Hole-y, Whole-y, Holy
a sermon based on John 17:6-19
by Rev. Randy Quinn

I have several things with me today. I want you to look at them and tell me if you see anything they have in common.

� First, I have a coffee mug. It's one of several mugs I keep on my desk. This one has a picture of my Grandmother’s church on it.

‚ Second, I have a potato masher. It's part of a set that we use at home.

ƒ Third, a pair of scissors. I keep these in my desk.

„ Fourth, a racquet ball racquet. I used to play racquetball quite a bit. This is the racquet I played with.

… Fifth, a spark plug socket.

† Finally, this bag that I brought the other things in.

So, does anyone have any idea what these six items might have in common?

allow time for people to respond

What they all have in common is a hole, or several holes. And for the most part, the hole is useful, if not necessary. It's hard to hold a hot cup of coffee without a handle. Scissors don't work if you can't get your fingers and thumb into the holes. A racquet without holes would be a ping-pong paddle, and that wouldn't work for racquetball.

I never thought of holes as being good things before. I only thought of holes as tears or flaws, like the holes in my socks. But on a Confirmation Retreat a few years ago, that all changed when one of the pastors talked about our heritage as a "holiness" church. I wasn't sure how he was going to explain that concept, so I listened very carefully.

Jim explained how important it is that there are holes in things. A window or a door, for instance, is a dressed up hole in a wall. Without them, we'd never get into or out of a building. A gate is a fancy hole in a fence. A garden hose would be useless if the hole at either end were plugged up.

He made me see that holes are important.

And as the people of God, we are invited to live our lives as hole-y people*, people who have holes in our lives. Those holes allow others to see God through us, those holes allow God's grace to flow through us.

Sometimes we are the ones who are standing at the door of the church. It is up to us to open the door so that others may enter. In many ways, that is what it means to be hole-y people.

Probably the best example of that is the stories I have heard from children who remember hearing their parents pray for them. One story in particular that I remember being told was how the children would hear their parents praying as they went to bed. They didn't always hear the words, but they recognized their own names and they recognized the rhythm of the Lord's Prayer as their parents prayed each night.

Those parents were hole-y. They allowed their children to see through them to the love of God. They not only knew they were loved and prayed for, they also learned the importance of praying for their own children in their later years.

But I had never thought of holiness in that manner.

More often than not, I had thought of it in terms of whole-ness, a sense of completeness. Like whole milk where nothing is left out.

You see, I have seen too many times and places when we shortchange ourselves or someone else. We only look at one aspect of our lives or only focus on one part. We tend to see only one thing at a time, and in the process we become fragmented.

In many ways, that is at the root of our society's problems today. We see family as one part of our lives. We see work as another part. We see community as separate from family and work. And we see faith in terms of a separate piece of our lives as well.

So the person who worships at church on Sunday sees no conflict with cheating at work on Monday. Others profess a concern for American labor in their politics or at work while allowing their pocketbook to determine what they buy -- as if the two ideas are unrelated.

I think Jesus came to make us whole again, to put us back together the way God created us to be. We, as Christians are called to be a whole-y people who are unified and consistent throughout our lives.

That is part of what I think is behind the longing for the "good old days" in our society. We look back to a time when life was more whole-some. Lives and activities were interconnected, one place and event was related to every other aspect of our lives. We lived whole-y lives.

But our text for today suggests that both Jim and I missed an important aspect of "holiness".

Jesus isn't talking about having holes -- as Jim explains it -- or being whole -- as I have explained it. Jesus is talking about sanctification, a big word used by theologians to explain what happens when our lives become sacred, when we begin to live our lives in a Godly manner, when we become holy.

In this passage we are overhearing Jesus as he prays. He is praying for his Disciples. And in his prayer, he asks God to "sanctify them in truth" (v 17). Jesus is praying that we will become holy as he is holy – that we will live our lives in a sacred manner.

When John Wesley was trying to explain the concept of grace, he talked about three different phases or aspects of grace:

Prevenient Grace,

Justifying Grace, and

Sanctifying Grace.

By "Prevenient Grace" Wesley meant the way God goes ahead of us and before us, making it possible for us to recognize love when we see it. Prevenient Grace is at work when the love our mothers have for us allows us to understand what God's love is like -- unconditional and accepting of us whether we deserve it or not, whether we would claim it or not. It is the aspect of grace that we profess and proclaim when we baptize infants and children.

By "Justifying Grace" Wesley meant the way God sees us as a result of what Jesus has done for us. We could never earn or deserve God's love; in fact, we have lived in such a way that makes it impossible for God to be present to us. But Jesus has interceded for us and made us acceptable to God. It is the aspect of grace that we profess and proclaim when we confirm young adults.

By "Sanctifying Grace" Wesley meant the way God continues to guide us and direct us after we have accepted God's pardon. It is the work of the Holy Spirit within us helping us to live each day so that our lives may be pleasing to God. It is the aspect of grace that allows faith to grow within us.

Jesus, in our text for today, speaks about this last form of grace, Sanctifying Grace. It is what allows us to more fully become what God has intended us to be. And for Wesley, as well as others who follow the 'holiness' tradition, sanctification has important implications in our lives.

It means we continue to seek God's will in our lives;

it means we continue to be available to God's grace;

it means we continue to grow in faith;

it means we are in the process of becoming perfected by grace.

An important part of our heritage as Methodists is our hymnody, the songs we sing. It is there that our theology is expressed and passed on as well as or better than anywhere else.

Take out your hymnals for a moment. Turn to the table of contents. Page viii and ix. I want you to notice at the bottom of the first page and the top of the second page. We have hymns in each category of grace: Prevenient Grace, Justifying Grace, and Sanctifying Grace. I suspect if you looked at the hymns under each section you would recognize the concepts in the familiar hymns of our church.

If you look at the hymns listed under Sanctifying Grace, for instance, you might get a better understanding of what I've been trying to express this morning about holiness. Because whether we are hole-y, whole-y, or holy, we are speaking about sanctification.

The first song in the Sanctifying Grace section of our hymnal is Have Thine Own Way, Lord. It's a song that speaks about our desire to have God order and shape our lives so that Christ may be seen within us.

Sometimes that means we need to be hole-y, allowing the windows of our lives to be open so that others can see God.

Other times that means we need to be whole-y, being unified in our purpose and direction in every aspect of our lives.

But always it means we must be holy, set aside by God, set aside for God, set aside to do God's will.

Whichever way we view holiness, it is a process of allowing our lives to become sacred so that God can dwell within us.

May we all be hole-y and whole-y and holy.

Amen.