Be holy a holy people

21st Sunday of Pentecost           November 9, 2025

The texts for this sermon are Leviticus 12:2, Zechariah 8:8,13,16-17, 1 Peter 1:14-16 and Matthew 5, selected verses: 

Blessed are those who are not spiritually arrogant, blessed are those who are repentant, who are kind-hearted, who seek right standing with God, the merciful and those with integrity and godly character and who are peacemakers.

Last Sunday, we itemized the kinds of things the early Christians considered sinful. And they are behaviors and attitudes we certainly should avoid. We also considered the fact that neither Paul, nor the other writers, ranked these sins. And then James reminded us that committing one of these was akin to committing all of them and John was clear that we all fall short of the glory of God.

Now I want to be clear that we are to take seriously the behaviors and attitudes Paul and others condemned. I lifted up gossip because in our society and in our churches if we think of it as sin at all we think of it as a minor infraction. And it’s important that we remember sin of any kind puts us askew of God. It is an infraction that can damage the relationships of the ones about whom we gossip and most certainly it damages our relationship with God. It takes us out of alignment with God.

So today, we’re going to take a look at the origin of our faith. I’m going to attempt to remind us of the trajectory of how God moved us (humankind) from the fall of Adam and Eve through to the salvific work of Jesus the Christ and what is required of anyone who wants to be in right relationship with God. 

The stories of the flood and the Tower of Babel give us a description of the hubris, apostasy, and degradation of humankind following the fall, which sets the stage for God’s call of Abraham in Genesis 12. Abraham was called out by God ,who promised to bless him but demanded that he, in turn, be a blessing. God promised that from him would come a great nation. 

This promise passed from Abraham to Isaac to Jacob. The progeny of this family fled to Egypt to escape the famine in Canaan, where they multiplied and were eventually enslaved because they were perceived to be a threat to the Egyptian empire. Moses emerges to lead them out of slavery toward the Promised Land. 

It is in their wilderness journey that God forges them into the people God had chosen them to be. These people needed to be severed from the perspective, purpose and culture of the Egyptian empire and reoriented to understand what it meant to be a Chosen People of a Holy God. 

The Old Testament scholar Walter Brueggemann in his book The Prophetic Imagination says that God, through Moses, set about forming a people unlike any ever before religiously, socially and politically. (p 22)

…the Lord called to Moses out of the mountain, saying, “Thus you shall say to the house of Jacob, and tell the people of Israel…if you will obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my own possession among all peoples; for all the earth is mine, and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. These are the words which you shall speak to the children of Israel.” So Moses came and called the elders of the people, and set before them all these words which the Lord had commanded him. And all the people answered together and said, “All that the Lord has spoken we will do.”  (Genesis 19:3,5-8)

God called Abraham to be a blessing; God called Abraham’s great clan to be a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. We know, of course, that they struggled to keep their promise, but God remained faithful to them.

The Book of Leviticus sets forth in great detail how they were to live as a holy nation: religiously, socially, and politically. Leviticus tells us about the nature of God’s character, revealing the holiness of God and calling God’s people into holiness.

The Lord said, “You shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy.” (19:2)

Not only does this book frame what is holy, but by natural consequence, what would forward their welfare and help them prosper.

There is much in Leviticus that commends it for our own age for it set forth a radical departure from all the cultures surrounding Israel. It outlines a way of living in concert one another and with God that runs counter to any empire-like organization or operation whether primitive or modern. The call to Israel then is a call to us today:

 Keep my sabbaths and revere my sanctuary; I am the Lord
You shall rise up before the gray head, and honor the face of the aged, and you shall revere your God: I am the Lord. “When an alien sojourns with you in your land, you shall not do them wrong. The alien who sojourns with you shall be to you as the native among you, and you shall love them as yourself; for you were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God. (Leviticus 19:30, 32-33)

Do not:

reap to the very corners of their fields or vineyards or gather the gleanings
steal no deal falsely
oppress their neighbor or rob him
hold back the wages of a laborer
curse a deaf person, nor place a stumbling block before the blind
hate your fellow citizen in your heart
take vengeance or bear a grudge 
but you shall love your neighbor as yourself; I am the Lord. (from 19:1-18)

Moving on we pass through their entering the promised land and their early days in the land of milk and honey as told in the Book of Judges wherein leaders like Deborah, Gideon, Samson, were called by God to rescue God’s Chosen, supposedly holy people, from the consequences of their disobedience ending with the declaration that everyone did what was right in their own eyes (Judges 21:25)

I’ll mention quickly that the Book of Ruth which follows Judges gives us a story of what being holy and welcoming the stranger looks like.

So far the people had been led by prophets, people called by God. God relents gives into their cry for a king, instructing the prophet Samuel to anoint Saul. After Saul came David and after David, Soloman and onward a host of kings, only three of whom observed God’s Law of the King which set forth the parameters of kingship with prohibitions and the expectation that the King would be faithful to God and seek the welfare of the people. (see Deuteronomy 17:16-20 for example)

Sadly, the administration and sins of their kings led the people astray to such a degree that what became the northern kingdom of Israel was obliterated and the king and peoples of the southern kingdom of Judah were led into exile.

So what was it these kings and God’s Chosen people did that led to such dire consequences? What was it that countered the balance and harmony, the hospitality and justice that God intended for them? What was it that our Old Testament texts highlight that grieved God so deeply?

We turn now to the prophets whom God called to name the sins of the king and people in an effort to call them back from the brink.

Amos

This is what the Lord says:
“For three offenses of Israel, and for four,
I will not revoke its punishment,
Because they sell the righteous for money,
And the needy for a pair of sandals.
They trample the head of the helpless to the dust of the earth
Also divert the way of the humble; (Amos 2:6-7)

Hosea

I found Israel like grapes in the wilderness;
I saw your forefathers as the earliest fruit on the fig tree in its first season.
But they came to Baal and devoted themselves to shame,
And they became as detestable as that which they loved.
As for Ephraim, their glory will fly away like a bird—
No birth, no pregnancy, and no conception! (Hosea 9:10-11)

Isaiah

Woe to those who deeply hide their plans from the Lord,
And whose deeds are done in a dark place,
And they say, “Who sees us?” or “Who knows us?”
You turn things around!
Shall the potter be considered as equal with the clay,
That what is made would say to its maker, “He did not make me”;
Or what is formed say to him who formed it, “He has no understanding”?
Micah (Isaiah 29:15-19)

“Woe to the rebellious children,” declares the Lord,
“Who execute a plan, but not Mine,
And make an alliance, but not of My Spirit,
In order to add sin to sin;
Who proceed down to Egypt
Without consulting Me,
To take refuge in the safety of Pharaoh,
And to seek shelter in the shadow of Egypt! (Isaiah 30:1-2)

Therefore this is what the Holy One of Israel says:
“Since you have rejected this word
And have put your trust in oppression and crookedness, and have relied on them,
Therefore this wrongdoing will be to you
Like a breach about to fall,
A bulge in a high wall,
Whose collapse comes suddenly in an instant, (Isaiah 30:12-13)

Jeremiah

“Roam about through the streets of Jerusalem,
And look and take notice.
And seek in her public squares,
If you can find a person,
If there is one who does justice, who seeks honesty,
Then I will forgive her. (Jeremiah 5;1)

Ezekiel

And your elder sister is Samar′ia, who lived with her daughters to the north of you; and your younger sister, who lived to the south of you, is Sodom with her daughters. 48 As I live, says the Lord God, your sister Sodom and her daughters have not done as you and your daughters have done. 49 Behold, this was the guilt of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had pride, surplus of food, and prosperous ease, but did not aid the poor and needy. Ezekiel 16:46,-48-51)

Micah

For the rich people of the city are full of violence,
Her residents speak lies,
And their tongue is deceitful in their mouth. (Micah 6:12)

Zephaniah

Seek the Lord, all you humble of the land,
    who do his commands;
seek righteousness, seek humility (Zephaniah 2:3a)

So, these texts cite governmental and personal corruption, injustice, idolatry, violence, pride, oppression of the poor, discrimination against the alien, hubris, arrogance, failing to trust God, choosing instead to curry the favor of other countries and kings. 

And, underlying it all:  forsaking God; failing to love, trust and obey God.

The question posed last week: What could the New Testament writers say about us?
We might ask this Sunday: What charge might the prophets of the Old Testament lay against us?

Again, we need to remember that we don’t stand in isolation, one individual at a time before God. We stand before God in company with others as an entity, a group. The Israelites were led astray or persuaded by the powers at be (both king and priests) to sell out their souls, to go along-to-get-along? 

That said, if enough individuals see the light and repent and seek God they can call their greater population to do the same.

Now hear this: for all the grief God’s Chosen inflicted on God, God remained gracious and faithful to them. Here are these words from Isaiah and Hosea:

For this is what the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel, has said:
“In repentance and rest you will be saved,
In quietness and trust is your strength.”
But you were not willing, (Isaiah 30:15)

Therefore the Lord longs to be gracious to you,
And therefore He waits on high to have compassion on you.
For the Lord is a God of justice;
How blessed are all those who long for Him. (Isaiah 30:18)

Yet it is I who taught Ephraim to walk,
I took them in My arms;
But they did not know that I healed them.
I pulled them along with cords of a man, with ropes of love,
And I became to them as one who lifts the yoke from their jaws;
And I bent down and fed them.  (Hosea 11:3-4)

In whatever way we personally or corporately have fallen short, let us take careful stock and repent. We so often recoil because we believe we’ve too deep a shame, too great a guilt. This is not so. We can go unhesitant-ly, boldly to seek forgiveness, and God will unhesitant-ly and boldly grant it. In full!

Thanks be to God!

Linda Quanstrom, Pastor

Cornelius UMC

Cornelius OR