Holy, holy, holy. A Parable.

Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God almighty, who was and is and is to come. 

What is it with this whole "holy" thing?! For all of eternity we're going to hear that word, repeated 3x over and over and over again, describing God. Doesn't it seem a little over done?

And what does it mean, anyway?!

We so often take it to mean "without sin". That does describe God, but is that what holy means? Or is that one of the "symptoms" or by-product or *results* from being holy?

My neighbor's cat is a mammal. By definition that means Happy is warm blooded and gives birth to live young. Happy is also a fierce predator, regularly leaving (largely unappreciated) "gifts" of dead lizards & birds & mice outside our door or under our neighbor's bed. Happy's mammalian nature contributes to her speed & strength as a predator, but being a predator is not part of what it means to be a mammal. (Just ask this couch potato sitting her pecking at a keyboard - I can't remember the last time I tried to catch a lizard in my teeth!) Don't confuse related characteristics with the base definition of a word.

BE HOLY AS I AM HOLY!

Is this a call to sinless living? Or is this something so much more which only includes a call to sinlessness as one component?

Let me tell you a story...

Once upon a time there was a king, a great king. His kingdom was blessed for he ruled with strength and wisdom and justice and mercy. Most of his subjects loved him, as they should have. But there was one city in the kingdom that just didn't get it. Some who looked at that city were convinced that the citizens (if you could call them by such a civilized name) were suffering from mental illness, but whether it was rebellion or insanity their behavior was inexplicable.

The king's wise policies had ushered in a golden era of economic prosperity. Unemployment was virtually zero and poverty and hunger had nearly been eradicated. There were periodic editorials in the newspaper entitled "if it seems too good to be true.." and yet year after year, decade after decade the prosperity continued and eventually everyone, even the nay-sayers, had to admit that living under this king was as close to a fairy wonderland as they would encounter anywhere on this green earth.

Everyone had to admit it, that is, except the inhabitants of Muck City. "Muck City," of course, was not the real name of the city, but everyone had called it that for so long that hardly anyone remembered another name. Even the inhabitants of Muck City had begun to call themselves Muckites. You see, every one of the citizens of this town was obsessed with rolling in pits of Muck which were found in the plains outside the city. 

Now you may have encountered spas where they give mud treatments or mud baths and you may be thinking that this Muckite behavior sounds relatively normal. But these mud pits were not healthy by any stretch of the imagination. To start with the stench was nearly palpable! It caused a nauseating greenish haze throughout the valley. Even that could have perhaps been borne if it were not for the infections and sickness that it caused. Muckites were rarely seen in good health; their sickly pallor and weakly staggering gait was evidence of the damage the mud and fumes were doing inside them, but the grotesquely infected sores visible on any part of their body were simply pitiful. Gangrene was a regular occurrence and it was not uncommon at all to see even young people with amputated limbs due to these horribly infected sores caused by the mud.

When I said that they were obsessed with rolling around in these pits I meant just that - it was almost the only thing they ever did! The obsession was such that work had all but ground to a halt in all neighborhoods of Muck City - all they ever wanted to do was to roll around in these pits. As a result productivity was almost nonexistent, unemployment was astronomical, and many adults and children in Muck City suffered terribly from poverty and hunger.

The contrast between the rest of the kingdom and Muck City could not have been more pronounced.

The king had sent messengers on innumerable occasions to tell the Muckites that there was a solution. His engineers had mapped out a plan to re-route a nearby river through the plains with the mud pits. It was estimated that within a single month the mud and fumes would be removed and soil tests had confirmed that the resulting ground would be among the most fertile in the kingdom. The king invited the citizens of Muck City to join the rest of the kingdom in the ease and joy that was so prevalent elsewhere. But they refused. The thought of losing their beloved Muck baths was unthinkable.

Part of the king's laws within his own kingdom involved giving each city a reasonable level of autonomy and independence. As such the king could not force the Muckites to accept his solution without breaking his own law - even though it would be incredibly beneficial to them.

But that didn't stop the king from worrying about these Muckites. He laid awake many a night trying to come up with a way to convince them to accept his help. He even periodically took personal visits into Muck City, despite the stench, in hopes that even if he couldn't persuade the entire city to change at least he could find individuals who would see reason. But the Muck was just too attractive. Year after year passed and not a single man, woman, or child ever responded favorably to his overtures.

The king had a happy family his wife, the queen, and his son, the prince. As his grew to manhood he began to share the king's concern for Muck City. He began making visits himself in an attempt to persuade Muckites to leave. But it was all for naught - somehow the Muck had an almost addictive hold on the people and they spurned all offers.

But then one day the prince was riding through Muck City. His shoulders were slumped and his horse was barely plodding along, such was his discouragement. That very morning when he had brought food and clean water to the market square the people had responded by throwing handfuls of the noxious Muck at him as they jeered and booed. He had barely gotten away and was now wrestling with the weight of this problem as he plodded for home. As he trudged up the road he passed a young boy, perhaps 10 or 11 years of age. The boy was crying piteously as he held his badly infected arm with his other hand. The prince had seen this same scene repeated dozens of times and was simply too weighted down to try to help once again.  But as he passed by, agonized by the child's wailing, something unexpected happened. The child swallowed his sobs, sniffed loudly, raised his eyes to the prince's face, and tremulously addressed him:

"Mister. Can you help? My arm hurts so bad. I don't want them doctors to cut it off like they did to Sammy. And I'm so hungry. Please ... will you help me?"

In all the years the prince had visited Muck City he had rarely seen someone make eye contact, far less actually ask for help. In the blink of an eye his weariness and discouragement were gone and he was kneeling next to the boy, tears pooling in his own eyes as he poured clean water from his own water bottle to clean the boy's arm. The boy whimpered but obediently stayed still until the sore was cleansed. Then he looked up with a chin that barely quavered and sincerely thanked the prince for his help.

This was new territory for anyone in the king's family. Hardly any Muckites were willing to accept help from the king, far less allow Muck to be washed off, far less thank the one offering the help or doing the washing. The prince saw immediately that this boy might have potential to be saved. With eyes wide with sympathy and love he asked the boy about his family and, having determined that the boy was an orphan, the prince invited the boy to try something different. With halting words which gradually merged into a flow inspired by the beauty and prosperity of the rest of the kingdom, the prince told the boy what his life could be like outside of Muck City if he would leave with the prince. As the description of the kingdom did its work on this boy's tired soul his eyes grew wide and then began to shine with excitement. In the end he threw his arms around the prince and wouldn't let go.

His heart light with hope and his arms strong with joy, the prince lifted the boy onto his horse and they trotted off towards the king's palace with the boy hanging on tightly behind him.

Needless to say the entire palace was agog that a Muckite had left Muck City and the Muck behind and the king and his family were beside themselves with joy. After all these years ... the now aging king was almost overcome with joy. Every time he passed the boy he would gently squeeze his shoulder or pat his head, as if to prove he was real and to express the love that had been dammed up for so many years and now was overflowing to this young boy. The queen was positively radiant.

In the joyous celebration that ensued, the king and queen were seen with heads bowed, deep in conversation at the head table. At the end the king stood up and called for everyone's attention.

"Ladies and gentlemen of my kingdom, thank you for joining us in our joy. This young man represents the fulfillment of one of my greatest hopes over my entire reign. Let us lift our goblets in a toast to this young man who has left Muck City and to the many that we hope will follow him."

The sounds of clinking glasses and hearty shouts of "hear, hear" were heard throughout the banquet hall.  After a moment the king raised his hand for silence again and went on,

"My heart is filled with love for this boy and after consulting with the queen we have decided to take an unprecedented step. We are adopting this boy as our own son. From this moment on he is a child of the king, a prince. I give him the name Adam."

The crowd gaped in astonishment and then broke into raucous cheering and the volume at this joyous celebration was turned up many fold.

Days turned into weeks and Adam learned what it meant to be a son of the king. At first the hardest thing was just learning to bathe regularly, but he gradually got used to the feel of being clean. His arm healed completely, leaving only a small scar. He had to learn to dress himself in the finery as befitted a prince and he had 5 years of book learning to catch up on. Horseback riding and fencing were sheer fun, but the hardest thing for him was learning manners and etiquette. It seemed like there were an endless list of do's and don't's.  One day he started complaining about it to the eldest prince:

"Everything is 'Do this!' and 'Don't do that' and 'Say it this way' and 'Do it that way'! Why do there have to be rules that tell us what we have to do in any and every situation?!"

The elder prince smiled with a twinkle in his eye, remembering a similar conversation he had had with his mother when he was about Adam's age. He responded with wisdom:

"It's not 'what you have to do' - instead it's 'who you ARE now'... Since we ARE in the king's family this is simply how the king's family thinks, lives, eats, plays, and loves... Don't think of them as a list of what you have to do or cannot do - realize that now that you are in the king's family you will WANT to behave in a way that shows the dignity and nobility of your family.

"Can you imagine if an eagle complained because he always 'had to' fly? Or if a cheetah complained that he always 'had to' be fast? Or if a fish complained that he was 'never allowed to' walk on land? No - these animals do what makes sense according to their identity and the result is wonder on our part at the dignity and majesty of these animals.

"And you are the child of the king! Think about it, Adam!"

Adam got a thoughtful look on his face and wandered off to consider those words.

The eldest prince was walking outside a few days later and to his surprise saw Adam rolling in the muck in a ditch. Adam gave a guilty start when he was caught and then said, "I know, I know - rules, rules, rules and more rules. Now you probably want to tell me what I CAN'T do just so later you can tell me what I HAVE to do. I am so tired of these rules!"

The prince cocked his head to one side and his eyes crinkled into a puzzled expression.  These are the words that came out of his mouth:

"But it's not rules at all, Adam... It's identity. That's just not who you ARE anymore... You're not a Muckite anymore - you're a child of the King! Did you not understand? Your whole identity has changed. You are not who you used to be. Your worth is now nestled firmly and unchangeable in the fact that you are the king's son. You cannot find more self-value in anything else and so it only makes sense to invest everything you are and have into bringing honor to the king. It's not what you HAVE to do, Adam - it's what you WANT to do because of WHO YOU ARE!"

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Sometimes when we talk about "Holiness" we use words like "set apart" or "other" or even "otherness" to help us understand.

One time a friend of mine was speaking to a group of us about God's holiness and he made us all lay on our backs with our feet straight up in the air. We felt (and I'm sure looked) like fools. He said looking at the world from that "other" perspective would give us the tiniest understanding of how "other" God is.

Most of us are pretty comfortable with this concept in reference to GOD - His holiness means He is totally "OTHER." But then when we talk about our own holiness we drop it back down into the "sinlessness" camp and define it purely (and "small-ly") as our behavior.

No, when God tells us to be holy He is telling us to recognize our new identity and BE WHO WE ARE. He in full reality has SET US APART and our new identity is already complete. We are not who we used to be! We are OTHER from anyone else who is not in the King's family. And that identity is the key to understanding and being holy.

Don't get stuck on the rules and the do's and the don't's. They are there not to restrict you or repress you - they are there to help you understand how to live in the full dignity and nobility of your new identity. Be PROUD of who you are - you are a child of the KING!

Now take that attitude, that perspective on your identity, and change your "have to" into "want to" and see if a fuller understanding of holiness can transform your life!