I like to take pictures of religious signs, including those on vehicles. I discovered this “Honk if You’re Holy!” sign in a parking lot in Florida back in 2015. Of the three signs displayed on the vehicle it is the one that captured my attention (the other sign on the rear read “JW.ORG Psalms 83:18 and a sign on the side simply displayed the number 144,000).
Would You Honk?
When I originally shared this image on Facebook I asked the question, “Would you honk?” Some of the more direct and creative replies included
- Of course!
- No.
- If you ARE holy you don’t NEED to honk
- I would honk….if and only if he was in my way
- I don’t believe in honks righteousness.
So What?
Being holy is worth talking about (whether or not it is worth honking about).
Marcus Borg – the only author to be included on this blog’s top books of the year list on five occasions – taught that the normative take on the command to “be holy as I am holy” during the time when Jesus was walking on the earth was to “be ritually pure as I am pure.” By contrast, Borg explained that Jesus critiqued the prevailing purity system and interpreted this as “be compassionate as I am compassionate.” Further, Jesus recognized compassion as both a personal virtue and a social virtue.
- Do you think of yourself as holy? Why or why not?
- Share an example of one of the ways you were taught that being holy was about rule keeping or other forms of purity.
- If holiness is primarily about being compassionate rather than purity, is following the Way of Jesus easier or more challenging? Explain.
Maybe we should be honking in support of more compassionate people working to create a more compassionate world.
#BeHoly
#BeCompassionate