"In our era, the road to holiness necessarily passes through the world of action," wrote Dag hammarskjôld in Markings. The late Secretary General of the United Nations thus reminded us that holiness is;
(1) not a state but a journey,
(2) not private but social,
(3) and not passive but active.
Holiness of life is inextricably wedded to the needs of the world around us. John Wesley declared, "There is no Gospel but social gospel." holiness without social concern is as a soul without a body, but social concern without holiness is as a body without a soul. One is a ghost, the other a corpse. Only when they are wedded together do we have a healthy, life-giving gospel.
"The cross of Christianfaith has two beams: the vertical beam of relationship to God in His infinite love and forgiveness, and the horizontal beam of relationship to others in our world. The two cannot be separated. They always intersect in true Christianfaith.
Suffering and tragedy stalk our world every day. The news media bring into our living rooms poignant scenes....the carnage of the innocent, the anguish of refugees, the sad spectacle of millions who are hungry, homeless and hurting. The brokenness of our world confronts us daily.
The evils of pornography and sexploitation relentlessly invade the mainstream of our culture. The traditional family may soon be added to the endangered species list due to increased divorce rates, the acceptance of same sex marriages, and the rapid rise of dysfunctional families.
The "silent holocaust" of abortions each year claim over 50 million nationwide, and more than 1.5 million in the United States alone. Violence and murder now stalk our schools and churches as well as our streets. Terrorism fuels the fears of people worldwide.
Scandal have become all too commonplace among government leaders, and even among religious celebrities.
Our nation was founded upon righteousness and reverence for God. The founders of this nation came to these shores in quest or religious freedom. The legislated for each session of Congress to open with prayer and inscribed upon our coins, "In God We Trust." But we have strayed from those principles. We have outlawed prayer in our schools, made legal the killing of innocent unborn children, and spawned a generation victimized by drugs, the scourge of AIDS and the specter of a nuclear holocaust.
Our society is neck-deep in trouble.
The Christianfaith is not an escape form the realities and problems of the world. The cross was the most eloquent demonstration of caring the world has ever known. And Christ challenged His followers: "If anyone come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever want to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it" (Matt 16:24-25).
Christ calls us to consider the costly implications of bearing His cross. It requires that we move from security to a vulnerable discipleship, from passive acceptance to active involvement.
The church must never be a huddle of pious people shutting the doors against the world, connoisseurs of doctrine and liturgy lost in prayer and praise. Where the world is (even at its worst), there the Christian and the church ought to be (indeed, at its best).
Micah, a peasant turned prophet, denounced the heinous social sins of his day and posed a pivotal question for all generations: "What does the Lord require of you?" God's answer and comprehensive definition for true religion tersely states: "To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God" (Micah 6:8).
"To act justly" speaks of honesty, integrity, and uprightness. Our society of duplicity and rampant corruption cries out for such justice. "To lovemercy" speaks of kindness, compassion and love. Our hurting world needs such love in large measures. In his trilogy of requirements, Micah takes us from the horizontal to the vertical relationship, calling us "to walk humbly with [our] God." Christianfaith is not a ritual; it is a relationship, that of a daily walking with God.
In the context of racial division and social violence, Jesus gave His powerful parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37). This parable denounces a religiosity without compassion, a sanctity divorced from commitment, and/or an orthodoxy without humanity. Jesus calls all His followers to the Order of the Good Samaritan with His concluding punch line: "Go and do likewise." He mandates a Christianity with its sleeves rolled up, binding the wounds of broken humanity on the modern roads of life.
Edmund Burke, the 18th-Century statesman, reminded us that "all that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing." The horrors of abortion, pornography and humanity's inhumanity to one another flourish in the fertile atmosphere of complacency. Too often the artificial polarization between "the spiritual" and "the social" has rendered opaque the social vision of many who profess the Christianfaith, minimizing religion as an insignificant factor instead of a dominant force. Christian believers are called to action: both to share the gospel and to be a salt, spreading holiness everywhere.
In His memorable parable on the Last Judgment, our Lord identied Himself with those in need to whom we are called to minister: "'Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me" (Matt 25:40). In that statement is both the highest requisite and the highest reward of our service.
