Be Perfect

Charlotte Collins Reed

Christ Church Episcopal

February 19, 2017

7 Epiphany A

When I was a new, young mother, every parenting book or magazine I read had the same basic advice about discipline and I imagine the advice is similar now. Tell your children what they are to do, not what they are not to do.  So, rather than say “don’t jump on the couch,” say “the couch is for sitting.”  Instead of telling one child not to take from another, the advice was to remind the children to share.  Rather than say “Don’t fill up on junk food,” say “how about eating an apple instead.”  And on and on.  The idea, of course, was to teach good habits and create a positive atmosphere that focused on what was allowed rather than a negative atmosphere that focused on what was forbidden.  The difficulty was in always thinking of something positive to say, when the words that wanted to fly out of my mouth were “Don’t do that.”

God seems to have missed that bit of parenting advice.  This morning, we seem to only hear about what we are not allowed to do.  Do not reap to the edges of your field.  Do not steal.  Do not deal falsely.  Do not lie or swear falsely or defraud, or revile the deaf, or put a stumbling block before the blind, or render an unjust judgement, or hate in your heart.  If all we had was this reading from Leviticus, then we would easily thing that in order to be faithful, we must simply obey the “don’t do” list.

Jesus’ instructions this morning are couched in more positive language, but they are no easier. Once we get past “Do not resist an evildoer,” we hear “If anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other one also.”  And “if anyone forces you to go one mile, go also the second mile.”  Jesus continues with “Give to everyone who begs from you” and “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.”  If this short piece from the Sermon on the Mount was all we had, being faithful would seem impossible and we might find ourselves longing for a nice long “don’t do” list from Leviticus!

Happily, neither of these passages are all we have of Scripture, and indeed, we have all of Scripture with which to interpret them.  The reading from Leviticus begins with the words “You shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy.” This passage is set in the context of a faith that believes that humans are created in the image of God.  In the book of Genesis we hear the words “In the image of God, God created them, male and female, God created them.”  Since God is holy by definition, then we are image of that which sets the standard for holiness.  How are we, as humans, to know what holiness looks like?  According to Leviticus, one way is through the actions of each other.  This is the context for hearing God’s commands in Leviticus, even if they are not couched in the positive language we might like. We know the holiness of God by acting towards others as God as acted toward us.

Likewise, the gospel reading ends with Jesus’ words “Be perfect, therefore, as your Father in heaven is perfect.”   Last week, we heard Jesus say “You have heard it said that ‘you shall not murder,’ but I say to you that if you are angry with a brother or sister you are liable to judgement,” and “You have heard it said that you shall not swear falsely...but I say to you ‘you shall not swear at all.’”  This week Jesus takes those instructions a bit further.  “The law says ‘an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.”  But I say “Do not resist an evil doer.  But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also....If anyone forces you to go one mile, go the second mile instead.”  And finally “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” Does Jesus want any followers at all?  What is Jesus thinking?

Jesus began his public ministry with the words “Repent, for the Kingdom of God is at hand.”  Repent means to turn away from all that draws us from God and from being holy.  The Kingdom of God is the realm of the upside down, inside out values of Jesus, where we hear that the last shall be first and the first shall be last, where tax collectors and sinners will dine at the heavenly banquet table, where we are to love our enemies, and where those who recognize their dependence on God will be blessed and those who think they can accomplish salvation on their own may find themselves out of luck.  In that Kingdom, there is no place for the cycle of violence that comes when we live by words like “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.” 

Jesus’ words this morning in no way justify domestic violence, even though they have sometimes been heard that way.  This passage does the exact opposite of giving any person permission to abuse someone else, or commanding any one to endure abuse.  Jesus’ instructions are about breaking the bondage to cycles of oppression, not by hitting back, but by breaking free.  Desmond Tutu puts it this way “When we see others as the enemy, we risk becoming what we hate.  When we oppress others, we end up oppressing ourselves.  All of our humanity is dependent on recognizing the humanity of others.”  Today we hear Jesus call us to turn from patterns of behavior that perpetuate violence, dehumanize others and ourselves, and push the Kingdom of Heaven further away rather than drawing that Kingdom closer.  Jesus calls us to the radical generosity, peacemaking and love of the Kingdom of God.  When Jesus was crucified, God did not crucify us back.  God raised Jesus from the dead.  Jesus calls his followers to be perfect as God is perfect. 

“You shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy.”  “Be perfect, therefore, as your Father in heaven is perfect.”  Our lives reflect the life of the One in whose image we are made.  The way we live our lives as people of faith speaks to the world around us about the God in whom we believe.  Jesus calls his followers to reflect the radical love of God to the world- a love that does not strike back, that gives us more than we could ever ask or imagine, and that loves us even when we are at our most unlovable. The world is starving for that love.  

Amen.