Be Perfect

Seventh Sunday after Epiphany – Year A

February 23, 2014

Matthew 5: 38-48

[Jesus said:]

"You have heard that it was said, 'An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.' But I say to you, Do not resist an evildoer. But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also; and if anyone wants to sue you and take your coat, give your cloak as well; and if anyone forces you to go one mile, go also the second mile. Give to everyone who begs from you, and do not refuse anyone who wants to borrow from you.

"You have heard that it was said, 'You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax-collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers and sisters, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect."

Over the last two weeks I have been spending most of my evenings in front of the television watching the highlights from the Olympics. On the days when I've been home during the day, I've often been watching the events live. Every year it seems there are stories about the triumph of humanity, the triumph of the human spirit. This year is no different.

I was moved this year by the story of an American skeleton racer. Now if you haven't heard of skeleton before, it's actually rather simple, and something I think most of us have done in our youth. Get an old fashioned sled with runners, go to the top of a hill, lie down on your stomach head pointed down the hill, and go. Of course, in the Olympics it's not on a hill, it's on a single lane track, formed completely out of ice. And as fast as we may have been going on our hills in our youth, it's nothing compared to the 60 mph plus speeds achieved by these folk.

Now, the athlete's story I was moved by was Noelle Pikus-Pace. She had retired several years ago, and made the difficult transition from professional athlete to mother. She had 2 young children, and was expecting her third. Unfortunately, that third child was not to be. That tragedy was enough for her to come out of retirement for one final effort, she said she needed to concentrate on something else. She had to balance caring for her young children, her responsibilities at home, and still train well enough to be competitive at an international level. She said the only way she was able to do it was because she knew her family was with her. And they were, after coming back to the sport her family traveled to every race, every competition. When she was training, she was often accompanied by her children. In the end, her return to competition was rewarded by a silver medal, and her first action after her final race was to run into the stands to embrace the family that supported her.

One of the things that was amazing to me was after the four races that made up the competition there was less than a second between gold and silver; in fact less than 2 seconds total time was the difference between first and seventh place. The tiniest little mistake literally may have been the difference between winning a medal or going home empty-handed. When a race comes down to tenths, sometimes hundreds of a second, perfection matters. A little slip here, a wobble there and all can be lost. In the Olympics, and perhaps sometimes in life perfection matters.

I remember growing up how I sometimes heard coaches and teachers respond to my complaining of having to do something over and over, “Practice makes perfect.” We all know there is some truth in that. If we want to get better at something, we need to do it often. When I was learning to play my trombone I had to practice, and the more I practiced the better I got. It wouldn't have been possible for me to just pull it out of the case and play a piece of music if I hadn't done the hard work of practicing first. Yet, even then, I can honestly say that perfection was something that I never achieved in playing my trombone. In fact, perfection is something I don't think I can claim having achieved in anything, except in one area: I have a perfect track record in not being perfect.

When I was reflecting on the texts for this week, I kept being drawn to the final words of our Gospel lesson, “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” Jesus has just finished laying out a rather long list of statements and re-statements of teachings, we've heard them for the last few weeks. Don't be angry with your neighbors, turn the other cheek, love your neighbor, give more than what is asked. In and of themselves some of these are hard enough. And then, to top it off, almost like frosting on the cake, Jesus declares almost offhandedly, “Oh and by the way, Be perfect!” No pressure there.

I know in my own life, there are times when my behavior, the things I do and think, are far from the perfection that Jesus seems to be asking of us. Does he really expect us to be perfect? Is it even possible? Or is it just another one of those times when the whole point is to make us realize we can't be perfect and so we have no choice but to turn and run toward God's grace?

As so often happens, the answer may lie in how we understand the word perfect. The word we translate as perfect comes from the Greek word telos, a word that implies goal, end or purpose. It's not so much about being perfect, but “about becoming what was intended, accomplishing one's God-given purpose in the same way that God constantly reflects God's own nature and purpose.”¹ Jesus is essentially telling those listening to him, “You are children of the Kingdom, you are part of the living out of God's reign here on earth, act like it. Be who you were created to be.”

Jesus knows that the challenges he has laid out are difficult. He knows because he has to do them too. He had to put one foot in front of the other as he traveled to Jerusalem and the cross, enduring shame and accusations. He gave his life for the very people that crucified him, he loved those who hated him. He understands just how hard it is to love those who hate us, how hard it is to share of our bounty rather than to hold on to it, he knows how hard it is to forgive rather than to hold on to the pain, he knows how hard it is to love rather than hate, to heal and comfort one another rather than to hurt. He knows. And yet, he tells us, “Be perfect.” Be complete, be fully who you are called to be, who you were created to be.

He knows how hard it is, but he doesn't want us to just pick and choose the things we think or know we can do. If we only do the things we know we can do, and shrug off those we know are difficult it's not living into the desires that God has for us. When we pick and choose, our first concern is really ourselves – making sure we successfully show God that we did something right. When we do that, we don't put God first, we don't trust God – we trust ourselves first. And that is worse that doing and failing. At least when we do and then fail in our doing, our first thought was God rather than us.

God loves you. Believe it! Really, God does. God truly, madly, deeply, loves and cares for you. Do you believe it? The challenge of faith is to live our lives as testimonies to that belief. If we believe God truly loves us, then for us to do and fail doesn't matter – God loves us. Yet, if we live our lives only trying to do that which we think we can, avoiding that which is difficult or hard, where is our trust? Where is our love? Ultimately, it is centered in our selves, not in God. Our loving God would rather us to fail in our doing, than to never try to do. It's about being who we were created to be.

Nearly 1700 years ago, one of the early church father's used the sharing of bread and wine in Communion to make this point clear. Saint Augustine in the words he used in his communion service added a simple sentence during distribution: "Receive who you are. Become what you've received.” The words of Augustine were not so much a challenge, as they were a promise. Augustine was declaring that in the sharing of Communion people were receiving the promise of Christ, that they were children of God, and they were being called to become the children of God they were.

Being a child of a parent is sort of a unique thing. We are all the results of a combination of DNA and chance and God's creative impulse. There are things about us that are like our father, and there are things about us that are like our mother, and bits that remind us of other members of our families going back generations. Perhaps it's our nose, our hair, the way we walk; but we are all a combination. We can't choose which parts of us are what make us, that would be a total denial of who we are as the children of our parents. Being a child of God isn't something you can do partway, pick and choose the parts you like and don't like. It's about being fully a child of God, it's about being the complete child of God, the perfect child of God you are and were created to be.

One of my favorite movie series is Star Wars, some people think it's a perfect story; I wouldn't go that far. I've seen all of the movies multiple times. One of my favorite characters is Yoda. The short, green-skinned, pointy-eared, master of the Force who teaches Luke Skywalker to use the special abilities the force gave him. In one scene, in the middle of his training, Yoda tells Luke to use the force to lift a small spaceship out of the waters of a bog in which it was trapped. Luke fails to lift the ship from the mud it was trapped in, and begins to make excuses about how he tried but he just wasn't strong enough. Yoda looks at him and says, “Do or do not...there is no try.” I think that's what Jesus was also saying.

Be who you are, not partway, not sometimes, be who you are. Do it, don't try to do it and only go part way. Do, and trust God when you fail in your doing, knowing that God forgives and loves you even in the failing to do. As Eugene Peterson says in his translation, "You are kingdom people, blessed and beloved by God and called to be salt and light in the world. Go, be who you are!" Amen.

1http://www.workingpreacher.org/craft.aspx?post=1523