Sinners or Saints?

October 1, 2008

I Peter 1:13-25 (The Message)

“So roll up your sleeves, put your mind in gear, be totally ready to receive the gift that’s coming when Jesus arrives. Don’t lazily slip back into those old grooves of evil, doing just what you feel like doing. You didn’t know any better then; you do now. As obedient children, let yourselves be pulled into a way of life shaped by God’s life, a life energetic and blazing with holiness. God said, “I am holy; you be holy.” You call out to God for help and he helps—he’s a good Father that way. But don’t forget, he’s also a responsible Father, and won’t let you get by with sloppy living. Your life is a journey you must travel with deep consciousness of God. It cost God plenty to get you out of that dead-end, empty headed life you grew up in. He paid with Christ’s sacred blood, you know. He died like an unblemished, sacrificial lamb. And this is no afterthought. Even though it has only lately—at the end of the ages—become public knowledge, God always knew he was going to do this for you. It’s because of this sacrificed Messiah, whom God then raised from the dead and glorified, that you trust God, that you know you have a future in God. Now that you’ve cleaned up your lives by following the truth, love one another as if your lives depended on it. Your new life is not like your old life. Your old birth came from mortal sperm; your new birth comes from God’s living Word. Just think: a life conceived by God himself! That’s why the prophet said,
‘The old life is a grass life, its beauty as short-lived as wildflowers;
Grass dries up, flowers droop, God’s Word goes on and on forever.’
This is the Word that conceived the new life in you.”

If you were to have said to me twenty years ago, “be holy as God is holy,” I might have reacted in one of two ways. “Holiness, shmoliness! I’ll live how ever I like!” Or . . . I might have become quite legalistic in my efforts at seeking such purity in my life. There are many that balk at the injunction because they buy more heavily into the idea that we are sinners, not saints, and therefore we find ourselves in desperate need of God’s forgiveness. Are we sinners or are we saints?

Peter is calling the people to forget the ways that they lived before they were Christians and to focus on purity and obedience. For Peter a holy life is one that calls each person to express love toward others, to see each other as a family. It is not something made up of rules on how to be but it comprehends that holiness starts with God reaching out in love to bring humans into relationship with him and then follows with humans reaching out in love to each other to nurture relationship. There are those who would say that if one can accomplish this they are saints. Maybe that’s true. So, are we sinners or are we saints?

I live a very sheltered life. That life revolves around the church. I do not know many people who are not Christian (though I do know some people who don’t act very Christian.) I have my own church centered vernacular that drives my life and no matter how I try, I find myself wedded to that vernacular. That vernacular and the experience of life in the church usually leave me feeling pretty saintly.
This past week though, I took some vacation days and gathered with a number of people that I knew really only casually. We were all in agreement that we wanted to know each other well and so our week was spent learning about each other. In the context of that learning, I realized how outmoded my language is and how I expect others to utilize church-speak so common to the halls of my environment. As I became aware of the expectations that I put on others I began to feel rather sinful.

I realized this week that innate in the injunction “to be holy as God is holy” is an understanding that our perspectives on life must be very broad, that our language and vernacular must be expansive, that non-judgment must be a crucial ingredient in the mixture of creating holiness in our lives. I realize that I cannot agree with objectors to the injunction because to me that perfection of holiness is attainable and the fact that we choose to seek it is what makes us all saints, but we are on a journey toward it and the trial and error lessons of the journey are what make us sinners. So are we sinners or are we saints?

Today, if you say to me, “be holy as God is holy.” My response would be more along the lines of “I’ll do my best.” My best in seeking holiness comes first in the search for a life journey that is lived in the “deep consciousness of God” and second in the practice of that consciousness through love. Twenty years from now when I look back on the words I’m about to write I may well do so with embarrassment and part of me hopes so. We do grow from our previous perspectives if we allow ourselves the opportunity to do so. Are we sinners or are we saints? It’s a question for you to answer but for me, I am not convinced that I am a sinner or a saint but after this week of being and experiencing love among others outside of the walls of the church, I think . . . that I just am.