Neighbours, sex and holiness!
It could almost be an interesting film title couldn't it?
We know the golden rule to
love God and neighbour perhaps to a point of over familiarity. To the point
where living it out in our day to day lives may feel a little "Old
Testament"!
How often do we find
neighbours getting in the way? The work
colleague we're competing with for the next promotion; the tasty morsel or
steak of gossip that we could stop but choose to add to; the wrong that we
don't want to right because they had it coming to them anyway. In these opening verses of Deuteronomy we
find ourselves being asked to do things differently. To see wrongs put right, to see our
neighbour's daily worries and stresses relieved. Relieved by me; you; us. Have you got your neighbour's back? It is a back you're called to sooth and
unburden.
Sex. Rape.
Violation. Divorce. In one sense I'm reassured that what happens
today has happened for as long as humans have been human. In another I am disturbed and a little
saddened. How often does sex, something
very beautiful, get in the way of our being holy? Gentlemen, let's purge the evil from amongst
us and treat our women as princesses - for that is what they are. Ladies, purge the evil from amongst you and
treat your men as princes - for that is what they are. May we be accountable to each other in this.
The law books' refrain of: “I
am the Lord your God; consecrate yourselves and be holy, because I am holy”
chimes through these verses in Deuteronomy.
Are we guilty of having
substituted holiness for self-righteousness? Have we stripped holiness of its
grace and shalom (wholeness of being) and turned it into something for the most
part we just don't want to be?
We are called to be
distinctive. To be free. To be whole people.
To be holy. To be ambassadors for
Christ. May it be so today.
(member of the
congregation)