Homily – 7th Ordinary Sunday (A)
Mt 5: 38-48
It is not often that I get the idea for a homily whilst arranging the weekly Choir Ordo – the little instruction sheet for the brethren which helps us navigate the Roman Office. Nonetheless, that is what happened last Friday. Normally, the Magnificat Antiphon we use on Sundays is taken from the gospel reading for the day; strangely, however, this week, rather than using the text from Matthew’s version of the Sermon on the Mount: “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect”, the Antiphonale gives Luke’s parallel version: “Be merciful, as your heavenly Father is merciful”. I was intrigued by this and so did a little exploring. After considerable searching, I found that although there are many antiphons drawn from Matthew’s Gospel, including from today’s Gospel, this one phrase is never used. More, I discovered that although St Benedict makes abundant use of Matthew – indeed he is quoted nearly 50 times, twice as often as Luke, ten times more than John and 20 times more than Mark – this saying of Jesus appears nowhere in the Rule. The very idea of “perfection” itself is also almost absent from the Rule, which again seems strange; the word is used only twice, both times in one sentence, in the very last chapter, c.73, where Benedict compares his own “little Rule for beginners” with those tools which will lead to the perfection of monastic life. One might have thought that Jesus’ words would be ideally suited to a monastic Rule, to those seeking God above all else, but it seems not – and that I find genuinely strange. It is almost as if Jesus’ words are too frightening to be used: “Be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect”. Why are we afraid of this saying of the Lord?
I tried to suggest two Sundays ago, reflecting on an earlier part of this same Sermon on the Mount, that – despite Matthew’s reputation as being a demanding Gospel, with a “hard-line” view on the demands of discipleship – we have to take Jesus’ words, Jesus’ commands seriously. So when he says to us “Be perfect...” what is it that he is trying to express? What is it that he is commanding us? What is he asking us to do? I suspect that many of us, hearing that command, hear it as it were in the “negative”, perhaps from the standpoint of our moral and ethical behaviour. In short, we hear it as the command “Do not sin”. In itself, that is no bad thing, but I think that actually there is a great deal more, and a great deal more that is positive, in Jesus’ words. Let me try to explain.
In the first place, Jesus himself is echoing here some much older words, words we heard in today’s first reading from the Book of Leviticus. At the very beginning of the so-called “Holiness Code” in Leviticus 19-26, God speaks to Moses and says: “Say to all the congregation of the people of Israel, You shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy.” For us, perhaps, the idea of holiness is today over-spiritualised – it can so often be seen just in terms of the interior life, our prayer, our reading, our spirituality. It is interesting, therefore to note that what follows this divine injunction to holiness is a series of very practical commands, commands about “real life” – starting with respect for parents and keeping the Sabbath, and then moving through commands about how to reap fields, judge justly, avoid theft and oppression, even how to breed cattle. Within these commands comes the second section of today’s reading, culminating in: “you shall love your neighbour as yourself”. What is perhaps most striking is that this idea of “holiness” is grounded in everyday reality, in practical things which build up community and show respect and care for the poor and the marginalised. If we, then, are to be holy, to be perfect, at least part of that perfection lies in our practical obedience to these same commands.
Jesus himself gives us other clues. Again and again in this chapter, Jesus uses a recurring phrase: “You have heard how it was said... But I say...” Many commentators have noted that he is going beyond the word of the old Mosaic Law to the spirit which lies behind it, refreshing and re-invigorating the Law, just as his contemporaries the Pharisees – at their best – were also trying to do. In today’s passage, however, what is clearest is the idea of generosity, of superabundance in our response to the events of life. Jesus asks us to show the same generosity as his Father shows, even in difficult circumstances. We are not to seek retribution, payback for wrongs, but instead we are, literally, to “go the extra mile” mindful that God has already been generous to us. We are to love even our enemies and persecutors, mindful that God has already loved us, even while we were still his enemies. Again, if this “perfection”, this holiness which Christ enjoins on us is to mean anything, it means having this same superabundantly generous spirit in all that we do.
One last thought. In the Greek text, the command “Be perfect...” reads as . The word has a number of meanings – goal, end, aim, even destiny. In a sense, therefore, we might rethink the translation a little (and only a little, since obviously, being “perfect” already has this sense of “completeness”) as a command from Jesus to be those who are complete, who have reached their goal, who have found their true purpose – just as the Father is complete in himself.In a sense, then, it is not a command about achievement: having the perfect body or perfect teeth, gaining the perfect score in an exam or competition. Those “human perfections”, good as they are, are not the full picture. Rather, it is a command that we remember who we really are, a command that we truly become what we were made to be, and – as Leo the Great was fond of reminding his congregations – of realising the dignity which has been bestowed on us by God’s grace. We are already those who have been created in God’s image and likeness – and no matter how distorted that likeness has become through our sinfulness, that image can never be uprooted from our very selves. We are, still more marvellously, those who have already been re-created in Christ, been made sons and daughters of the Kingdom through the superabundant love of Christ and the saving will of the Father, and nothing can separate us from that love. Perhaps that perfection, then, of which Christ speaks, is nearer than we might think – not through our work, but through his gift. For us there remains the daily task of living as if we actually believed this, of seeking to make our goal, our purpose – that is, that we actually live already as the holy People of God, that we actually live as the temples of the Holy Spirit – a reality in our daily conduct, a reality summed up in Christ’s great commandment, that we should love God and our neighbour. Those two simple tasks are a real challenge, a daily challenge, but not one, I think, of which we should be afraid.