CAMINANDO WITH JESUS: Holiness

When the Pharisees heard that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together, and one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” He said to him, “’You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”

Now while the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them this question: “What do you think of the Messiah? Whose son is he?” They said to him, “The son of David.” He said to them, “How is it then that David by the Spirit calls him Lord, saying,
‘The Lord said to my Lord,
“Sit at my right hand,
until I put your enemies under your feet”’?

If David thus calls him Lord, how can he be his son?” No one was able to give him an answer, nor from that day did anyone dare to ask him any more questions.

- Matthew 22:34-46

In the summer of 2019, I had the privilege of walking the Camino de Santiago. Pilgrims have walked (or in some cases ridden on horseback) the Camino for nearly 1,000 years.

The change effected by pilgrimage happens both on the journey and on the return home. Santiago, the destination, is really only the halfway mark, similar to mountain climbers, for whom the summit is, yes, the destination, but only halfway through the journey.

Now pilgrims enter Santiago after days, weeks or even months of walking, only to catch a bus, train or plane to return home in a matter of hours. This change makes the pilgrimage a bit lopsided, putting the emphasis on only one half of the journey. While it may be more difficult to hold the second half with the same gravitas as the first, it is still necessary to pay attention to both halves.

Jesus’ summary of the Law demands attention to both parts. We cannot focus only on God to the exclusion of attending to our neighbor nor attend to our neighbor without loving God.

“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind” was not a new commandment. Jesus was quoting part of the Shema, from Deuteronomy 6, central to Jewish life then and now. Hear, O Israel: The Lord is our God, the Lord alone. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might (Deuteronomy 6:4).

The opening of the Shema was left off, but every Jew who heard Jesus’ words would have heard those words: The Lord is our God, the Lord alone. One God. One Holy God.

Holiness is a prism that reflects love in surprising ways, ways that our hearts can feel, our souls can embrace and our minds can grasp. Holiness begins with the abstract and ends with the concrete. It begins with, “In the beginning God created,” and culminates with, “Father, into your hands I commend my Spirit.”

Holiness is also the subject of the second part of Jesus’ response, “you shall love your neighbor as yourself,” from Leviticus 19, which begins with the commandment, "You shall be holy, for I the LORD your God am holy.” The rest of the chapter, then, instructs the Israelites how to "be holy." The instructions are practical, not ethereal. Holiness is made real by leaving crops in your fields for those who are poor to gather, by speaking truth and acting in justice.

Walking the Camino was a time filled with holy moments and practical concerns. It taught me to be more aware of the beauty all around, even as my feet hurt. It was as if the way shouted each day, “Everything we’ve got comes from God, so look around! Creation explodes with beauty.”

Beauty is not only a gift from God, it is an experience of God, an experience of holiness. There is beauty in each one of our faces, whether we are willing to acknowledge it or not. There is beauty in our tender care for those we love, which is only a tiny sliver of the love God has for us.

Priest and author Paul Fromberg observes that the experience of beauty creates a longing for beauty, a desire for change in the face of the ugliness that exists in the world. Hunger is ugly. Racism is ugly. Poverty is ugly. These situations, these conditions are ugly—not the people in them. It should not be a surprise that many folks involved in making beauty are also involved in making justice. Desire alone is not enough; action is required.

Creating beauty is then another way of loving God with everything we’ve got. When we create beauty, we participate in transforming the world. At its base, social action is nothing more than transforming the ugliness of the world into something more closely resembling the beauty our creator intends. When we take something ugly and transform it into something more beautiful, we begin to engage in social justice.

And, as we act, all of a sudden we may find ourselves reaching across barriers, across preconceived ideas, across our own failings only to discover it’s not as scary as we thought.

Radically welcoming the stranger doesn’t distort our identity. It stretches, expands and transforms how we see the world and all of God’s children in it.

We stand at a new threshold, a new way of understanding Church. The pandemic demands new responses to the command to love God and love neighbor.

The prism of God’s holiness reflects God’s love in ways we could not imagine. Ponder your holy moments; when you have been overwhelmed by the beauty, majesty and wonder of God, search them out with your heart, mind and soul. Be awakened to the capacity within to love God and, challenged to holiness, to creating beauty and transforming this world.

What is it you want to see more of, or less of, in your community? How can you partner to make that happen? Pay attention to both halves, for if we love God with all we’ve got, and we love our neighbor as ourselves, anything is possible.

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Paul Fromberg “The Art of Transformation: Three Things Churches Do That Change Everything”

The Rev. Nancy Cox is the rector of All Saints', Concord.