?  If we wish to write a good poem, will we not craft it, edit it, until we are satisfied?  To maintain a beautiful and productive garden, don't we need to uproot weeds and prune branches?  Helping others, crafting a poem, tending a garden--these are metaphors for God's work of making us holy and healing our woundedness.

If you are like me, you may now be asking something like, "What do you think God desires to change in us?"  Other forms of this question are "What do you consider to be sinful?" and "What do you think it looks like, precisely, to be like Christ?"  It may be these questions that I am truly getting at in writing this post, and attempting to answer them would require a post of its own, at the very least.  I am in no hurry, nor am I ready, to write that post.  I have given some examples of what many consider to be holy and not holy; these examples are not exhaustive.  I believe that sure guides for holy living also include the Ten Commandments, the prophet Micah's message "What does the Lord require of you?  To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God,"18 the Beatitudes, and what Jesus says is the greatest commandment:  "'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.'  And a second is like it:  'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.'"19  May God help me live in this way!

As I conclude, I would like to mention something that has come to mind when asking what is holy and what is not.  The resurrected body of Jesus, in its perfection, still bore his scars.  If holiness means being like Christ, and if being like Christ includes sharing in his sufferings and his resurrection, then our perfected bodies and souls will bear our own scars.  Like Jesus, we might find holes in our hands and sides.  Becoming holy does not mean that our wounds, the ones that have grown with and within us, the ones we have inflicted on ourselves and others, the ones we've received from others, will vanish.  Instead, being holy means that through the Spirit's power, we will begin to live beneath our wounds, at the source of our life, which is God.  We do this in the power of the Spirit and because God loves us.  It may be that our scars will become a part of our wholeness, transformed from defects into something which contributes to our completion.  What once brought us shame, God will make good.  Our wounds, and ultimately our woundedness, will no longer have power over us because they no longer have power over him.

1 Dictionary.com.  "Holy." http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/holy?s=t (accessed Aug. 7, 2012).

2 Leviticus 19:2.

3 1 Peter 1:15-16.

4 Encyclopedia of Christian Theology, Vol. 2.  s.v. “holiness.”
5 Ibid.
6 L'Engle, Madeleine.  Walking on Water (Colorado Springs, CO:  WaterBrook Press, 1980), 60.
7 James 1:27, NRSV.
8 Snu.edu.  "Phineas F. Bresee."  http://snu.edu/phineas-f-bresee (accessed Aug. 7, 2012).  

9 Missionstrategy.nazarene.org.  "Quotations from Dr. Bresee on the Poor, etc."  http://missionstrategy.nazarene.org/missionstrategy/Default99ac.html?tabid=267 (accessed Aug. 7, 2012).

10 Matthew 28:19-20.
11 Spencer, Carole, Holiness:  The Soul of Quakerism (Great Britain:  Paternoster, 2007), 31.
12 Barclay, Robert, An Apology for the True Christian Divinity:  Being an Explanation and Vindication of the Principles and Doctrines of the People Called Quakers (Philadelphia:  Kimber, Conrad, &Co., 1805), 268.
13 Barclay, 258-9.
14 Spencer, 2.
15 Spencer, 62.
16 L'Engle, 192-3.
17 L'Engle 60-1.
18 Micah 6:8, NIV.
19 Matthew 22:37-9, NRSV.