PERFECT? WHO ME???
Leviticus 19: 1-2; 17-18; 1 Corinthians 3: 16-23; Matthew 5: 38-34
“If anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other; love your enemies, pray for those who persecute you.” I wonder what our response is when we hear these words of Jesus. I wonder whether any of us actually takes these words seriously. I wonder whether we even think that these words apply to us; that we should or actually can follow these words. I wonder.
You see, in the world in which we live, the rules of life are clear and well defined. And these words don’t seem to bear any relationship to this world's rules of life. Our world, we’re told, is a dog eat dog world. This world is about the survival of the fittest. This is a world in which might is right. These are the rules we understand and practice in our world.
So when we hear these words of Jesus, we typically react in disbelief and shock: “Love my enemies, turn my cheek, pray for those who persecute me? Who me? That isn’t for me. I’m nobody’s idiot! God can't really expect this of me - after all, I’m only human!"
Sadly, even though we know that these are Jesus’ instructions to his followers, and even though we as Catholic Christians claim to be followers of Jesus, very few of us actually pay any attention to these commands of his. Very few of us take these commands seriously. But I can’t believe that Jesus was joking when he preached this form of behavior to his earliest followers.
And as if loving your enemy, praying for those who persecute you and turning the other cheek isn’t hard enough, Jesus adds one more seemingly impossible expectation: “Be PERFECT just as your heavenly Father is PERFECT” – not just perfect before God, perfect with God, perfect towards God, as were expressions we find in the Old Testament, but perfect as God. And although God is perfect in all ways, when Jesus commands us to “Be PERFECT just as your heavenly Father is PERFECT,” he is referring to God’s goodness, his holiness.
I believe that in our heart of hearts, each of us has a desire to be good: to be a good person and to do good things. And, of course - that's good! But in the gospel passage that we just heard, Jesus calls us to something greater than goodness, he calls us to holiness. I’m not sure that even those among us who most want to be good have also a desire to be holy. How many of us would feel comfortable being identified, known, as a holy person?
Often, holiness is something we admire in other people (Jesus, Mother Teresa, or our grandmother who goes to Mass and prays the Rosary every day) but holiness isn’t something we strive for ourselves. And insofar as we think of it as something too pious, spiritually over the top, even odd or quirky, holiness might even be something we don’t want.
But the holiness that Jesus calls us to isn’t something odd or quirky, quaint or pious. It’s not something weak or submissive. To the contrary, it’s challenging, demanding and strong. Holiness here calls us to provide no room in our hearts for hatred. Most of us don’t have hate-filled hearts but many of us keep in our otherwise “good” hearts a little corner reserved for our less-than-loving thoughts and feelings: for this one or that one; for that group or this; for that political party or that church authority; for that person in my past; for my ex-; for my co-worker; for my neighbor . . . Even a good heart should make no room for such feelings - no more than a farmer would keep a corner of his field for growing weeds: the weeds drain the goodness from the soil and eventually spread, laying waste to the field and its crop.
- A holy heart makes no room for weeds but rather keeps vigil lest ill-will, grudges, resentments and revenge take root there and yield a harvest of hate.
- A holy heart seeks, always, what is good and wastes no time planning for retaliation (an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth).
- A holy heart does not oppose evil with evil - no matter how satisfying that may be - but rather stands tall in the face of evil, willing to bear and suffer the consequences of fidelity even when they take their toll on ease and comfort.
- While a good heart gives to someone in need, a holy heart gives until the giver has a share in the want of the one whose needs are being served.
- A holy heart gives until it makes a difference for the giver as well as for the one who receives.
In other words: being good isn’t good enough for Christians, for followers of Jesus - we are called to something more. People of holiness have a greater, deeper, stronger love to offer: they love those who do not or cannot or will not love in return; they love even their enemies; and to those who make their daily lives miserable, they open their hearts in prayer. In the gospel here Jesus calls us to love - as God loves: not sparingly, not grudgingly - but fully, deeply, robustly; not with strings attached and looking for something in return, but freely, selflessly and generously; not with hidden pockets of anger and resentment but with peace, mercy and forgiveness. God loves each of us with a heart of holiness and calls us to love one another, even our enemies, with the same heart. It was someone with more than just a good heart who gave his life for us on the Cross: the heart of Jesus is, indeed, the holiest of all hearts whose life, whose body and blood, we share at this altar.
“Be PERFECT just as your heavenly Father is PERFECT.” To say that the words of our Gospel are challenging is an understatement. They should shake us to our bones because it’s a call to complete transformation. We are to live our lives differently because we live our lives in Jesus Christ.
They say "practice makes perfect." So, I’d like to suggest a way for us to practice. It’s called LENT and it starts this Wednesday. Lent is the time to practice those things that the Church recommends to us to help make us holy: prayer, fasting, sacrifice, acts of charity, and availing ourselves to the Sacrament of Reconciliation. Need some practical help on how to do that? Here are a few suggestions:
- Give up cynicism . . . or jealousy . . . or backstabbing. Give up gossip. Give up regrets for choices you never made or paths your never took.
- Give up fighting God’s will for you. Mean what you say when you pray “Thy will be done.”
- Give up whatever fear or anxiety is keeping you from going to confession, and just go. Give up being too busy to pray or being too worried to hope.
- Give up looking at other people's worst points. Instead, concentrate on their BEST points for a change.
- Give up speaking unkindly. Instead, let your speech be generous and understanding.
- Give up your worries and anxieties! Instead, trust God with them.
- Give up television, the internet or your cell phone one evening a week! Instead, visit someone who is lonely or isolated by illness or age, read the Bible or pray the Rosary.
- Give up buying anything but essentials for yourself! Instead, give the money to a worthwhile cause. God calls us to be cheerful givers, not consumers.
I can’t promise that if you practice all those things that, at the end of forty days, you’re going to be perfect. For our God - who always was, always will be and always remains the same - perfection is his eternal, natural state of being. It’s not ours. For us, perfection requires transformation. And if we truly desire to be PERFECT, just as our heavenly Father is PERFECT, we’ve got to start sometime. Why not this Lent?
