Wholly Holy

1 Peter 1:13-16

May 27, 2018 • Mount Pleasant UMC

A couple of weeks ago, when I had the week off, I had a major computer meltdown. It’s a little complicated to explain, and I’m not sure I understand all that led up to it, but the first thing to go was my back-up drive. No problem, I thought, I can re-do that because I still have the original files. So I erased the back-up drive to start over, and in the midst of that, the original drive for half of my files crashed and refused to respond. I spent two days trying to get it to work, to no avail. All of the audio, movies and most especially the video I needed for our LifeGroup the next evening seemed gone. Beyond recovery. Beyond hope. But I grabbed the drive anyway and headed out to iMechanic on Third Street, and told them my desperate story. They didn’t promise anything, but that evening they did call me and say they could at least see the files on the drive. Whether or not they can rescue them is still up in the air.

So what do you do when your computer crashes? You reboot. You start it over. Sometimes you have to force it to reboot, and sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t. But back when I was first learning how computers work, that was always the answer: when it crashes, reboot. Start over. Start fresh. Go back to the last time when everything worked right, the last “save point.” Reinstall the last good back-up. And what is true in the computer world is also, very often, true in life. When life crashes, sometimes we need to reboot. Sometimes we come to a place in life where we need to return to the last time everything worked, to reboot, restart, re-create.

It’s not a secret (though many may be unaware of it) that our denomination, the United Methodist Church, is in the midst of a “crash” of sorts, certainly a crossroads. Just recently, we passed the fifty-year anniversary of the United Methodist Church. In 1968, the former Methodist and Evangelical United Brethren Churches came together to form a new denomination. We merged. Contrary to what some might think, the word “United” in our name has little to do with whether or not we agree, because we often don’t. The word “united” came from the EUB tradition. We became United Methodists fifty years ago, April 23, 1968. And for forty of those fifty years, we have been arguing over what it means to have a Christian ethic of human sexuality. In the last few years, mirroring the larger culture, that discussion has centered around the issue of homosexuality. The disagreement has gotten to such a fever pitch that, at the General Conference meeting in 2016, a call was made for the Bishops to appoint a task force to figure out a way for the church to move forward, beyond the arguments and disagreements, to get back to our purpose of making disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world. There is a feeling among many that these arguments (which the press loves, by the way) are in reality distracting us from our primary mission. We need to get back to who we are. We need to reboot. So how do we do that? How do we get back to the beginning, to the last “save” point where everything worked?

Well, that discussion will come to a head next February in St. Louis, and I’m not going to predict what will happen or what the future will be. I’m not good at predicting the future, but here is what I do know: we have built into who we are as Methodist Christians a DNA that we need to reclaim. You see, Methodism was never meant to be a church sitting on the corner waiting for people to come to us. Originally, Methodism wasn’t meant to be a church at all. John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, was and remained a clergyman in the Church of England until he day he died and he was adamantly opposed to Methodism being anything other than a renewal movement for the larger church. Only after his death did it become obvious that the differences between the Methodists and the Anglicans were too great; that’s when separation took place in England, though it had taken place earlier than that in the United States due to a little thing called the Revolutionary War. But even as an independent church, Methodism retained particular characteristics, unique qualities God had entrusted to us. God called us to be a particular people. So for the next few weeks, we’re going to look closely at the Methodist DNA and ask this question: what might happen if we took this seriously? Could a reboot of who we are make a difference in our community and this world? What might happen if we, the people called Methodist, took our calling seriously once again? Could we change our world for Jesus Christ once again, just as they did in the days of Wesley?

Two years before Wesley’s death, a document called the “Large Minutes” was finalized. It contains a series of questions and answers put to John Wesley that centered around several things including the practice of what has come to be known as Annual Conference, the lives of the Methodist preachers, and the system of small groups that really was the genius of the early Methodists. The third question in the document is this: “What may we reasonably believe to be God’s design in raising up the Preachers [and people] called Methodists?” Wesley’s answer is quick and to the point: “Not to form any new sect; but to reform the nation, particularly the Church; and to spread scriptural holiness over the land” (Jackson, ed., The Works of John Wesley, vol. VIII, pg. 299). Holiness was the centerpiece of the early Methodist theology, something that had been lost in the church of the time. Largely in Wesley’s day, if you were British, you were a member of the Church of England unless you joined one of the “dissenting” churches. Among the Church of England, though, worship attendance was low, for people believed if they were members they were set. There was nothing more they needed to do to be right with God. They could live however they wanted as long as their name was on the church membership roll. Then along came these Methodists who spoke of God’s call to holiness, who believed there was a particular life God wanted his people to live. As Wesley began to lay out what that meant, it’s probably no wonder that he was turned out of pulpit after pulpit, asked not to preach in most churches ever again. Because, you see, the call to holiness is a call to reclaim our heritage, our birthright. The call to be holy is a call to be like the God in whose image we are created.

Leonard Sweet observes, “Humans are the only species who pass up being what they are made to be” (The Greatest Story Never Told, pg. 23). The very beginning of the Bible tells us we were made in the image of God (Genesis 1:26); it also tells us that very quickly in the history of the world, that image became marred, broken. That doesn’t mean and never has meant that it went away entirely. We are still made in the image of God, but we are given the choice as to whether we will bear that image or hide it. The story of the Bible is one of God reaching out to his people, calling us back to himself, and of God’s people running away, pushing God away, or otherwise refusing to grow into the image of God. So God sent his son, Jesus, to show us what a life like that could be like, and the human race did its worst to him. But there were those who believed the promise, who wanted to be like Jesus, who tried to follow him. And yet, even in that first generation of Christians, there were challenges and struggles. Just like today, the culture was always there, always calling and tempting and trying to shape the people into its image rather than God’s. So Peter, one of the first followers of Jesus, puts pen to paper to write to followers of Jesus all throughout Asia, to encourage them to turn away from the world and toward Jesus.

As he writes, Peter recalls what he has undoubtedly been taught from his earliest days: that the heart of the Hebrew faith is found in a book a lot of people don’t read anymore, Leviticus (cf. Barclay, The Letters of James and Peter, pg. 188). “Be holy,” God commanded the people then, “because I am holy” (Leviticus 11:44). Peter grabs onto that and hands it on to the church: “Just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do” (1:15). The key word here, apparently, is “holy.” So what does that mean? What does it mean to “be holy”?

For many people, even those of us in the church, the word “holy” has a negative connotation. We’ve gotten this idea that being “holy” is subscribing to a list of do’s and don’ts—mostly “don’ts.” We have that idea because there are always folks who loudly promote it. Even in Jesus’ day there were people who saw it that way—they were called Pharisees. They saw it as their personal mission to make sure everyone was towing the line and following the rules. All throughout history there have been people just like that; you’ve probably known one or two or more in your own life. Sometimes, we think of holy people as those who are “super-spiritual,” who have a Biblical answer or a Bible verse for every situation. Sometimes we think of holiness a little like this…

The word that is translated “holy” in Peter’s letter has a root meaning of “different.” It means to be set apart, in every way and at every level. You might describe Grandma’s china as “holy” in this sense, because you probably only use it on certain special occasions. In terms of faith, as William Barclay puts it, “The Temple is [holy] because it is different from other buildings; the Sabbath is [holy] because it is different from other days; the Christian is [holy] because he [or she] is different from other” people (Barclay 188; Wright, Early Christian Letters for Everyone, pg. 54). Holiness, at its root, isn’t about rules and boundaries; it’s about living a different way for a purpose. You know, tomorrow is Memorial Day, and I think about those whom we remember on this weekend, those who have given their lives in service to their country. Those brave men and women were set apart, holy in a sense, different from others because when others ran away from danger, they ran toward it. They were willing to give everything they were for the sake of a cause they believed in. As Christians, we’re called to do the same thing. We’re called to be “wholly holy,” giving everything we are and everything we will be over for the sake of God’s kingdom. “Be holy,” God says, “because I am holy.” Be different. Bear the image of God. Be like Jesus. Holy people just might change the world.

But is there a need for holiness in the twenty-first century? I believe, more than ever, we need people who are different, who are set apart, who want to change the world for Jesus’ sake. We have so much division, so much hurt and anger and death and destruction that we are in desperate need of people who want to live holy lives, who rise about the pettiness of our culture, who long to see the world transformed. Our calling, still today, is to spread Scriptural holiness across the land, that’s in our DNA, and I believe Peter’s directions, all these centuries later, still give us clues about to how to live as holy people.

First, Peter calls us to have minds that are alert (1:13). The King James Version is actually closer to the literal text here. It says, “Gird up the loins of your mind;” that’s quite a combination of ancient images. In ancient times, men wore long, flowing robes with a belt around the waist. The robes made rapid movement difficult, so when they needed to run or be ready to work hard, they would tuck the robe up into the belt so that their movement was unhindered. Perhaps the best equivalent today would be “roll up your sleeves” or “take off your jacket.” Peter is calling us to readiness, to what he describes later in this way: “Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have” (3:15). Peter is calling believers to think things through, to be convinced of their faith, to know what they believe so that nothing and nobody can take it away from you. For us today, as it did for them, this means reading the Scripture, getting it down inside you, and learning what it means to be a follower of Jesus. As Josh McDowell famously said many years ago, we don’t “check our brains at the door” when we become a Christian. We engage our minds, our brains, and we learn what it is that the Bible says and what Christians believe. Without that, we cannot hope to live lives that please God, that honor God. Holiness requires a mind that is alert, a mind that is engaged. Now, this is not just learning knowledge for knowledge’s sake. It’s not just learning Bible stories so that we can repeat them, or just so we can boast that we know more than anyone else. And that leads us to the second thing Peter says.

He calls us to have minds that are fully sober (1:13). We hear that word “sober” and we think this is an anti-alcohol statement, but that’s not what Peter has in mind. It can mean that, to not be intoxicated, but it also has a meaning of being “steady in the mind.” In this context, Peter seems to be saying it’s not a matter of knowing about things, but of taking what we know and applying them to the world around us. This has to do with ethics, so it has to do with our working world, it has to do with parenting, and it has to do with friendship and romantic relationships and every other kind of relationship you can think of. Having a mind that is “fully sober,” to use Peter’s words, means we have a balanced judgment and we are living out this faith we say we believe. It’s awfully easy for us to read the Bible and put it back on the shelf. Within minutes, we forget what we read because it didn’t really get inside us. It didn’t affect the way we live like it should. I’ve often said the worst parking lot to try to get out of is the one after a Christian event. Several years ago, I was at a Promise Keepers event in Indianapolis, back when they did the big two-day events, Friday night and most of the day Saturday. Thousands of Christian men, singing God’s praises and learning what it means to live as faithful followers of Jesus. So we sang and listened, and then we all went to go to our cars to go our hotels for the night. And in that parking garage, I saw people cutting each other off, yelling at each other, and other behaviors that spoke more of road rage than they did of any kind of holiness. I wondered if anyone watching would have known that we were all part of a Christian conference. Does what you believe impact the way you live? Have a fully sober mind; don’t just know it, live it. This is a key to holiness.

Which leads to the next thing Peter says: “As obedient children, do not conform to the evil desires you had when you lived in ignorance” (1:14). Here, Peter is echoing Paul, who writes to the Romans (in a verse Pastor Rick loves to quote), “Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind” (Romans 12:2). Do not conform. Of course, the image Peter has in mind here is of a parent-child relationship, where the child models their life after that of the parent (cf. McKnight, NIV Application Commentary: 1 Peter, pg. 87). Christopher is here this morning, having moved in with us this week for a while, so I get to embarrass him (if that’s even possible). One of my fondest memories, though, is a day when we were in the parsonage at Brushwood, just he and I, and I remember that he was sitting on the counter as I was making lunch. He couldn’t have been more than 4 years old because Rachel wasn’t born yet, but somehow we got to talking about the age-old question, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” I’m guessing they had talked about that at preschool that day, and so I was saying something like maybe he wanted to be a policeman or a fireman—you know, the things most little boys say they want to be. And as clear as day, Christopher said to me, “No, Daddy, I want to be just like you!” I’m telling you, he could have asked for anything at that moment and I would have given it to him! He completely melted my heart in that moment. And so if that happens to us as earthly fathers, can you imagine what happens to the heart of our heavenly Father when we decide to be “obedient children” and to become more like him? Can you imagine what happens in heaven when we say, “Father, I want to be just like you”? I want to be holy, because my Father is holy.

But to be able to do that, Peter says, we have to make some choices. There are some things we have to say “no” to so that we can say “yes” to better things. We have to make the choice not to conform to the world, or, as Peter puts it, to the “evil desires” we once had. For Peter’s original audience, those “desires” could have been a wide variety of things, from dishonest behavior in the marketplace to worshipping false gods in the pagan temples. Over in his letter to the Galatians, Paul describes what their life was like before Christ (and I’m quoting Eugene Peterson’s paraphrase The Message here, because he doesn’t pull any punches): “repetitive, loveless, cheap sex; a stinking accumulation of mental and emotional garbage; frenzied and joyless grabs for happiness; trinket gods; magic-show religion; paranoid loneliness; cutthroat competition; all-consuming-yet-never-satisfied wants; a brutal temper; an impotence to love or be loved; divided homes and divided lives; small-minded and lopsided pursuits; the vicious habit of depersonalizing everyone into a rival; uncontrolled and uncontrollable addictions; ugly parodies of community. I could go on” (5:19-20, MSG). Paul says, “Those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God” (Galatians 5:21, NIV). We say “no” to those things so we can say “yes” to the better life: “love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control” (Galatians 5:22-23). And it’s not about breaking the rules. We make a choice as to who we want to be like. Do we want to be like God, who gave his son’s life for us? Or do we want to be like the world, which will turn its back on us in a heartbeat? Do we want to live life the way our heavenly Father designed it to be lived? Or do we want to live our own way, making it up as we go? Because God will allow us to live out our choices. C. S. Lewis said we either say to God, “Thy will be done,” or he will say to us, “Thy will be done” (The Great Divorce). Holiness is about turning everything we have and everything we are over to him. “Be holy,” God says, “because I am holy.” Be wholly holy.

Becoming holy is not a three-step process. It’s not a “read this book and you’ll figure it out.” It’s waking up every day and saying to Jesus, “Today, I will be your person once again.” It’s a thousand little decisions each and every day where we choose to turn away from what the world offers and receive instead what God offers. It’s much broader and deeper than “just say no” to whatever is on the list of “bad things.” It’s a life given completely over to God, a life focused on pleasing God and a life of gratitude for all that Christ has done for us. Let’s be honest, we don’t always “feel” like living that life. Sometimes it seems like it would be easier to just do our own thing or follow the world around us, but gratitude calls us to another way, a way of blessing that we would not and do not get any other way. Several years ago, when I was fairly new in ministry, the pastor I had when I was growing up hunted me down at Annual Conference and said he had something he wanted to give me. I smiled and said, “Okay,” but inside I was like, “Oh, great, he’s retiring and wants to unload some junk on me.” So I sort of avoided him for the rest of Annual Conference, but at the end of the ordination service on Saturday, he found me. “Where are you parked?” he asked, so we found each other in the parking lot. I met him out of gratitude for all he had done for me, not because I “felt” like it, but he surprised me with a whole set of Biblical commentaries. “I want you to have these,” he said, “and hope they will be of use in your ministry.” They have been; I use them nearly every week. I thought of that this week, and the blessing I would have missed if I had listened to my feelings rather than responded out of gratitude. It’s the same way with God. We live out of gratitude, not out of the way we feel. We won’t always feel like living holy lives, but at those times, we need to remember all God has done for us. When we respond and seek to live like Jesus out of a sense of gratitude, even when we don’t “feel” like it, we will find blessing we didn’t expect. And maybe, just maybe, the world can be changed when God’s people begin to live wholly holy lives.

There’s one more thing Peter mentions here that is important for us as Methodist Christians, because it’s a vital part of our holiness DNA. Peter puts it this way: “Set your hope on the grace to be brought to you when Jesus Christ is revealed at his coming” (1:13). As we become more and more like Jesus, we become more and more people of hope. Friends, when we look around at the world, when we listen to the news, when we skim through social media, when we listen to political commentary or our friends at the breakfast shop, the temptation is to despair, to give up, to wonder why we even bother living holy lives. But Christians are not people of despair. Christians are people of hope. Peter says we should set our hope on what Jesus is coming to bring us: eternal life, abundant life, a grace-filled life. We are called to hope, not despair. No matter how bad things get here, we know there is more to this life and that there is life beyond this. I say it often, and I’ll keep saying it until we believe it: the worst thing is never the last thing. So if it’s bad, it’s not the end. There is always hope. And that’s why, even in the face of denominational disagreements, I refuse to despair and I am determined to not give up. I live in hope, because my faith rests not in the United Methodist Church or in anything in this world. My faith and my hope rests in Jesus Christ and in him alone. So I make the choice every morning to seek to live a holy life, and sometimes I get it right and sometimes I get it wrong, but every morning I’m given a new chance, a brand new day to start over. I challenge you to do the same, to answer the call to holiness each and every morning and to be a person of hope. The worst thing is never the last thing. There is always hope. Be holy, because he who has called us is holy. Be wholly holy. Let’s pray.