Being Holy

March 2

Readings: Lv 19:1-2, 11-18; Mt 25:31-46

In the first reading from Leviticus, we hear God instructing the people to be holy as God is holy.

Two things.

First, growing up Catholic I was never really taught very much about the “Old Testament” (which are now referred to more respectfully as the Hebrew Scriptures) and I found passages from books like Leviticus boring and, frankly, just skipped over them.

Second.  That was a big mistake on my part.

If you are Christian, it’s important to remember that Jesus only read the Hebrew Scriptures (as a Jew) and distilled all of his teachings and understandings from that wisdom.  To more fully understand Jesus, it would really benefit us to understand his roots.

My friend Joel, who is Jewish, recently really helped me to understand this passage from Leviticus.  He said that the Jewish Shabbat services have a portion each week called K’doshim (which means holiness) where they read a portion from Leviticus each week as a teaching on what it means to be holy.  He also said that, unfortunately, some of the translations of the words used in the Hebrew scriptures lost a little something coming into English.  So when we hear a passage like we hear today (which contains what we have come to know as the 10 Commandments), he says that they really should be known as the “10 things” or the “10 words”.  Leviticus might be known as “God’s Little Instruction Book” as opposed to “THE COMMANDMENTS”.

While Leviticus contains a bit of material pertinent to the time during which it was written, it contains some deep truths about holiness which we hear today: Don’t steal or lie; Pay people fair wages; Don’t harm vulnerable people; Don’t harbor hate; Don’t show deference to powerful people just because they’re rich or powerful, Don’t stand by when your neighbor’s life is at stake. Just read those slowly again.  These behaviors constitute a holy life, and if we started to assign categories of people to each of those groups from our modern context, we’d start to see a pretty interesting picture of who and what God wants us to be concerned with.

And then Jesus tells a bombshell story in the gospel which turns the whole idea of holiness on its head.  Holiness is somehow associated with people who are hungry, thirsty, in need, unknown to us, imprisoned or marginalized somehow.  Wait…what?  God says that when you took care of those folks, you took care of God.  And as it turns out, even the people who God says did this very thing had no idea that they were even doing it at the time.

So what does it mean to be holy or live a holy life?  I guess I’d invite you to reflect on that this Lent in light of Leviticus and Matthew 25.  But from our readings today, it has a whole lot to do with compassion, generosity, hospitality and mercy and seemingly little to do with saying the right prayers and being in church.