AMBIVALENT TOWARD HOLINESS

“We know that the whole creation has been groaning together as it suffers together the pains of labor, and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies.”  (Romans 8:22-23 NRSV)

Human beings are ambivalent toward holiness. We are drawn toward these qualities exemplified by a St. Francis or by Mother Teresa, or by communities who witness to the gospel under sever persecution. Yet we find such qualities disturbing, too far removed from the way we must live our daily lives. Something deep within our existence creates a restlessness for God, yet we live and move and work in a culture of technology, efficiency, and the tyranny of the literal. The hunger for holiness coexists uneasily with the practical atheism of our way of life. Still, the deepest language of the Christian biblical tradition claims that the created world itself already reflects the goodness of God but also groans in travail for sanctification and recreation. The time and place where these tensions intersect is the gathered church at worship.  

-- Don E. Saliers from an article entitled “Sanctifying Time, Place and People” in “The Weavings Reader”

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