Sermon Title: "You Shall Be Holy"
Date: February 20, 2011
Minister:  The Rev. Charles Ensley

Lesson:  Leviticus 19:1-2, 9-18

What’s the earliest hymn you can remember?  If we were sitting around in a group of twelve or so, we could have a discussion of those hymns and why you remember them.  However, since we aren’t, and this setting doesn’t lend itself to an interactive discussion, you’ll have to settle for hearing me tell my earliest remembrance of hymns.

Two come immediately to mind.  The first is Beneath the Cross of Jesus.  It must have been a Lenten service when I was nine or ten.  Afterwards, the words of that hymn kept running through my mind.  The other hymn is Holy, Holy, Holy!  For a century-and-a-half it’s been a classic of Protestant worship.  We typically sing it at least twice a year.

This journey down my memory lane of hymns came to my mind as I selected the text for today’s sermon.  Verse two is particularly vexing:  “You shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy.” (Leviticus 19:2)  We know God is holy.  Many of us have sung “Holy, holy, holy!  Lord God almighty” for decades.  The third stanza of the hymn reaffirms it by saying “only thou art holy.”  So there’s the problem!  How can we sing only God is holy when the chapter most quoted in American Reformed Judaism is Leviticus 19, beginning “You shall be holy”?

The folks in our Tuesday evening study of the eight core stories of the Bible heard me say last week that I had selected my scripture text and sermon theme before I did the readings for Tuesday, which included the Ten Commandments.  Studying today’s lesson, I see the parallels between the Leviticus 19 text and the commandments as found in Exodus 20 and also in Deuteronomy 5. 

“In Leviticus, the people of God are called to be holy, not because holiness is an arbitrary religion game that God wants played, but because God is holy.  Because God is holy, God’s people are to be holy by being like God in the world.  We can, therefore, do away with all the cartoon pictures of the sanctimonious holy person wearing a halo and a prudish glare.  To be holy is not to be narrow-minded or primly pious; it is, rather, to imitate God.”*

In Tuesday night’s study, we looked at another way of understanding the word holy.  As God prepared to give the Ten Commandments, the Lord instructed Moses to say to his people:  “…if you obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession out of all the peoples.  Indeed the whole earth is mine, but you shall be for me a priestly kingdom and a holy nation.”  (Exodus 19:5-6)

God’s “treasured possession” helps us to understand the word holy in a new light:  to be holy is to be “set apart for a purpose.”  Just as God is special, unique, God expects the same of his chosen people.

“To be holy is to roll up one’s sleeves and to join in with whatever God is doing in the world.  That is why, in [today’s] great chapter on moral holiness, the emphasis falls on social justice.  Produce should be left in the fields for poor people to glean.  Neighbors should be dealt with honestly.  Wages should be paid promptly.  Disputes should be settled with equity and fairness.  In Leviticus, if you want to be holy, don’t pass out a [religious] tract; love your neighbor, show hospitality to the stranger, and be a person of justice.”*

Verses 9 through 18 appears to mix up moral, civil, and religious injunctions.  Each of the five precepts closes with the characteristic refrain of this law of holiness:  “I am the Lord.”  More than one commentator has noted the parallels between the precepts of the Ten Commandments—the first four dealing with our relationship with God and the next six dealing with our relationships with our family and neighbors—and this passage from Leviticus.  It is not a revision of the Ten Commandments; on the contrary, it is a further reinforcement and a practical illustration of them.

So what do these ancient texts, so revered among Judaism, require of us?  Only one or two of you have an interest in a farm.  I’m not aware that anyone here owns a vineyard.  How are we to leave something from the harvest for the poor?  How are we to leave grapes on the vine?

Those are, of course, images that would have been meaningful to those hearing these words some three thousand years ago.  But the rest of the precepts are very much applicable to the society in which we live in 2011.  The use of fraud to oppress the wage earner or helpless persons is opposed in verses 13 and 14.  No one is to take advantage of another person’s vulnerability in order to get work done at lower wages, or to call in mortgages for a momentary lapse in payments.  I wonder if we would see so many foreclosures if reputable banks had not issued mortgages to persons without adequate income in the first place?

How about defaming and treating with disdain those who are deaf or blind or physically disabled, ridiculing those who act out with autism or Asperger’s syndrome?  These are the people Jesus noticed as they sat as outcasts outside the temple walls.  He treated them with compassion, even healing them before they asked.  We don’t have such powers, but today’s text warns us against reviling such persons.  When noticing them, do you greet them, or look away?

To stop the wrong inference that God is only the God of the poor, the helpless, and the disadvantaged persons of society, verses 15 and 16 stress regard for rich people as well, showing that partiality can go both ways!  The rights of rich people are not to be violated, nor are they to be slandered any more than those of the poor are to be.

The final verses on holiness in neighborliness are the culmination of the climactic chapter in Leviticus.  Verse 18, “Love your neighbor as yourself,” has been called the Golden Rule, though the origin of that title is unknown.

Jesus was well-versed in these passages from the Torah—the first five books of Hebrew scripture.  When challenged by the Pharisees as to what commandment in the law was the greatest, he replied:  “‘You shall love the Lord your God all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’  This is the greatest and first commandment.” (Matthew 22:37-38)  This is from the Shema, (Deuteronomy 6:4-9) the prayer faithful Jews recite twice a day.  Then Jesus continued:  “And a second is like it:  ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’  On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”  Jesus’ second commandment comes directly from the concluding verse of today’s lesson. (Leviticus 19:18)

These simple and familiar words are so comprehensive that they embrace all morality and fair dealing with our family members, classmates, neighbors, friends, co-workers, even church members!  They go right to the core of the matter and declare that the state of one’s heart towards one’s neighbor is the determining factor in being as holy toward the neighbor as God is holy. 

To be holy, to be set apart as God’s “treasured possession,” is to see ourselves as chosen and loved by God, and set apart for a special purpose.  We are to treat others first as God would treat them, not how we might initially want to react.  For all those with whom I disagree, those who irk me or make impossible demands, who lash out in anger at something I propose, did, or didn’t do, I remind myself, “They, too, are a child of God.  God loves them.”

To be holy, just as God is holy, cannot be regarded as an optional luxury of a believer’s life-style.  If Leviticus 19:2 sets the mark high at “You shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy,” Jesus sets it just as high in the New Testament gospel lesson paired with today’s Hebrew scripture.  In Matthew 5:48, Jesus says, “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”  This standard is not abstract or philosophical, but personal and concrete.  It represents the very character and nature of the Lord.  When Jesus urged Christians to be perfect, he was making the same demands for holiness as those we find in Leviticus 19.

You needn’t practice a pious look, check in the mirror to see if your halo is polished, act holier than thou, or expect that you’re going to be able to bless every single person you encounter.  But if you remember God loves you, and God loves them, then you will truly “love your neighbor as yourself.”

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*Walter C. Kaiser, Jr., The New Interpreter’s Bible, vol. 1-Leviticus, (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1994) 1136.