Be Holy

Tuesday 6/25/2013 6:49 AM

I’ve noticed that as I age some issues that I once saw as black at white seem to be varying shades of gray.  I have usually chalked up this change in my point of view to the fact that I am more informed and educated about things than I was previously.  This morning I read an excerpt from the book Gracias! by Henry Nouwen that makes me reconsider this idea.  He writes, “One of the temptations of the middle class is to create large gray areas between good and evil.  Wealth takes away the sharp edges of our moral sensitivities and allows a comfortable confusion about sin and virtue.  The difference between rich and poor is not that the rich sin more than the poor, but that the rich find is easier to call sin a virtue.  When the poor sin, they call it a sin; when they see holiness, they identify it as such.  This intuitive clarity is often absent from the wealthy, and that absence easily leads to the atrophy of the moral sense.”

Perhaps what I perceive as my educated, enlightened point of view is really the atrophying of my moral sense, my way of creating confusion about sin and virtue or my way of salving a guilty conscience.  Jesus warned about the difficulty for a rich person to enter the kingdom of heaven.  Maybe this is one of the hurdles that get in the way.

I live in a culture dominated by wealth, power and influence.  Christians who speak God’s truth into that kind of culture are often perceived as fanatics.  I do not want to be lumped into that same category because that type of fanatic often seems to be devoid of love.  I wonder if my blurring of the boundaries of sin and virtue are my attempt at fitting in with society while disassociating myself with the fanatics.  God’s call to me is to be holy, that is, set apart from the culture around me.  How much of my desire to fit in goes against God’s desire for me to be set apart?