holy is as holy does...

As a teenager I sat in the alto section of the choir next to my friend Mike Amsden. Our pastor, Brother Kannon, was a wonderful, caring minister and a well intentioned preacher. Out of boredom with the spoken word, we would read our hymnals. The games (add the phrase "between the sheets" to hymn titles... Amazing Grace Between the Sheets, How Tedious and Tasteless the Hours Between the Sheets) kept us entertained for awhile. Then I began reading the third verses of the hymns. In our church we sang the first, second and fourth stanzas of hymns. The only exceptions to this rule were "Blest be The Tie That Binds", "Just As I Am" and "Amazing Grace". Sitting in that choir loft with a short burgundy velvet curtain separating the choir from the pulpit, I began a career of reading hymns.
We have a new hymnal in our UCC denominational life. Inclusive language, new tunes, new words to old tunes, short histories of each hymn written at the bottom of the page. Reading this hymnal has been interesting. I noticed something yesterday when I was looking for hymns about prayer. My old shaped note hymnals have many songs with prayer in the title... Sweet Hour of Prayer, Did You Think To Pray?, ‘Tis The Blessed Hour of Prayer, Prayer Is The Soul’s Sincere Desire. My new hymnal has seventeen hymns in the prayer section, five of them old hymns, three spirituals and nine new songs. In my old Pilgrim’s hymnal and Broadman hymnal there are twenty eight prayer hymns. All the old hymnals in my collection have a generous section of songs devoted to prayer. Makes me wonder...
One of my favorite prayer hymns is "My Prayer", a petition in music. The words... More holiness give me, more striving within; More patience in suffering, more sorrow for sin; More faith in my Saviour, more sense of His care; More joy in His service, more purpose in prayer.
I don’t ask for holiness much in my praying. This hymn reminds me to start there, with holiness and striving within. Prayer is not a passive activity with an unseen outcome. Holiness... the lively connection to the Holy One, the characteristic that marks true believers in all faith traditions, is a hard won paradox of gift and work. One does not become holy by just asking. All the holy people I have known have become holy through struggle and pain and suffering and hard work. Buddhist, Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu... these traditions all have holy ones and none of them became holy by sitting around and waiting on holiness to descend from on high. All holy ones, whether social activists or cloistered monks, share the inward striving that is required to transcend our cluttered souls. We start with holiness and we can move mountains. We are able to see clearly the pain and suffering that comes with being human in an imperfect world, grieve our losses and failures without losing our way, burning up in the scorching heat of poverty and predjuidice and starvation and war and sickness and death. Our Christian service begins with our commitment to holiness, from our sure knowledge of Jesus’ care. There is the joy... we are loved and cared for so we care for others, doing for the least among us because we have been redeemed, set apart, called to prayer with a purpose.
It is easy to be consumed with righteous causes and passionate oratory and political activism. Preachers and prophets come and go, sometimes with their clay feet showing. Causes shift with the passage of time. Politics have always been a fickle field. Like Peter, my response to Jesus is "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, and we have believed and have come to know that you are the Holy One of God". John 6:69 If I answer Jesus’ call to follow, I must become a holy one of God also. So today, I pray for holiness in my soul... holiness that comes with inward striving and outward joy... holiness that leads to service as an expression of gratitude for the care I have been given... holiness that is refreshed and sustained through the circle of continuous purposeful prayer. Let us pray...