Holiness In Liturgy And Life

A primary theme in Christian worship is the holiness of God, which is celebrated by hymns and prayers found in every worship tradition. This virtue of holiness has important implications for how we view God, how we celebrate Christian liturgy, and how we relate our worship to our everyday life, all of which are discussed in the following article.

The Theme of Holiness in Christian Liturgy Back and forth in the Christian liturgy echoes the language of holiness. Already by the fourth century the Sanctus had been introduced into the eucharistic prayer. The people, in response to the recalling of God's nature and the narrative of God's actions, are invited to join their voices with those of the hosts of heaven in the words:

Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of Sabaoth;

heaven and earth are full of thy glory. The acclamation derives, of course, from the ecstatic song of the hosts of heaven which Isaiah heard when standing in the Temple (Isa. 6:3). Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory. The song was heard again by John of Patmos in one of his visions: Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come.

In the Orthodox liturgy of John Chrysostom, the priest responds to the people's acclamation of Sanctus with the words: "?Holy and most holy are thou, and excellent is thy glory, who so loved thy world that thou didst give thine only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.?" In the liturgy of Basil the Great, the liturgy used in the Orthodox church on those few occasions in the year when the liturgy of John Chrysostom is not used, the response of the priest to the Sanctus similarly picks up the theme of holiness: "?Holy indeed and most holy art thou, and no bounds are there to the majesty of thy holiness; and just art thou in all thy works, for in righteousness and true judgment hast thou ordered all things for us.?"

The theme of God's holiness is struck much earlier in the Orthodox liturgy, however, than at the singing of the Sanctus. Indeed, the theme pervades the Orthodox liturgy, more so than it does any other liturgy of Christendom. Before the reading of Scripture the priest says:

For thou art Holy, our God,

and to thee we ascribe glory, to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, now and for ever for evermore.

To this the people respond with the so-called Trisagion Hymn, that is, the "?thrice-holy?" hymn. Three times they sing:

Holy God,

Holy and mighty, Holy and immortal one, have mercy on us.

Then they proceed with the words:

Glory to the Father, and to the Son,

and to the Holy Spirit; now and ever and for evermore. Amen. Holy immortal one, have mercy on us. Holy God, Holy and mighty, Holy and immortal one, have mercy on us.

The theme of holiness does not surface in liturgies only in the form of acclamations and ascriptions addressed to God. For example, in the liturgies of both John Chrysostom and Basil the Great we find the following dialogue between priest and people, occurring just before communion as the priest lifts up the sanctified bread:

Holy things unto the holy.

One only is holy, One only is Lord, Jesus Christ, to the glory of God the Father. Amen.

There is a variety of earlier versions of this same dialogue. For example, in the Liturgy of Saints Addai and Mari, coming to us from Syria, the dialogue takes this form:

The holy thing to the holies is fitting in perfection.

One holy Father, one holy Son, one holy Spirit. Glory to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit to the ages of ages. Amen.

"?Holy God,?" "?holy people,?" "?holy things?"—back and forth these phrases echo in the classic liturgies. The recognition and acknowledgment and hymning of holiness is a preoccupation of the Christian liturgy. Of course it is true that those who come from one and another free-church tradition will find a good deal of this liturgical language strange. But then in such traditions the Reginald Heber hymn, "?Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty,?" set to the familiar tune of John B. Dykes, occupies a prominent and much-loved place.

I think many of us feel that when it comes to holiness we have left behind such earthly, horizontal concerns as justice and entered a higher realm, the realm of the transcendent, of the divine. To cite the words of the Orthodox liturgy one more time.

We, who mystically represent the cherubim

and sing the thrice-holy hymn to the life-giving Trinity, let us lay aside the cares of life, that we may receive the King of all.

There is no such dichotomy between holiness and justice—not, at least, if we understand holiness aright. God's justice is a manifestation of his holiness; our justice is a reflection of God's holiness. When we deal with justice, we are dealing with the sacred. Injustice is desecration. The preoccupation of the liturgy with holiness does not separate liturgy from justice. On the contrary, holiness binds liturgy and justice together.

We can begin by noticing that the acknowledgment of God's holiness is inseparable from the recognition of an imperative for our holiness. This is suggested by the refrain, occurring several times in the Old Testament and picked up in the New, "?You shall be holy, for I, the Lord your God, am holy?" (Lev. 11:44–45; 1 Pet. 1:16). It is likewise suggested by the epiklesis in the eucharistic prayer of the classic Christian liturgies. Let me this time cite a contemporary example, from the Presbyterian Church USA:

Merciful God,

by your Holy Spirit bless and make holy both us and these your gifts of bread and wine, that the bread we break may be the communion of the body of Christ, and the cup we bless may be the communion of the blood of Christ. Here we offer ourselves to be a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to you. (Great Prayer of Thanksgiving C)

In its Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, Vatican II goes a step farther and says that the liturgy as a whole is for our sanctification, as well as for the glorification of God:

From the liturgy, and especially from the Eucharist, grace is poured forth upon us as from a fountain, and the sanctification of men in Christ and the glorification of God to which all other activities of the Church are directed, as toward their end, are achieved with maximum effectiveness. (Par. 10)

Members of other traditions of Christendom than the Catholic might disagree with, or hesitate over, one or another part of this sentence. What almost no one will dispute is that the liturgy is for making us holy.

However, to recognize that there is an imperative to holiness, and that the liturgy is not only for acknowledging God's holiness but also, in response to recognizing the imperative, for making us holy and for interceding with God that he make us holy, is not yet to see any particular connection between holiness and justice. That connection is what we must explore. We shall begin by asking what holiness is. For nothing in the language of liturgy and devotion is more alien to our contemporary secular mentality than speech about holiness. Once upon a time the concept of holiness was fundamental to the way in which human beings thought about reality and experience. That time—for us at least—is past. Holiness in the Theology of Jonathan Edwards A good way to set out is to consider what Jonathan Edwards, that great theologian of holiness, says on the matter. In his well-known Religious Affections (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1959), Edwards distinguishes between what he calls the natural attributes of God and the moral attributes. By "?God's natural attributes?" Edwards has in mind those attributes "?of strength, knowledge, etc. that constitute the greatness of God … ?" (256). And then Edwards goes on to say that the

moral excellency of an intelligent being, when it is true and real, … is holiness. Therefore holiness comprehends all the true moral excellency of intelligent beings: there is no other true virtue, but real holiness. Holiness comprehends all the true virtue of a good man, his love to God, his gracious love to men, his justice, his charity, and bowels of mercies, his gracious meekness and gentleness, and all other true Christian virtues that he has, belong to his holiness. So the holiness of God in the more extensive sense of the word, and the sense in which the word is commonly, if not universally used concerning God in Scripture, is the same with the moral excellency of the divine nature, or his purity and beauty as a moral agent, comprehending all his moral perfections, his righteousness, faithfulness and goodness. (255–56)

Edwards goes on to say that it is the holiness of God which first, and above all, draws us to him. Again I cannot do better than quote Edwards' own lucid prose:

that kind of excellency of the nature of divine things, which is the first objective ground of all holy affections, is their moral excellency , or their holiness. Holy persons, in the exercise of holy affections, do love divine things primarily for their holiness: they love God, in the first place, for the beauty of his holiness or moral perfection, as being supremely amiable in itself. Not that the saints, in the exercise of gracious affections, do love God only for his holiness; all his attributes are amiable and glorious in their eyes; they delight in every divine perfection; the contemplation of the infinite greatness, power, and knowledge, and terrible majesty of God, is pleasant to them. But their love to God for his holiness is what is most fundamental and essential in their love. (256)

In support of this claim, that God's holiness is what fundamentally grounds our love of God, Edwards remarks that

natural qualifications are either excellent or otherwise, according as they are joined with moral excellency or not. Strength and knowledge don't render any being lovely, without holiness; but more hateful: though they render them more lovely, when joined with holiness .… And so it is in God, according to our way of conceiving of the divine Being: holiness is in a peculiar manner the beauty of the divine nature. Hence we often read of the beauty of holiness. (257)

Thus it is, says Edwards, that

a true love to God must begin with a delight in his holiness, and not with a delight in any other attribute: for no other attribute is truly lovely without this, and no otherwise than as (according to our way of conceiving of God) it derives its loveliness from this; and therefore it is impossible that other attributes should appear lovely, in their true loveliness, till this is seen; and it is impossible that any perfection of the divine nature should be loved with true love, till this is loved. If the true loveliness of all God's perfections, arises from the loveliness of his holiness; then the true love of all his perfections, arises from the love of his holiness. (257–58)

On Edwards' account there is a very straightforward link between holiness and justice—or more precisely, between holiness and the virtue of justice. In both God and human beings the virtue of justice is one of the manifestations of holiness. For justice is one of those "?moral excellencies?" which go to make up the holiness of an "?intelligent creature.?" To use Edwards' language, justice is a "?holy affection.?" We may add that, on Edwards' view, "?gracious and holy affections have their exercise and fruit in Christian practice. I mean, they have that influence and power upon him who is the subject of them, that they cause that a practice, which is universally conformed to, and directed by Christian rules, should be the practice and business of his life?" (383). The practice of the virtue of justice yields justice.

Edward's account captures some, at least, of what goes into our concept of holiness. But it does not, I suggest, capture the whole of it. For on Edwards' account, we human beings find the holiness of God once we recognize it, altogether attractive. Edwards speaks repeatedly of the beauty and the sweetness of holiness. But recall once again the visionary experience of Isaiah in the temple. Isaiah's response on hearing the Sanctus hymn of the host of heaven was to recoil and to blurt out with the well-known words, "?Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips, for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!?" (Isa. 6:5). We need not deny that Isaiah felt something of the attraction of which Edwards makes so much; but predominantly he felt fright, terror, awe. It is of course this peculiar paradoxical experience of sweet terror, of attraction to what frightens one, that Rudolf Otto placed at the center of his phenomenology of the holy in his famous book The Idea of the Holy. Edwards grants, of course, that we may be struck with terrifying awe before the face of God. But he suggests that it is our awareness of God's natural excellencies that produces this experience, when those natural excellencies are perceived without a similar perception of God's moral excellencies—that is, his holiness. Holiness, on Edwards' account, is all beauty—no terror. Holiness in the Theology of Karl Barth Karl Barth, in his discussion of God's holiness, enables us to take a necessary step beyond Edwards. Rather than seeing God's holiness as the totality of his moral excellence, Barth sees God's holiness as a facet of God's grace; and God's grace he sees, in turn, as one of the perfections of the divine loving. One of Barth's concerns is to avoid the picture, with which Edwards operates, of holiness as one-among-other excellencies of God. On Barth's view of grace is, as it were, an adverbial qualification of God's love—God loves in a gracious manner. And holiness is in turn an adjectival qualification of God's grace—the graciousness of God's love has a holy quality to it. "?When God loves,?" says Barth,

revealing His inmost being in the fact that He loves and therefore seeks and creates fellowship, this being and doing is divine and distinct from all other loving to the extent that the love of God is grace. Grace is the distinctive mode of God's being in so far as it seeks and creates fellowship by its own free inclination and favor, unconditioned by any merit or claim in the beloved, but also unhindered by any unworthiness or opposition in the latter—able, on the contrary, to overcome all unworthiness and opposition. (Church Dogmatics [Edinburgh: T. and T. Clark, 1975], CD, II/1, p. 353)

Wherein, then, is the holiness of God's gracious loving? In this, says Barth:

As holy, it is characterized by the fact that God as He seeks and creates fellowship, is always the Lord. He therefore distinguishes and maintains His own will as against every other will. He condemns, excludes and annihilates all contraction and resistance to. (359)

Though this is Barth's official explanation of holiness, the thought behind the words remains for us somewhat inarticulate. Better, I think, are these words:

The bond between the concepts of grace and holiness consists … in the fact that both point to God's transcendence over the resistance which His being and action encounters form the opposite side. When we speak of grace, we think of the fact that His favorable inclination towards the creature does not allow itself to be soured and frustrated by the resistance of the latter. When we speak of holiness, we think, to the other hand, of the fact that His favorable inclination overcomes and destroys this resistance. To say grace is to say the forgiveness of sins; to say holiness, judgment upon sins. But since both reflect the love of God, how can there be the one without the other, forgiveness without judgment or judgment without forgiveness? (360)

Barth's first step, in comparison with Edwards, is to sharpen Edwards' reference to the moral excellencies of God. Those moral excellencies are all seen by Barth as located in God's love; they are the perfections of the divine loving. Barth's next step is to say that this loving has the quality of grace—that is, of forgiveness. But there cannot be forgiveness, he argues, without judgment. And it is this judging character of God's love, implicit in its forgiving character, that grounds his holiness.

It is, then, only as God affirms His victorious good will, as the concept of grace implies, that what holiness specially denotes is true and actual—the aloofness with which God stands over against the resistance He encounters, His judgment upon sin. He exercises this judgment, His judgment, in such a way that it can be manifest and truly appreciated and experienced as divine judgment only in this way, the way of grace. But of course it must also be said that this way leads necessarily and unavoidably to the truth and reality of judgment, and therefore to the holiness of divine grace .… The holiness of God consists in the unity of His judgment with his grace. God is holy because His grace judges and His judgment is gracious (361, 363).

As Barth himself goes on to remark, this account explains at once the intimate connection in the Scriptures between the recognition of God's holiness and our feelings of awe—a connection which we found missing in Edward's account. "?Woe is me,?" says Isaiah upon hearing God's holiness hymned by the hosts of heaven.

For our purposes, however, the gain we have made in proceeding from Edwards to Barth is tempered with a certain loss. Though we seem now to have a surer grasp on the concept of holiness, the connection of holiness to justice seems to have slipped away. So let us take yet a further step in our exploration of the nature of holiness. What Isaiah says, remember, upon hearing the Sanctus sung in heaven, is that "?I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips.?" You and I are inclined to interpret this as Isaiah's confession that he has violated the moral law of God—that he has, in that way, sinned against God. That is also how Barth interprets it. Almost certainly that is not what Isaiah had in mind, however—or at least not the whole of what he had mind. A pursuit of what he might have meant by "?uncleanness?" will take us deeper into an understanding of holiness. My guide here will be the remarkable discussion by the British anthropologist Mary Douglas in her book Purity and Danger (New York: Praeger, 1966). Her chapter on "?The Abominations of Leviticus?" succeeds in illuminating the cleanliness regulations of Leviticus and Deuteronomy to an extent which no one before her, to the best of my knowledge, had ever managed. Every society, so Douglas argues, operates with certain distinctions between the clean and the unclean—though in our modern Western society these are less prominent than they are in most societies, and have furthermore been blurred, and obscured from view, by an overlay of hygienic distinctions. Fundamental to Douglas' argument is her contention that to understand the clean/unclean distinctions of any society, one must understand "?the principles of patterning on which they constructed their universe,?" including their social universe (Douglas 7). Roughly speaking, a society judges as unclean those things which blur and threaten its pattering of society and reality. The challenge for an anthropologist, when confronted with a given society's regulations concerning defilement, is to discern the sense of cosmic and social pattern which lies behind these regulations. Holiness in Leviticus and Deuteronomy Within this general framework, Douglas offers a fascinating proposal concerning the clean/unclean distinctions to be found in Leviticus and Deuteronomy—this after she has first briefly canvassed the attempts at explaining these regulations which are to be found in literature. Some have argued that hygienic intuitions lay behind these regulations. As Douglas observes, however, there is no evidence for this hypothesis. Others have suggested that they are purely arbitrary regulations instituted by God so as to discipline God's people Israel. Douglas remarks that this explanation is the renunciation of any attempt at explanation. Yet others have argued that the clean and unclean animals were allegories of virtues and vices. For this hypothesis also no evidence is available. Lastly, some have argued that the point of regulations was to protect Israel from foreign influence. Douglas acknowledges that although some of the regulations probably did have this effect, there was nonetheless a great deal of foreign influence in Israel's life against which no regulations were instituted. Thus we are left wondering why these particular influences merited prohibition. As Douglas rather dryly remarks,

it is no explanation to represent Israel as a sponge at one moment and as a repellent the next, without explaining why it soaked up this foreign element but repelled that one .… The Israelites absorbed freely from their neighbors, but not quite freely. Some elements of foreign culture were incompatible with the principles of patterning on which they were constructing their universe; others were compatible. (Douglas 43)

It is, then, the pattern of cosmic and social order reflected in Israel's regulations concerning defilement that Douglas tries to discern. Before she does so, however, she notes a remarkable feature of the way in which these regulations are represented in both Leviticus and Deuteronomy. In both cases they are the elements of a holiness code. God's declares himself to be holy. This holiness was connected with God's deliverance of Israel from Egypt—a confirmation, apparently, of Barth's understanding of holiness. And God then calls Israel to be holy as God is holy. It is so as to reflect God's holiness that Israel is called to observe, among other things, the cleanliness regulations. In Leviticus 11:44–45, we read this:

For I am the Lord your God; consecrate yourselves therefore and be holy, for I am holy. You shall not defile yourselves with any swarming thing that crawls upon the earth. For I am the Lord who brought you up out of the land of Egypt, to be your God; you shall therefore be holy, for I am holy.

Israel is called to an imitatio dei throughout its daily existence: Be holy as I am holy. And to be holy one must avoid defilement. This remarkable connection between holiness and cleanness suggests that if we can discern the pattern of the cleanliness regulations of old Israel, we will also have discerned the lineaments of their understanding of holiness.

Before we set out on the attempt to discern this pattern, one more point must be introduced. Over and over it is said that blessing will come to Israel if it keeps itself clean; Israel will be cursed if it defiles itself. And this prompts Douglas to say about the regulations that

observing them draws down prosperity, infringing them brings danger. We are thus entitled to treat them in the same way as we treat primitive ritual avoidances whose breach unleashes danger to men. The precepts and ceremonies alike are focused on the idea of the holiness of God which men must create in their lives. So this is a universe in which men prosper by conforming to holiness and perish when they deviate from it. (Douglas 50).

There can be no doubt, says Douglas, that holiness means, for one thing, "?set apart.?" This seems, in fact, to be its root sense. But this does not tell us much. Set apart with respect to what? "?Granted,?" says Douglas, "?that its root means separateness, the next idea that emerges is of the Holy as wholeness and completeness?" (51). Correspondingly then, suggests Douglas, the clue to the holiness code is its concern with wholeness and completeness, these understood in both a physical and a social sense.

We can begin our uncovering of the pattern with some of those holiness regulations which, strictly speaking, do not involve defilement. "?The culture of the Israelites,?" remarks Douglas, "?was brought to the pitch of greatest intensity when they prayed and when they fought. The army could not win without the blessing and to keep the blessing in the camp the camp was to be preserved from defilement like the Temple?" (53). Consider, then, these instructions which the officers were to issue to the men in camp:

Then the officers shall speak to the people, saying, "?What man is there that has built a new house and has not dedicated it? Let him go back to his house, lest he die in the battle and another man dedicate it. And what man is there that has planted a vineyard and has not enjoyed its fruit? Let him go back to his house, lest he die in the battle and another man enjoy its fruit. And what man is there that has bethrothed a wife and has not taken her? Let him go back to his house, lest he die in the battle and another man take her.?" (Deut. 20:5–7)

The pattern seems clear. Those with significant projects which are incomplete, unfinished, are not to fight Israel's battles.

We can move next to the regulations concerning blemished and unblemished individuals. The animals offered in sacrifice must be perfect, unblemished specimens; and the priests offering the sacrifices must likewise be unblemished. We read that "?no man of the descendants of Aaron the priest who has a blemish shall come near to offer the Lord's offerings by fire … ?" (Lev. 21:21). So also lepers were unclean, and priests might come into contact with death only when their close relatives died. Next, if we think of the human body as a sort of container we can understand why bodily issues were regarded as making one unclean. "?When any man has a discharge from his body his discharge is unclean, "? we read in Leviticus (15:2). And likewise, "?When a woman has a discharge of blood which is her regular discharge from her body, she shall be in her impurity for seven days, and whoever touches her shall be unclean until the evening?" (15:19). The special importance of temple and army camp made it especially important that the regulations concerning bodily issues be honored in these precincts. In Deuteronomy we read that

when you go forth against your enemies and are in camp, then you shall keep yourself from every evil thing. If there is among you any man who is not clean by reason for what chances to him by night, then he shall go outside the camp; but when evening comes on, he shall bathe himself in water, and when the sun is down, he may come within the camp. (23:9–11)

The pattern which Douglas suggests—of wholeness, completeness, perfection, unity, integrity—does indeed seem clear in all these particulars. But what, finally, about the distinction between clean and unclean animals? Douglas' suggestion is that the Israelites saw a certain right and proper order as embedded in creation. Clean animals are those which exhibit this order; unclean ones, those which in some ways violate the order, mix it up. Though they may be perfect specimens of their kind, their very kind has a certain imperfection about it. Their very kind represents a violation of the proper boundaries. Their very kind is malformed. Specifically, Israel always worked with the distinction between the skies, the earth, and the water; and it had notions as to the proper form of locomotion in these. Those animals that violated the right form of locomotion for animals of their element were unclean. Thus worms and snakes are unclean because instead of walking or hoping on earth they crawl; eels are unclean because they move in water without fins; and birds with no wings, or inadequate wings, are unclean because they cannot fly.

Along the same lines we can now interpret the distinction between those animals which are clean to eat and those which, if eaten, will defile one. Douglas reminds us that the Israelites, as an agricultural people, would have given pride of place, in their thought about animals fit to eat, to their own domesticated animals. When they asked what it was that differentiated these from others, they noticed that these animals both chewed their cud and had cloven hooves This then defined for them the boundary between those animals fit for eating and those which would defile one. We can conclude, once again, "?that holiness is exemplified by completeness. Holiness requires that different classes of things shall not be confused?" (Douglas 53). And so, says Douglas,

if the proposed interpretation of the forbidden animals is correct, the dietary laws would have been like signs which at very turn inspired meditation on the oneness, purity and completeness of God. By rules of avoidance holiness was given a physical expression in every encounter with the animal kingdom and at every meal. Observance of the dietary rules would thus have been a meaningful par of the great liturgical act of recognition and worship which culminated in the sacrifice in the temple. (Douglas 57)

But where is justice in all this? Right at hand. Thrown right into the middle of the regulations concerning the clean and the unclean, the complete and the incomplete, the blemished and the unblemished, are regulations concerning justice. Where you and I would see a sharp distinction, no distinction is drawn. Near the beginning of Deuteronomy 4, for example, we read: "?For you are a people holy to the Lord your God, and the Lord has chosen you to be a people for his own possession, out of all the peoples that are on the face of the earth.?" This is followed immediately by the instruction, "?You shall not eat any abominable thing.?" What follows is a list of unclean animals. But shortly the list is broken off and some of the Jubilee regulations are introduced: for example, "?At the end of every seven years you shall grant a release. And this is the manner of the release: every creditor shall release what he has lent to his neighbor; he shall not exact it of his neighbor, his brother, because the Lord's release has been proclaimed?" (15:1–2). Then certain regulations are introduced concerning what we would regard as the cult proper. And those, in turn, are followed by an injunction to pursue justice, concluding thus: "?Justice, and only justice, you shall follow, that you may live and inherit the land which the Lord your God gives you.?" In short, the pursuit of justice is treated as apart of the pursuit of holiness. If we are to be holy as God is holy, we must pursue justice. Injustice is a mode of desecration.

What is the connection? It's not explicitly said. But then not much here is said explicitly. We have to try to spy the pattern. Part of the connection seems to be that a just judgment rendered in cases of conflict requires rectitude (Deut. 16:18–19); and as Douglas remarks about the list of actions found in Leviticus 19,

developing the idea of holiness as order, to confusion, this list upholds rectitude and straight-dealing as holy, and contradiction and double-dealing as against holiness. Theft, lying, false witness, cheating in weights and measures, all kinds of dissembling such as speaking ill of the deaf (and presumably smiling to their face), hating your brother in your heart (while presumably speaking kindly to him), these are clearly contradictions between what seems and what is. (Douglas 53–58)

I think it is plausible, however, to see justice and holiness as connected by more than rectitude. An important clue to the contour of justice as understood in the Bible is the repetitious reference to the three social classes of widows, orphans, and aliens. If society is to be just, such people as these must be rightly treated. The refrain is to be found not only in the prophets and Psalms but here in Deuteronomy. The Lord God, says Moses in his great farewell speech to his people, "?executes justice for the fatherless and the widow, and loves the sojourner, giving him food and clothing?" (Deut. 10:18). What, in particular, does the repetitious reference to widows, orphans, and aliens suggest as to the biblical understanding of the contours of justice? It seems quite clear: the widows, the orphans, and the aliens were the marginal ones in old Israelite society. They were the ones who had little or no voice in the society, and whose claim on the goods of society was, accordingly, fragile and precarious. If the society is to be a just community, there must be social arrangements and prices which assure to such people as these a voice in society and a fair share in its goods—whatever those goods may be. At the most fundamental level, those goods are the goods of sustenance. But as we learn from the Sabbath regulations, all the members of society also have a claim to a fair share in the Sabbath rest of the community—in its refreshment. We could cite other goods as well.

In short, what we find in Deuteronomy is that haunting biblical theme of God searching for the hundredth one, of leaving the ninety-and-nine to search for the one who is not yet incorporated into God's shalom, and asking us to accompany him on that search. A dimension of this is what nowadays is called "?the preferential option for the poor.?" With this understanding in mind of the contours of justice, it is not at all difficult to see why justice is treated as a manifestation of holiness. The unjust society is a society in which wholeness and integrity are lacking. For it is a society in which people exist on the margins, on the periphery, hanging on rather than being authentically incorporated into the life and welfare of the community. Such a society fails to mirror the wholeness of God. And when we as Christians recall that this God whose holiness we are called to reflect in our lives and our societies is himself a Trinitarian community, then it is obvious that the unjust society is an unholy society. It does not mirror God's communitarian wholeness. One more important issue must be considered before we close our discussion. But before we explore that issue, let us stand back for a moment to reflect on what we have learned. Fundamental to the Old Testament understanding of holiness is the contrast between God's wholeness, on the one hand, and on the other, the brokenness of self and society and creation as a whole. The Torah throws up before us a tremendous variety of modes of brokenness. And what the Torah asked of old Israel is that it reflect the holiness of God by avoiding, in various ways, the broken things of our creaturely existence, and by pursuing wholeness. The conclusion is indeed compelling that God's holiness is his wholeness. Barth saw God's holiness as confronting us in our sin. Our own reflections lead to the conclusion that this is not the whole of the picture. God's holiness confronts us in the totality of our brokenness. And that confrontation will not always be in the form of judgment; sometimes it will be in the form of lament. Of course it's true that sin is also a form of brokenness. So the right way to make the point is this: God confronts us not only in our ethical brokenness but in our brokenness as a whole. It is in that confrontation that we discern God's holiness, God's wholeness. What Isaiah heard hymned by the hosts of heaven, as he stood in the temple, was the awesome wholeness of God. And what he so powerfully felt in himself by contrast with that holiness was brokenness, and the brokenness of the world with which he came into contact. You and I, as modern Western men and women, have different notions of brokenness from those found in Leviticus and Deuteronomy. Though injustice is still for us a mode of brokenness, we do not see worms as examples of brokenness. For us it is quite all right if some of earth's animals crawl rather than walk or hop. The assumptions concerning defilement that underlay old Israel's holiness code have become alien to us. But for us who are Christians there is a second way in which we find ourselves distanced from the holiness code of old Israel. The words and actions of Jesus mean for us that instead of avoiding, in one way or another, the broken people of this world, we are to embrace them. Holiness and the Ministry of Jesus Let us develop this final theme by calling attention to the central argument in a recent book by Marcus J. Borg, Conflict, Holiness & Politics in the Teaching of Jesus (New York: Edwin Mellon Press, 1984). Borg, I might add, is a participant in what some have begun to call the third quest for the historical Jesus. To read the New Testament after the Old is to be struck by the fact that the New Testament, and in particular the Gospels, speaks very little of holiness. In principle that might be an insignificant silence. Borg contends that it is significant. Earlier I quoted the passage from Deuteronomy in which the leader of the army is told to dismiss from the camp all those who have significant incomplete projects. With that passage in mind, consider Jesus' parable of the Great Feast, found both in Matthew 22:1ff. and Luke 14:16ff. Let me quote the passage as it occurs in Luke:

A man once gave a great banquet, and invited many; and at the time for the banquet he sent his servant to say to those who had been invited, "?come; for all is now ready.?" But they all alike began to make excuses. The first said to him, "?I have bought a field, and I most go out and see it; I pray you, have me excused.?" And another said, "?I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I go to examine them; I pray you, have me excused.?" And another said, "?I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come.?" So the servant came and reported this to his master. Then the householder in anger said to his servant, "?Go out quickly to the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in the poor and maimed and blind and lame .… For I tell you, none of those men who were invited shall taste my banquet.?"

Though the allusion to the Deuteronomy passage seems unmistakable, the point of Deuteronomy has been inverted. Where in Deuteronomy the army officer orders those with incomplete projects to leave the camp, here in Luke the host erupts in anger when those with incomplete projects beg off attending his dinner. And yet more remarkable, the host expresses his anger by inviting to the banquet those very ones whose blemishes would be seen by the writers of Deuteronomy as making them unsatisfactory for reflecting the holiness of God: the maimed and the blind and the lame.

Borg's thesis helps us to understand these astonishing reversals. The thesis goes like this: When Rome occupied Jerusalem and the temple in 63 b.c. and made Palestine part of the Roman empire, "?Religious Jews were faced with the question, '?What did it mean in these circumstances to by loyal to Yahweh??' the answer provided by the postexilic development was clear: be holy.?" What arose in Israel was a cluster of movements dedicated to the pursuit of holiness. These movements were at one and the same time movements of renewal within Israel and movements of resistance to Rome. As to how to be holy, different movements had different views. Common to all was the conviction that holiness entailed separation from those who were unclean and the careful observance of Torah, especially its Sabbath and cultic regulations and its regulations concerning defilement. The Essenes, so as to pursue a separated, Torah-faithful, holiness, withdrew to the desert and set up a separated community. The Pharisees, by contrast, tried to practice holiness within general society—and the holiness they tried to practice was not just the holiness Torah prescribed for Israelites in general but that which it prescribed for priests. "?For the Pharisees, Israel was to be a Kingdom of priests and a holy nation, following the same laws of purity that normally applied only to priests in the Temple?" (Borg 58). The project of the Pharisees was to make the home a little temple, with its paterfamilias a little priest. The effect of those various holiness movements, dedicated both to internal renewal and resistance to Rome, was sharp internal divisions within the Jewish people. Not only were the various movements in conflict with each other; division was heightened between those within such movements and those on the outside. From their desert fastness the Essenes launched sharp attacks on the temple priesthood. And the Pharisees sharply separated themselves not only form Gentiles but from those called "?sinners?" in the New Testament—those engaged in unsavory and unacceptable occupations. These were counted by the Pharisees as Gentiles, no longer members of the holy people. To a greater or lesser extent the Pharisees also separated themselves from those of the common people who did not follow their own stringent purity regulations. Within this maelstrom of holiness movements, aimed at renewal and resistance, Jesus initiated another renewal movement. But the essence of the Jesus movement, on Borg's interpretation, was a new and different vision of what Israel was to be—a new paradigm and not just a new strategy for attaining the old paradigm. Jesus, says Borg, "?challenged the quest for holiness and replaced it with an alternative vision?" (Borg 75). We are indeed to reflect God. But instead of trying to be holy as God is holy, we are to be merciful, as our Father in heaven is merciful (Luke 6:36). "?Where Judaism spoke of holiness as the paradigm for the community's life, Jesus spoke of mercy,?" says Borg. And he adds that "?this conclusion is supported by the near silence of the synoptic tradition in applying the term '?holy?' to God or the community?" (Borg 128). Whereas those engaged in the pursuit of holiness were concerned to separate themselves from external sources of defilement, Jesus says, by contrast, "?There is nothing outside of a man which by going into him can defile him?" (Borg 98). What is it that Jesus meant by mercy? One of many clues is to be found in the passage immediately preceding Luke's report of Jesus' injunction, "?Be merciful even as your Father is merciful.?" There we read that "?God makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and the unjust.?" The thought is clear: The mercy of God is an inclusive mercy embracing the evil and unjust along with the good and just (Borg 128). Borg proceeds, within this general perspective, to interpret a good many of the incidents in Jesus' life and to exegete a good many of the incidents in Jesus' life and experience that over and over his approach proves illuminating. We come to understand why Jesus had dinner with tax-collectors and sinners. And we come to understand the extreme annoyance of the Pharisees over this practice: These people were the very paradigm of the unclean, contact with whom defiled one. The angry accusations of the Pharisees evoked many responses from Jesus. His response, as recorded in Luke, included three great parables—the parable of searching for the lost sheep, the parable of searching for the lost coin, and the parable of receiving back the lost son who had defiled himself to the extent of herding swine for a Gentile. In each case the point was the same: Rejoice over the one brought in. Borg summarizes his argument as follows:

Jesus' understanding of God as merciful and of the norm for Israel's development as mercifulness account for his opposition to the quest for holiness. The shift in paradigm was directly responsible for … two highly specific yet centrally important applications … : table-fellowship with the outcasts, and love of enemies. the first was possible because God accepted such as these, God's children—Israel—were to do so as well. For Israel's internal life, this understanding pointed toward greater inclusiveness, toward an overcoming of the "?intra-cultural segregation?" which increasingly marked her life. The second was possible and necessary for the same reason, but with primary implications for Israel's "?external?" life, her relationship to Rome. To be mer-ciful meant to eschew the path of violence. (Borg 137).

But is it true that we find in Jesus "?opposition to the quest for holiness?"? Granted that Jesus was opposed to the Pharisees' search for holiness. And granted that he speaks hardly at all of God's holiness, speaking instead of God's mercy and love and compassion. Nonetheless, it would be extraordinary if he who taught us to pray, "?Our Father who are in heaven, hallowed be thy name,?" meant to repudiate all concern with holiness. Furthermore, what Jesus over and over insists on in his polemics with the Pharisees is not that we repudiate the Torah but that we rightly appropriate it. A right appropriation requires penetrating to its essence. But it would be remarkable if Jesus thought that the Torah, in its essence, had nothing to do with the holiness of God. "?Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!?" Jesus is recorded in Matthew (23:23) as saying, "?for you tithe mint and dill and cummin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law, justice and mercy and faith … ?" (cf. Luke 11:42). Borg's comment on this passage seems to me entirely correct:

To the extent that the imitation of God as holy led to this meticulous concern to the neglect of the weightier matters of Torah, holiness was inappropriate as the dominant model for Israel's self understanding and understanding of God. Instead such emphasis was subordinated to a concern pointing to the different dominant paradigm designated by the terms justice, mercy, and faithfulness. These, like holiness, were all characteristics of God and should on an imitatio dei model be characteristic of the community which would be faithful to Yahweh. (Borg 102).

What we find in Jesus, so it seems to me, is not the repudiation of holiness but a radically new understanding of how we are to reflect God's holiness. In Jesus we find, if you will, a new hermeneutic of Torah's concern with holiness. The holiness of the community is not to be located in which animals it eats and avoids eating, in whether it does or does not tolerate incomplete projects in its army camps, in how it handles those who have bodily issues, in how it classifies the plant and animal kingdoms. The holiness of a community resides centrally in how it treats human beings, both those who are members of the community and those outside, even those outside who are "?enemies.?" And specifically, the holiness of a community consists not in its whole members avoiding contact with those who are blemished and diseased and broken and wayward. There are none who are truly whole. It consists in the members of the community embracing the broken ones, and working and praying for their healing. It consists in having dinner with prostitutes and traitors and paupers. It consists in healing the blind and lame and leprous. We learn from Jesus that the community which shuns the broken ones can never be a whole community—that is, can never be a holy community. The holy community is the merciful community, the just community.

The Pharisees understood their table fellowship as a little temple. But perhaps Jesus understood his own table fellowship in the same way. Of course it was a radically different kind of fellowship that he instituted—a radically inclusive one, an accepting fellowship instead of a rejecting one, a fellowship of justice and mercy. For Jesus understood differently how we are to become a holy community. At this table/temple fellowship of Jesus, "?the poor and maimed and blind and lame?" are present. In any case, Paul understood the new community which Jesus instituted as a new sort of temple—Paul of course being the former Saul the Pharisee. Twice over he uses the temple metaphor in speaking to his readers of the church—in 1 Corinthians 3:16–17 and in Ephesians 2:19–22. Especially the latter passage sounds the theme of inclusiveness:

So then you are no longer strangers and sojourners, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets. Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure is joined together and grows into a holy temple in the Lord.

"?Holy things for the holy,?" says the Orthodox priest as he raises the bread before the people. And the people answer, "?One only is holy, one only is Lord, Jesus Christ, to the glory of God the Father.?" Jesus does not repudiate such language. Instead he offers us new understanding of how we are to respond to God's holiness and how we are to reflect it.

God's holiness is God's wholeness—God's awesome wholeness. Face to face with that wholeness, we feel acutely our own sinfulness and brokenness. "?Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a person of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!?" In the tension of the contrast between God's awesome wholeness and our own tragic brokenness, we discern God's forgiving judgment and God's lament. And so, instead of cringing in terror, we in thankful confidence join in the heavenly hymn, "?Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God of hosts.?" But God asks us for more than liturgical acknowledgment of God's holiness. God asks that we, in our communities, reflect God's holiness, God wholeness. Jesus, the Son of the Father, showed us what it is to do that. It is to befriend the broken ones and to work for their healing. To do that one must struggle for justice—for the day when all those on the margins have been given place and voice in the community, and when the enemy has been befriended. Holiness joins liturgy and justice. In the liturgy we hymn God's holiness. In lives of justice and mercy we reflect God's holiness. In the liturgy we voice our acknowledgment of God's holiness. In the struggle for justice we embody that acknowledgment.