Please read this passage before reading this homily.
Why should we do moral things and not act immorally? Because God is holy. Stealing, lying, cheating, tripping the blind and cursing the deaf, being dishonest with others, and being indifferent when others are suffering: all these are bad, not because they hurt others, which they do, but because they insult God’s holiness. God says, “Be holy because I am holy, and I am your Lord.”
This is true on the international, national, regional as well as personal level. All of us should be concerned about aiding refugees and migrants fleeing poverty, persecution, and dangerous living conditions. We all should be concerned about famines, droughts, crop failures, and wars throughout the world just as we ought to be concerned about how we treat the poor, homeless, and those suffering from malnutrition who live near us. When we fail to stand up for others among us or in the wider world, we do not stand up for God because God has shared God’s holiness with all the downtrodden, despised, forgotten, and disliked people in the world. When we disregard their holiness, we disregard God’s holiness. When we refuse to love any neighbor, we refuse to love God, for God is holy and God is the Lord and owner of all.
We hear here the same message we can hear in Matthew’s story of the last judgment (Matthew 25:31-46) when the judgment depends on how we have treated or maltreated our neighbor. In Matthew Jesus identifies himself with the little one while in our passage, the thought, though similar, is that mistreating others in an insult to God’s holiness.
It is true that when we treat others well, we show great respect for God’s holiness, and when we mistreat them, we insult God’s holiness. It I also true that we must treat ourselves well because how we treat ourselves reflects also how we respect God’s holiness. God has made all of us as reflections of God’s holiness. If God were not holy, God would never have made you and me. God only created us because God is holy and wants to share God’s holiness with us.
Be holy, therefore, because the Lord your God is holy!