I never thought of myself as the teacher's pet, so you can imagine my surprise when Ms. Cooper called me forward to the front of the class. That particular day, she had very little control of the dynamic in the room, and she was getting frustrated.
So she called me forward, put her arm around my shoulder, and said, in words that I will never forget—and am horrified by to this day—"Why can't you all be perfect like Mark?"
I had to overcompensate after that, and I had several detentions as a result. She initially thought I was some kind of angel, probably because my father was a clergyman and she assumed any child in a clergyman's home was well behaved. She didn't know Episcopal clergy families very well.
This notion of perfection obviously wasn't something I strove for. It felt as if I was being asked to compartmentalize myself and become an example for others.
I wonder if you hear today's Gospel in the same way.
"Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect."
It doesn't sound like an easy invitation to me.
Maybe that is a piece of Scripture you carry in your heart that makes you want to be better. Maybe it is that very challenge that makes you strive to be more faithful, more engaged, more giving, more compassionate, more merciful, more forgiving.
"Be perfect, even as your heavenly Father is perfect."
There is another way to look at it because, not unlike my experience in seventh-grade social studies with Ms. Cooper, the prospect of living up to that standard makes me want to overcompensate.
The Greek word translated as "perfect" is teleioi. I'll try to pronounce it correctly.
Teleioi is most often translated "perfect," but it carries other meanings as well.
One possibility is, "Grow up, even as your heavenly Father has grown up." How about that?
Or, "Mature. Come on, people. Mature, even as your heavenly Father is mature."
I'm not sure I resonate with either of those, but the next two possibilities are especially interesting.
Another way to understand the word is:
"Be complete, even as your heavenly Father is complete."
That's a deeper challenge for me because I know I avoid some of the difficult things in my life. I stay on a track that seems to be working well enough and think, "I don't need to be complete."
But I especially like the fourth possibility.
Be created, even as your heavenly Father created you. Be the person God created you to be.
If my seventh-grade teacher had put her arm around my shoulder and said, "He's really trying, y'all. Can't you try too?" I would have been fine with that because I know perfection eludes me.
In fact, I think it eludes most people I encounter because we all have that fearful place in our hearts and in our lives.
We all have denial. We all have those patterns that seem to work well enough, even though there are consequences for not reaching out to the person who so desperately needs to hear from us. It may simply feel too hard.
But "be complete" makes me feel like an unfinished version of myself.
When Mitzi and I were married in this very space in 2009, one of the hymns we chose was Love Divine, All Loves Excelling. There's that beautiful third verse that begins with the words, "Finished now thy new creation."
Lord, I need help being finished now.
The context for Jesus' words today about loving your enemies and being perfect—or perhaps we should say complete—even as your heavenly Father is complete, is the Sermon on the Mount.
The Sermon on the Mount includes those words in Matthew's Gospel:
"Blessed are the poor in spirit... Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. Blessed are the peacemakers. Blessed are those who are persecuted for my name's sake."
You know the ones I'm talking about.
I once heard those verses described as a summary of God's reckless love.
God is giving away everything He has to those on the bottom rung—the hungry, the poor, the thirsty, the persecuted.
God's reckless love turns everything upside down.
Later in Matthew's Gospel, Jesus says it even more explicitly:
"The first shall be last, and the last shall be first."
Turning it all upside down—that's the key to completion. It's learning to see one's weakness as strength.
Maybe that's why Jesus says, "Love your enemies."
Anybody can love their neighbors or their family. But if you love your enemy, you are living into the image of God.
This same passage was used in the church I was serving in September of 2001, just days after 9/11.
Love your enemies?
I will confess to you now—and I've never said this to any other congregation—I could not preach on that reading.
It was just too hard.
The pain was too deep.
I was in Washington, D.C., the day the plane hit the Pentagon. We heard the airplane. We walked past the Pentagon and saw the ambulances, the fire, and the gurneys carrying people.
It was too close.
The congregation I was serving was sad and a little disappointed that I did not offer them some solace, but I had not yet found it for myself.
This is simply to say that those words of Jesus are not easy.
To be complete—to be perfect, if we use the modern translation—means giving up the easy things so that we can become complete.
And that is hard.
One of my favorite movies is Forrest Gump.
What I love about that movie is that it's about a man who faces very real struggles in his life, including polio and learning disabilities, yet remains authentic.
The other thing I love is that this authentic human being encounters chapter after chapter of our nation's history.
He ends up on Bear Bryant's football team.
He ends up in Vietnam.
He meets Elvis Presley in his mother's boarding house.
He lives through the AIDS crisis.
He encounters the defining cultural moments of his lifetime, many of which you've seen as well, if not firsthand, then certainly from afar.
And in each case, he finds a piece of redemption.
Maybe it's his openness to life. Maybe it's his trust in life's goodness—or simply his belief that life always has something to offer, some surprise worth embracing.
Of course, the famous line is:
"Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're gonna get."
That's it.
When we don't know what we're going to get, it can be frightening. It can make us want to hunker down and hide.
Or...
It can open our hearts to whatever is in store.
I believe the God who loves us, who created us, and who calls us to live in His Spirit is One we can learn to trust so that we find redemption in whatever life offers.
That doesn't mean it's easy.
It simply means redemption is there to be found, redemption to be claimed, redemption to be recognized—redemption that will, in fact, complete you, even as our heavenly Father is complete.
It may mean making the phone call you've been putting off for months.
My gosh...
Decades.
It may mean cleaning out that box that represents a painful chapter of your life.
It might mean finally getting to that stack of books beside your bed that you've been meaning to read while punishing yourself for never getting around to them.
I'm preaching to the choir.
I am the choir.
Redemption is the theme of the chapter of your life.
Whatever that chapter means to you, whatever significance it has for how you live, Christ yearns for you to seek not what is easy, but what redeems—what gives hope, what makes whole, what completes.
It will be hard.
But it is exactly what God has prepared for each of us—for you and for me.