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Holiness and Responsibility –
Famous Last Words
by
Commissioner Wesley Harris
“What does
the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and
to walk humbly with your God” (Micah 6.8).
ASKED to make a presentation under the title Famous last
words I doubted whether any words of mine would become
famous and also hoped that these particular words would not be
my last! There seems to be some fascination about what may
have been among people’s last words. Paul said, “I have fought
a good fight” which contrasted with the words of his namesake
King Saul who could only say, “I have acted like a fool”.
Catherine Booth said, “The waters are rising but so am I…”
while her husband William could affirm, “The promises of God
are sure if you only believe”.
Before I met my wife, the love of my life, I had a brief
relationship with another officer whose senior colleague had
warned that if she married Wesley he wouldn’t live very long!
That official forecast may have arisen from the fact that as
an eighteen year old - more than sixty years ago - I had only
been accepted for training as a ‘health risk’.
I have been grateful for longevity but have always known that
time is short even for the longest life. I have felt driven as
well as called and imbued with a desire to ‘seize the day’ and
not squander the years and the opportunities which have come
my way. Holiness has meant living responsibly.
Mentioning ‘holiness’: at one time the word was often on the
lips of Salvationists. We referred to the holiness table,
holiness meetings, songs, testimonies, choruses and the like.
Now, regrettably, the word seems to have dropped out of the
vocabulary of Salvationists at the grass roots. It doesn’t
resonate as it did and that is unfortunate.. I certainly
regret the dropping of a word which defined us in our early
days but it would be much worse if we lost the meaning
of that word.
I don’t necessarily agree with those who say that we don’t get
holiness teaching nowadays. After a lifetime of preaching I
have been ‘on the bench’ for a number of years, a member of a
congregation. I hope I have looked encouraging and not had a
‘bless me if you can look on my face’ I have been enriched by
the careful and prayerful teaching of successive corps
officers whether or not they have used the terms familiar in
the past – like holiness, for example.
The Bible itself sometimes expresses elements of the meaning
of holiness in other words. It urges us to ‘love the Lord with
all our hearts’ for example, but now I would refer to Micah
6.8.
“What does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to
love mercy and to walk humbly with your God”. Clearly, that
teaches that holiness means living responsibly.
Saying that brings up a paradox – an apparent contradiction -
which is at the heart of Christian experience. On the one
hand, we rightly say that holiness is a blessing from God.
Only the Holy Spirit (with capital ‘h’ and ‘s’) can make us
holy spirits (with lower case). Salvation is by grace. But we
have a part to play. We should not expect God to zap us into
perfection without any action on our part. We have to be
responsible and avail ourselves of means of grace such as
prayer and Scripture, for instance. Catherine Booth said,
“Human effort is indispensable to salvation” We cannot obtain
salvation by it but we cannot remain saved without it.
St Paul put the paradox very clearly when he wrote, “Work out
your salvation with fear and trembling for it is God who works
in you to will and to act according to his good purpose”
(Phil.2.12). In other words, we have to work out what God has
worked in. Without God we cannot but without us he will not.
The tendency to seek to cop out of responsibility is as old as
time. In the Garden of Eden Adam sought to put blame on his
wife. And many modern wives could testify that it can still
happen! In the Army we like to shift blame. When there is a
problem we say that ‘they’ ought to have done something about
it. The Army is to blame! But who or what is the Army? Is it
some vague body at Queen Victoria Street in London or Railway
Road in Melbourne? Basically the Army is us. I remember a time
when as a territorial commander an issue arose and I might
have cast about for someone to blame so that they could take
responsibility. Then I realized that I was ‘they’; the buck
stopped with me! To some extent it always does.
Management manuals often state that people often do what is
inspected not what is expected. From the beginning the Army
has had’ inspections’. Sometimes the name is now softened to
‘consultations’ but hopefully the principle of accountability
is maintained for it is writ large in the Bible and our
regulations.
When things don’t go well we may blame our genes or our
upbringing and there is no doubt that both factors can make a
difference. But what counts most is still what we choose to do
with the raw material of our environment or our genetic
make-up. Years ago I knew a fine Christian man who had held
responsible positions. He was born as a result of his mother
being raped but despite that had made his life effective and
worthwhile. His worth was not dictated by the circumstances of
his birth. He had risen above those circumstances, by the
grace of God. Good for him!
Sometimes in a court of law a defence is mounted for someone
with mental problems on the grounds of ‘diminished
responsibility ’but generally it is assumed that people can
control their actions and are therefore ‘response-able’.
Part of the glory of being human is that we can act
responsibly and evidence of our fallen state lies in the fact
that we so often act irresponsibly.
Now in the manner I was taught as a cadet sixty odd years ago
I would make three points.
First, under God, holiness means being responsible for
ourselves.
We don’t honour God by neglecting ourselves or by wasting
the powers we have been given. The command to love the Lord
our God carries the clear inference that we should also love
ourselves in a responsible manner. We are meant to be
responsible for ourselves physically. Our bodies are the
temples of the Holy Spirit and we should treat them with
proper respect. We should take care to cultivate our minds.
Paul said that whatever things are good and pure we should
think on those things. Then we should take care of our souls.
Sanctification may be experienced as a crisis but it will also
be a process and that means daily cultivation of the fruit of
the Spirit in our lives through prayer and feeding on God’s
word. We are to be responsible but the gracious Holy Spirit is
available to come alongside and help us.
Then holiness means being responsible for others.
There is no such thing as holiness apart from social
holiness. The prophet Micah made that clear when he spoke of
doing justly and loving mercy and in the Sermon on the Mount
Jesus spoke, almost in the same breath, about being pure in
heart and also being merciful. Holiness is not piety wrapped
up in itself; it is outgoing. It is also very practical. It
has to do not only with the way we regard others when we are
sitting in the citadel but when we are seated behind the wheel
of our car! It has to do with how we treat the environment and
how we demonstrate our love for the needy. Holiness unto the
Lord should be like a watermark in our tax return as
responsible Christians. William Booth encapsulated his message
to his followers in the one cabled word, ‘Others’ and
demonstrated it in his life.
Thirdly, holiness means being responsible to God.
The prophet Micah made plain that our ultimate
responsibility is to the Lord. We are to walk humbly with him
and He is the One to whom we must give account.
In the early days of the Army there was great emphasis on the
prospect of a day of judgement and such an emphasis was well
supported by Scripture. But when did you last hear a sermon on
judgement? Does your memory go back that far? Yet Jesus had
plenty to say about it. It has been said that all think all
are mortal but themselves but the obvious truth is that we are
all in God’s waiting room and eventually it will be our turn
to meet our Maker. I am not being morbid but only stating the
obvious and the implications which need to be faced.
What does the Lord require? Well, be it said, God is not
unreasonable. He knows our limitations and the genuine desires
of our hearts. He would not make a fool of us by asking for
more than we could give with the aid of his Spirit. All we can
do is all he requires. Jesus had high commendation for a woman
despised by others and probably by herself as well. He said,
“She has done what she could” It may not have been what Peter,
James or John could have done but she had done that for which
she was response-able. With God’s help we can do much more
than we may think we can although we still have our
limitations but if God wants us to do justly and love mercy we
can be assured that he will not fail to do the same. The Judge
of all the earth will certainly do right.
And midst the maddening maze of things
And tossed by storm and flood,
To one fixed trust my spirit clings
I know that God is good.
John Greenleaf Whittier
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