Epiphany 7

Epiphany 7 (Matthew 5:38-48)

 “Be perfect as your Father in Heaven is perfect.”

The command for perfection is the call to completion.

The command is very specific.  Jesus presents it as an imperative. He also defines his terms within the command.

Jesus does not say be a perfectionist. Jesus does say be perfect as (in the same way) your Heavenly Father is perfect.

The understanding of what Jesus commands is in the reality of who God is. God is love. God is one God. God is three co-eternal persons. God is infinite and eternal relationship.

God is at the same time complete within Himself as a co-eternal community of Love AND God is the infinite potential of love expressing Himself  forever and ever world without end.

No human being is capable of being perfect in the categories of knowledge or power or accomplishment. Some of us think we can achieve this state of perfection by an act of will. Many of us demand this level of static perfection from each other.

The perfection Jesus commands is the active participation in the limitless potential and endless journey of universal, unconditional, sacrificial love.

Religion formed by the categories of Law or Enlightenment demand  perfection of accomplishment  and result. That approach to life is based in the belief that God is an impersonal state of static unchanged and unchanging perfection.

The unique and amazing insight Moses and the Prophets offer and that Jesus embodies is that the perfection of God is an everlasting outpouring of limitless love. That love is active, dynamic, transforming, creative, spontaneous and filled with wonder and delight.

The perfection of human demand is a solid state of rigid inflexible unchanging and impersonal limits. The definition of this perfection is: only this and nothing more.

The perfection of our Heavenly Father is the superabundance of love finding completion in a set of relationships that are open, honest and overflowing with infinite potential for self-expression and exploration. The voice of this perfection is the voice of Jesus who declares: Behold, I make all things new. Behold, I have come that you might have life and have it more abundantly.

The perfection of our Heavenly Father is expressive and expansive. The perfection of human pride and self-will is repressive and oppressive.

The religious elites of Jesus’ day demanded a repressive perfection. They weren’t the first people to use religion in this way. They are not the last.  All forms of religion and philosophy can be subverted by human pride and re formatted  in the categories of repressive static unyielding impersonal demands.

Only Jesus liberates the human soul from the impersonal demand of perfection to explore and delight in the personal process and journey of never ending completion in Divine love.

Since Divine love is infinite, we can never exhaust the possibilities to experience greater levels of completion. Since that Divine love is eternal, we grow from grace into greater grace, from joy into greater joy, from delight into greater delight.

Jesus himself is the pattern for this experience of divine perfection. As we enter into an active and personal participation in the new Way of living Jesus offers us, we begin to fulfill the imperative to enter into the perfection of God the Father.

God never designed us to achieve a static state of perfection in the categories of knowledge, power or accomplishment. God did design us to enter into an endless process of wonder and delight in the Divine Perfection of the One who loves, the one who is loved and the love that forms their being.

The perfection of our Heavenly Father is personal, open, and transforming. That is the perfection God the Father designed us to experience. That is the perfection God the Son offers us as a gift. That is the perfection God the Holy Spirit manifests in all aspect of our lives now and forever. World without end. Love without limits. Amen