Matthew 5:48 says, “Be perfect, just as your Heavenly Father is perfect.” For most of my life, I have had a very distorted view of this injunction to perfection. Sure, in a vague, amorphous sense, I understand the need to strive for these ideals. But therein lies the rub. How does an imperfect creature strive to become perfect just like his creator? How is that even possible? Yet, it is an injunction from my Heavenly Father. So, there must be something about it that falls within the realm of the possible, in the realm of human will, potential and action.
Never on the Sabbath
The scene from Luke 6 pits Jesus against the Pharisees and Scribes. The man with the withered hand is presented to Jesus on the Sabbath. The Pharisees and Scribes watched Jesus closely to see what he would do. I find this scene to be so bizarre and surreal, particularly when viewed with my modern, infused-in-materialism, worldview. Pay attention to this posture of the Pharisees, they are watching Jesus closely because they know he can cure that man. I repeat, they know he can cure. Consider just how strange this is.
In our modern times, we tend to accept nothing unless there is strong scientific proof to support it. The Pharisees were not watching Jesus to witness another amazing miracle and convince themselves of his Divinity. They already knew! They were watching him to see if he would violate the Sabbath. The cosmic significance of Divinity entering humanity and presenting itself in all its majesty and magnificence to us creatures is pushed to the side. All sense of joy or charity towards a fellow human being, an eager anticipatory joy in his imminent cure, is pushed to the side. Any notion of mercy towards a suffering fellow human being, is pushed to the side. These have no place in their conception of the Sabbath.
Legalism
My distorted view of Jesus’ injunction to be perfect were likewise steeped, as much as I have been in denial of it, in the legalism of the injunction. A recent visit to the Confessional changed my worldview on this front. I was out of town, and found myself at a nearby Church, with an old Confessor priest, on an ordinary Saturday afternoon. He listened patiently to my confession and asked me a little about myself. He then asked me what Matthew 5:48 (be perfect …) meant to me. I regurgitated something that confirmed for him my vague and amorphous understanding of this injunction. Then he talked to me for a long while. I only remember five key words or phrases from that conversation that shook me to my core – “The mind of a Giver,” “the true meaning of Love,” “Acceptance,” “Appreciation” and “Forgiveness.”
The Little Way
To have the mind of a giver, in contrast to having the mind of a receiver, is the bearing of one whose will is away from thinking about what one would receive, towards what one could give. In every scenario a true shift from an inward, self-centered focus, to an outward, other-centered focus immediately changes the dynamics of the relationship.
Second, “the true meaning of love.” It is a paraphrasing of Jesus’ statement to the woman caught in adultery, repeated in the confessional, neither do I condemn you (John 8:10). Its true import lies in the way God sees us, his Children, with nothing but love. He sees only the perfection of His creation in us. He views our attempt at reconciliation, as the Father of the prodigal son did, as the only act needed to restore us. Sin is wiped out in that act as if it never happened. Sonship is restored.
Our journey towards perfection lies in the simple imitation of God’s treatment of us when we deal with another of God’s creation. It does not matter if it is a loved one, a brother or a sister, or a friend who has wounded us. Love is the directing of one’s will away from the imperfections we see in the other, towards the perfection that God sees in his creation. It does not lie in our feeble, impossible attempts at trying to perfect ourselves or others, as if to make them in our image.
Through His Eyes
When seen through His eyes, acceptance and then appreciation of the other becomes easier. The mountains we made of the little annoyances and idiosyncrasies seem to shrink down to molehills. God cannot but accept and appreciate us. When we imitate that in our attitude towards the other, we create the room within to see ourselves finally as God sees us, as his beloved children. Then and then alone can we get past the guilt and trap of past sins and into the appreciation of God’s magnanimous mercy.
What I describe here is my own realization of the trap I was in. The trap that I was never going to make it as a child of God. Never going to become perfect. That it was impossible for me to become a better person, a holier person. It was a trap that drove me to my repeated, failed, self-driven attempts to become perfect. Every time I fell, I lost a little more of that innocence of my faith.
There is a story of St. Therese of Lisieux coughing up blood as she lay dying. One or the sisters wipes her lips with a cloth and St Therese asks that sister, “You know you are taking care of a Saint, don’t you?.” Some may mistake that for arrogance. For St. Therese, in her little way, it was the simple confidence of a child, a child who is certain of Jesus’ love, because she was able to give to the other, to love the other, as Jesus loved her. She was able to accept and appreciate even those that tormented her. That is why she was confident of her entry into heaven. The road to perfection in Christ begins and ends in these simple truths. Amen.
