By REV. LUNA L. DINGAYAN
SECOND OF TWO PARTS
“Be compassionate as your Father in heaven is compassionate,” — Luke 6:36
This would lead us to the question, what is holiness in the first place? Essentially, to be holy means to be different, to be set apart. For instance, Israel was a holy nation because the Israelites were set apart from other peoples in the world, with a noble purpose as mentioned by Apostle Peter in his first letter, “to proclaim the wonderful acts of God, who called you out of darkness into his own marvelous light” (Ex. 19:6; I Peter 2:9-10).
Therefore, to be holy is to have a special relationship with the one who called us to be holy. This does not mean, however, that the unholy ones or those who are not set apart are evil, rather it simply means that they are not called or are not set apart or have no special relationship to God for a particular purpose.
By the way, it is not only people but also places, animals, and even time that can be holy or set apart. For instance, the temple is holy or set apart for believers to use; the lamb is holy or set apart for sacrifices; the Sabbath is holy or set apart for people to have time to rest.
There are clear demarcation lines between what is holy and unholy; and these are governed by a system of purity laws, as stipulated in the Book of Leviticus, the so-called Book of Holiness, especially Leviticus 17-26.
Leviticus 19:2 says, “Be holy, because I, the LORD your God, am holy.” This shows that the holiness of Israel as a people comes from God. The Israelites are not holy in themselves; they are holy only in so far as God made them holy or set them apart. The emphasis is not on how human beings approach God through sacrifices and other rituals and ceremonies; rather the emphasis is on how God approaches human beings and makes them holy.
In other words, to be holy is to obey God’s laws. Leviticus 20:8 says, “Obey my laws, because I am the LORD and I make you holy.” Now, the essence of the laws of holiness is found in Leviticus 19:18, which says “Love your neighbor as you love yourself.” Therefore, to be holy as God is holy is to love our neighbors, and to love our neighbors is to do justice and show them honesty and compassion (cf. Lev. 25).
All the outward rituals and ceremonies, and prohibitions of eating and drinking have to be understood in this light. For the Israelites, the system of purity laws is important because it provides them identity and orientation. It also strengthens and protects their identity against the dominant culture of the various empires that subjugated them.
Jesus’ criticism of holiness and the purity system
Now, holiness and the whole purity system become problematic when these are misunderstood and misused. Religious leaders could easily misuse the purity laws to strengthen their power by deciding or influencing who or what is holy and unholy, pure and impure, clean and unclean, healthy and sick. They could claim the power to decide as to who is “in” or “out.”
Although the purity system was widely accepted among the Israelites, the prophetic movement, however, had a different emphasis. Instead of the purity system, the prophets emphasized the Exodus tradition.
Prophet Amos, for instance, criticized the purity system and said it becomes meaningful only if “justice flows like a stream, and righteousness like a river that never goes dry,” (Cf. Amos 5:21-24).
The Jesus’ movement stood up with the prophetic tradition. Hence, instead of proclaiming holiness, Jesus Christ our Lord rather proclaimed wholeness, as concretely shown in his table fellowship with sinners and prostitutes and the healing of the unclean.
Holiness divides people, but wholeness unites people. And so, instead of saying, “Be holy as your Father in heaven is holy”, Jesus Christ our Lord rather said, “Be compassionate as your Father in heaven is compassionate,” (Lk.6:36). For Jesus. the essence of holiness is compassion, justice, and honesty, which he regarded as the weightier aspects of the Law (cf. Mt. 23:23). Without justice, honesty, and compassion, all our observance of holiness and purity laws would redound into empty rituals and ceremonies devoid of meaning and significance. To be holy, therefore, is to be just, honest, and compassionate.
Hence, I said in my sharing with people in the churches that our Seminary emphasizes the training of our students not to be “holy” as popularly understood, not to be trained like the Scribes and Pharisees, but to be compassionate, to be just and honest to people like Jesus Christ our Lord. For this is what our Lord Jesus Christ did in his time; he taught his disciples and the people following him to be “compassionate as (the) Father in heaven is compassionate” (Lk.6:36). This is the reason why Christ our Lord criticized the Scribes and the Pharisees for emphasizing holiness or the purity laws, and forget the weightier aspects of the law, which is honesty, justice, and mercy or compassion (cf. Mt. 23:23).
Using the prophecies of Isaiah, Jesus also criticized the Scribes and Pharisees for teaching human rules as though they are laws of God, and for putting aside God’s commands and obeying human teachings (Cf. Mk. 7:6-8). Apparently, for Jesus the purity laws of holiness imposed by the Scribes and the Pharisees were not necessarily the laws of God.
For instance, Jesus even criticized the food laws. He said, “There is nothing that goes into you from the outside which can make you ritually unclean. Rather, it is what comes out of you that make you unclean…For from the inside, from your heart, come the evil ideas which lead you to do immoral things, to rob, kill, commit adultery, be greedy, and do all sorts of evil things; deceit, indecency, jealousy, slander, pride, and folly – all these evil things come from inside you and make you unclean,” (Mk.7:14-23).
Oftentimes, people today who claim to be “holy” or even striving to be “holy” tend to be self-righteous and judgmental of other people. They tend to be unforgiving and quite difficult to understand. This is the same kind of attitude we find among the Scribes and the Pharisees during Jesus’ time.
They accused Jesus for being “unholy,” because he associated himself with the so-called sinners and outcasts of society (cf. Mt. 9:10-13). Jesus Christ our Lord, though he may be accused of being “unholy” and breaker of purity laws, was full of compassion and forgiveness, especially for the poor, the sinners, and outcasts of society. #