Glen Avon Presbyterian Church

“Personal Holiness, Social Holiness”

Rev. Lon Weaver

In his short, but potent book, The Dynamics of Faith, Paul Tillich describes the holiness which we’re to embody in two ways: personal holiness and social holiness. To be people who embody personal holiness, Tillich meant that we are to be loving people, loving in the self-giving way—even self-sacrificial way—of Jesus. To be people who are socially holy, Tillich called for us to create just societies.

At the end of this week (I am writing these words on September 22nd), I will travel to northwestern Ohio to present a concert honoring one of my musical mentors there who has just retired after serving 43 years as church organist. This will take place at the First Presbyterian Church of Fremont. This was the church where I was both confirmed and ordained. The just-retired organist, Paul Livingston, encouraged dozens of youth to participate in the musical life of the worship services there over the years. In my years during high school, there were easily 6-8 high school students (and an occasional junior high student) who sang in the various sections of the chancel choir at any one time. It was where many of us gained the confidence to play music in public, always to a receptive and loving congregation. Paul made that happen. Thus, I take joy in going back to celebrate his ministry there, because my experiences there were ones in which I was a recipient of their personal holiness, of their loving counsel, and their kind encouragement, a sort of fabric of personal holiness.

In addition to the concert, I will be preaching there at Sunday worship. It will be the first time I ever preached for this congregation whose members had had such a formative influence upon me. The current pastor is William McConnell. Bill, it turns out, was a colleague of ours in our previous presbytery in western Pennsylvania. He moved to Ohio a year or so after we came to Minnesota. As we were discussing plans for the weekend, he discussed beginning a sermon series on the prophetic book of Amos. He invited me to do a sermon to begin that series, preaching upon Amos 1. Interestingly, Amos is all about justice, about social holiness. It’s an amazing book that doesn’t hold back its indictment from any unjust nation. I’m continuing to pray over what it meant for the Lord to “roar from Zion and thunder from Jerusalem” over the injustices. At the heart of this oldest of the prophetic books is Amos 5:24:

“But let justice roll down like waters,
and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.”

This is an especially important message to hear today. Power is uneven in the world. Without power, your life can be trampled. With power, arrogance can delude and insight can become muddled. Fundamentally, God calls us to even out those power dynamics, to become holy by becoming just.

So let’s continue to pursue that dual struggle: to become loving people, to become a just society, to seek holiness!