“You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect. (Matthew 5:43-48)

 

 

     So, yeah – define “perfect.” How do you do that? “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” OK. And – I do that how? I mean – really. How? “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” Right. That's a pretty tall order. And “perfect” - that's a pretty tough word to deal with. So this morning, for a little while, I want us to think about the word “perfect” - and what it actually means to “be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”

 

     When we think of the word “perfect,” and when we apply it to God, we have a tendency to think in terms of behaviour don't we? So to be “perfect” we have to do all the right things – or avoid doing all the wrong things. If we manage to do that, then we're “perfect.” It's like pitching a perfect game in baseball. If you avoid giving up any hits or walks, and if you don't hit any batters, and if your teammates don't make any errors, then you've pitched a perfect game. It doesn't sound all that challenging. You know what you have to do – you just have to go out and do it. The only problem is that in 137 years of Major League Baseball, there have been only 23 perfect games. Just because you know what perfection is doesn't make it an easy thing to achieve! And when we start to think of perfection in terms of God, then knowing what we have to do to achieve perfection becomes even more of a challenge, to the point of seeming impossible. And so, in order to make what Jesus asks of us more attainable, we have a tendency to water down what Jesus is actually saying in this passage.

 

     I once heard of a Roman Catholic priest who preached on this verse of Scripture. “To be perfect,” the priest said, “means that you should be the best policeman, or fireman, or Indian chief, that you can be.” I'm sure the priest was well intentioned. I'm sure his goal was to make the demand of Jesus attainable. Just be the best you can be. But being the best you can be isn't being “perfect.” And that's the challenge. And too often we back away from the challenges of the Bible and we settle for what we are, or at most for what we realistically could be, rather than thinking and dreaming of what God wants us to be. However well intentioned this priest might have been in his remarks, he seems to have been falling into this trap, and shying away from the direct and difficult words in the Gospel reading: “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”

 

     In my opinion, those words, without a doubt, are the most challenging words ever offered by Jesus. Maybe because of that they also might be the most avoided and ignored of all of Jesus' teachings. Last week I was talking about how Jesus redefined the Law by making the point that obedience to the letter of the Law was less important than being transformed by the spirit of the Law. Today's passage is a continuation of the theme. As Jesus continued on with his teachings, we learned that we're to love our enemies and pray for our persecutors, and we also learn that God sends sun to both the good and the evil, and rain to both the righteous and the unrighteous. Ultimately what it all leads up to is Jesus telling us that love isn't really love if we only share love with those who already love us. And that leads up to the greatest and most challenging command Jesus may ever have offered: this command to be perfect, which is the climax and summation of this entire collection of Jesus' teachings.

 

     The point Jesus is making seems to be that perfection revolves around love. Our ability to love is the measure of our perfection, you might say. After all – what's the basic nature of God? 1 John makes it clear: “God is love.” If we also believe that God is perfect, then God's perfection flows from God's love. The measure of our perfection must then be our ability to love as God loves, and that's what Jesus is trying to teach us in this passage. The word that gets translated as “perfect” in this passage doesn't actually mean that we should be without flaw. What it means is that we should be full or complete. It doesn't even necessarily mean that we should be the best at what we do, with all due respect to the priest I quoted earlier. That's a bit too limited, because it would mean that God is only interested in our role or job or vocation or station in life. But is that really all God cares about? Is perfection just about being the best minister, or the best organist, or the best nurse or doctor or engineer or mother or father? But to be perfect in the sense of being full or complete looks far beyond any of that. It means to be complete or full in our very nature – which means that we are to belong to God, to be a child of God, and by becoming that we learn both how to live and how to love. And love is the key – which this passage points out. 

 

     I did say earlier that one of our problems when we deal with this passage is that we have a tendency to water down what Jesus is actually saying in order to make it a little easier; in order to make perfection a little more attainable. And I suppose some people might suggest I'm doing that, too, but equating perfection with love – but I don't think so. Let's face it – love isn't easy. Sometimes it's not that easy to love the people who love you. Perfect love means loving people who don't love you – sometimes people who hate you; sometimes people who persecute you.  It's why I've often said that one of the things I'm most grateful for in Jesus' teachings is that He asks us to love each other rather than to like each other. In some ways it's a lot easier to love than to like. To like someone is a personal and inner response to them and it's hard to just call that forth. But love – at least the kind Jesus is speaking about – is expressed not with emotions but with actions. Real love – perfect love – the love that God calls us to and that our faith in God should move us to – isn't shown by how we feel about people, but by how we treat people.

 

     I want to finish today just by pointing out this principle with other Scriptures, because as many have said the best interpreter of Scripture is Scripture. So, if perfection might be defined as the fulfilment of the Law, but if perfection is also defined as our ability to love even those who may not love us, then how do we justify that from Scripture. Think of a few verses:

 

Romans 13:8 says “owe nothing to anyone except to love one another; for he who loves his neighbor has fulfilled the law.” The verse doesn't say “he who loves his friends, but he who loves his neighbour, and the truth is that sometimes our neighbours aren't the most lovable people around. But if we love them, we've fulfilled the Law and taken a step toward being perfect “as [our] heavenly Father is perfect.”

 

In the same way Galatians 5:14 says “for the whole Law is fulfilled in one word, in the statement, 'You shall love your neighbour as yourself.'”

 

Jesus Himself clarified that the sign of a true disciple was his love for others:

By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.”

 

     There are a lot of other examples, but I think a few verses at least makes the point. Being perfect in the eyes of God isn't about following rules – it's about loving as God loved, without favour, extending love to everyone – even those whom society deems unworthy of being loved; even those whom we're tempted not to love. 

 

     The good news here is that you don't need to be flawless to “be perfect ... as your heavenly Father is perfect” – you just have to be loving toward all.