What makes you special? What makes you unique? What makes you different and sets you apart from others?

While obviously we all look different –we have different features, different noses, eyes, hands, body shapes, coloring, or hair texture –we also have a unique personality, a character all our own, our own motives, dreams, and aspirations, our own fears, inclinations, likes, and preferences.

In scripture, the word meaning different or “set apart” from others is “holy.” To be holy for Jews and later for Christians meant to be different, unique, not simply ordinary.

That’s an important distinction, because the opposite of not being ordinary is of course to be “ordinary.” That’s the word we encounter frequently in the scriptures in discussions or disputes with Jesus and his contemporaries. The …