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The Seventh Sunday after the EpiphanyE. Bevan Stanley
February 19, 2017
Year A
Leviticus 19:1-2,9-18
1 Corinthians 3:10-11,16-23
Matthew 5:38-48
Jesus said, “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Be perfect. Be perfect as God is perfect. Be godlike. Jesus isn’t asking much, is he? One rational response would be: I give up; I’m going home. Yet this message is not new. God says to Moses in Leviticus, “Speak to all the congregation of the people of Israel and say to them: You shall be holy, for I theLordyour God am holy.”
Be perfect. Be holy. What does this mean? And how can we possibly pull this off? As for the behaviors that might represent this holiness, they are pretty clear. Take care of the poor and the alien. Don’t steal, cheat, lie, or swear falsely. You shall not keep back the wages of the laborer. No slander. Don’t treat the poor differently than the rich. If you see someone doing wrong, intervene. And it is all summed up with “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
Jesus’ message is not very different. Except that he goes farther. Do not retaliate. If someone wants to take something from you, give him more. Be good not only to your friends but to your enemies. Jesus concludes this section with these words: “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers and sisters, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”
It reminds me of my mother. My mother ran the canoeing department at a girls’ summer camp in Vermont for 38 years. All the different activities had ranks that a camper could achieve by passing certain tests. In canoeing the highest rank was Admiral, and very few campers achieved it. On had to lead a trip, portage a canoe, know how manage a sail canoe. One of the most difficult tests was to land a canoe at the dock silently. My mother would sit on the dock blind-folded. If you could land your canoe without her hearing you, you passed. At the end of the list of tests was one last hurdle. It only had three words: Perfect all strokes. That was the standard—perfection.
Both of these passages call us to a very high standard of behavior. I, for one, know that I cannot live up to these standards. I am too weak and too selfish to pull it off. But there is something else going on here. All three passages this morning are about being a community that reflects God’s nature and love. Let’s start with Leviticus. You shall be holy, for I theLordyour God am holy.” And then each specific instruction ends with the refrain, “I am theLord.” That is, every command is based on the reality that we are God’s people. We are to behave with love and charity because that is God’s nature. And we share the image of God. We are called to love as God loves. And this is possible because God made us for this. This is possible because God is with us. This is possible because the one who asks it is God with us.
The same is true for Jesus’ words in the Sermon on the Mount. We have already seen in recent weeks that Jesus is casting a vision of the Kingdom of God. This is what it would look like. He concludes this section with telling us that we have to love and be kind to both the just and the unjust because that is the way God loves the just and the unjust.
And Paul in his letter to the Corinthians says the same thing in yet another way. “Do you not know that you are God's temple and that God's Spirit dwells in you? If anyone destroys God's temple, God will destroy that person. For God's temple is holy, and you are that temple.” And let us be absolutely clear that the “you’s” are plural. We collectively, as a community, as a congregation are the temple of God. The Holy Spirit dwells among us.
Finally, a few comments about the words. Leviticus uses the word “holy.” The Hebrew word means special, or set apart. We are to special and different from the rest of the world in the same way that God is different from the world. This is why our Presiding Bishop says we are called to be Crazy Christians. We are different.
The text of Matthew’s gospel uses the word “perfect.” This is the same Greek word that John’s Gospel has Jesus utter from the cross when he says, “It is finished.” It means completed, perfect, achieved. It conveys wholeness. The perfect human is one who has become fully integrated, who has fulfilled the call to be the image of God. To be whole and complete. This is similar to the Hebrew word Shalom, which is often translated “peace.” After we have been forgiven our sins in the Absolution after Confession, the Priest announces, “the Peace of the Lord be with you.” This Peace of God is wholeness, completeness, health, joy, and peace.
So when we put all these pieces together, I think we come up with a picture something like this. Both Moses and Jesus are calling us into a fellowship, a community, a people that reflects God’s character. We are to be holy as God is holy; we are to be perfect as God is perfect. This impossibility is made possible by the fact that God the Holy Spirit dwells with us, in us, and among us in this community. Together we are the temple of God. This means, in turn, that there is no place in our community for jealousy, gossip, competition, or judgmentalism. We are all in the same boat traveling to the same place. We bear the image of God. We live in God’s wholeness, health, joy and peace.
So if we feel overwhelmed by God’s confidence in us, that we might actually be able to holy and perfect, if we fear that the standard is too high, if we fear we will fail, today’s Collect can settle us down:
OLord, you have taught us that without love whatever we do is worth nothing: Send your Holy Spirit and pour into our hearts your greatest gift, which is love, the true bond of peace and of all virtue, without which whoever lives is accounted dead before you. Grant this for the sake of your only Son Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.Amen.
Pour love into our hearts and then we can be holy as you are holy; we can be perfect as you are perfect.
Amen.