“You shall be
holy, for I the Lord your God am holy.”
Leviticus 19:1
“For God's
temple is holy, and you are that temple.”
1Corinthians
3:17
“Be perfect,
therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”
Matthew 5:48
These are tough things to hear. It makes one sort of wonder if this would have been a good Sunday morning to sleep in.
When we hear things like this, we are tempted to turn the volume down and relegate them to the border-land of pious platitudes where we nod our heads “yes” while inwardly taking comfort that we will never cross that border in our lifetime.
We’re
not holy. We’re not perfect. In
our world holiness and perfection are more the Ideal than the Real. So
please, God, don’t tell us to be something we’re not – something we can’t be –
something we don’t want to be.
Nobody
likes someone who thinks he’s holy or who thinks she’s perfect. Besides,
I didn't sign up for this.
The
problem is God is not offering this as a benign suggestion but rather as a fervent
command:
Be Holy! Be Perfect! Be my Temple!
God
is commanding us to be that place in the world of our creating where it can
encounter the world as intended by God. So
let us consider the world of our making; the world that came into being the day
Adam and Eve took a bite out of the forbidden; that world which periodically bites back.
In this alternative world reality dictates:
In this alternative world reality dictates:
·
There
are a lot of bad people who’ll take what you have if you’re not looking
out for yourself.
·
The
poor are losers, who live off the hard work of others.
· You don’t want uninvited, undesirable foreigners coming across your land. Kick them out
and keep them out!
· You better take what you can while you can because if you don’t, someone else will.
· If the facts are not to your liking, make up alternate facts.
· People with disabilities better not get in the way or get too head-strong. If they do, make fun of them, mimic them to show how sad and pathetic they are because they need us more than we need them.
·
Use
the law to find ways to avoid paying people you hired. It makes you look smart.
· If people hit you, hit them back hard. Better yet, if you think someone deserves to be punched go ahead do it. They more than likely have it coming.
· Don’t treat your enemies nicely. They’ll just think you’re weak. Fight fire with fire and put your enemies in their place, preferably six feet under.
· If someone tries taking something from you, fight back and make them pay.
· Don’t be a wimp. Don’t forgive and don’t forget.
· God loves winners and hates losers. If I’m winning, it’s because God likes me. If you lose, well… you must be doing something wrong, because God doesn’t like losers.
Today, this is the world we encounter when we walk out these doors; where unrighteousness is made to look right – where being unjust is justified. It might not be ethically correct, morally correct, or politically correct, but for a lot of people including many Christians it’s just telling it like it is.
We can choose to see the alternate world of our making as the only reality there is or we can engage in God's mission of redeeming it to the reality that it ought to be. There is no middle ground between the holy and the unholy or between the perfect and the imperfect. [See Luke 16:26 from the Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus.]
In our Leviticus reading this morning God tells us how to care for the poor and foreigner in our land, to provide for them, and not steal in any way, shape or form, to pay those we hire on time, to refrain from lying, to treat the disabled with respect because God is on their side, and to be just. For God says, “I am the Lord – your God;” meaning, we have a claim on God just as God has on us.
We’re in a covenantal relationship – a very deep and intimate relationship of mutual responsibility with our God. To be holy means to be other and requires us to act as we ought to act. We are to speak the truth and do justice to the poor and the powerful, alike. We are to love our neighbors and our enemies as ourselves because in doing so God is loved.
In the Gospel of Matthew, we are told to be perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect. Perfection, according to Jesus, is how we are to confront the imperfections of our world. If one were to sum up what Jesus is saying it would be this. “Don’t fight fire with fire.” Rather, deprive it of its oxygen – smother it with love.
Jesus doesn’t just say there are bad people; he says there are evil people. Jesus is not denying the reality of those who act from self-righteous indignation and justified injustice.
He’s defying it. He’s saying there’s a far more effective way of responding to it than succumbing to this world's methodical machinations.
Yes, there’re people who will hit us in the face- steal our coats - make us walk in a direction we weren’t going and don’t want to go.
Yes, there are people who will treat us badly, persecute us simply because we follow Jesus and are devoted to a God of love.
The perfection Jesus is talking about is simply this – the constancy of God’s love in all situations.
It is that simple, that challenging, that demanding, and that perfect. And Jesus is saying is we are made of this love and made for this love.
Above all, this love of God that we are part of is strong:
· Strong enough to take a hit.
· Strong enough to give the shirt off one’s back to someone who steals one’s coat.
· Strong enough to walk an extra mile down a path we didn’t choose.
· Strong enough to see my brother or sister, a child of God, in the face of those considered my enemy.
· Strong enough to pray for those who would persecute us.
That’s the perfection of our heavenly Father, that’s what God sees in us - perfection. It’s possible. It’s doable and it’s scary. This is the kind of holiness and perfection that will humble us and leave us with an unquenchable hunger for God’s righteousness and justice.
And yes, we signed up for this when we entered into a baptismal covenant with God, to become part of the Body of Christ, God’s Temple, in the World:
“Will you proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ?”
“Will you seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving your neighbor as yourself?’“Will you strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being?”
To which we all responded in some form or another: “I will with God’s help.”
We renew our commitment to this covenant every time we go to communion: “Sanctify us also that we may faithfully… serve you in unity, constancy, and peace…”
We are called to be a holy and perfect people, the very temple of God in the world because this is how our God imagined the world to be; this is how our God made us; this is how our God sees us: A holy, perfect temple - God's dwelling place in this world.
This is who we are!
* * * * * * * * * *
Until next time, stay faithful.
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