Holiness vs. Perfection
Today’s lessons could be summarized in the following two statements:
“You shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy.”
Or better yet: “Be perfect, as your heavenly father is perfect.”
Be perfect. Yikes.
That’s when I stop listening and start daydreaming
about more attainable things –
These statements are easily misunderstood –
so we are going to unpack them a little.
Let’s start with the term “holy”.
What exactly does it mean to be “holy?”
In both Hebrew and Greek “holy” suggests
connection with God or the divine.
My bible dictionary says that “God is holy and
people, things, and actions may be made holy
by association with God.”
If we look back at the reading from Leviticus,
we won’t find a list of things to make us holy, in and of ourselves.
It doesn’t tell us to do those things we tend to associate with personal piety.
It doesn’t tell us to fast or pray, or to make sacrifices for our sins.
It doesn’t tell us to immerse ourselves in the Torah.
Instead it speaks of “holiness” in terms of how we treat others.
It tells us to leave something for the poor and alien,
In effect to set aside a portion of our food
for those who may be hungry.
The scripture tells us that if we want to be holy,
we should not defraud anyone or steal from them.
If we want to be holy, we must not hurt others or
harbor hate toward anyone in our hearts.
Being ‘holy” is unavoidably tied to how we treat others.
Holiness – at least as it is spelled out in this portion of Leviticus –
is an active way of being in the world.
Paul also uses the word “holy” in the letter to the Corinthians,
when he writes: “God’s temple is holy, and you are that temple.”
The idea that our bodies are the temple of the holy spirit
is a popular concept, especially among the ever-growing
demographic of “spiritual but not religious.”
I am not disputing the idea that God dwells within each of us.
But Paul is not speaking to us as individuals.
When he says “YOU are that temple,” he uses the plural form of “you.”
He is speaking to the entire community of Christians.
He is speaking to those gathered as church.
Do you not know that you are God’s temple?
Look around.
The people of Christ Church form God’s temple –
the holy spirit dwells within us as a community.
If we want to encounter God, if we want to know where God lives,
One place we will find him is within Christian community.
It is in our work together that
we will know Christ most powerfully.
What matters here is how we treat each other and
how we treat our neighbors in the world.
Leviticus builds on the law handed down to Moses,
telling the people of Israel how to deal with others justly
and with honesty and integrity.
As Easter people – we sometimes like to point out that
we aren’t held to the law in the same ways as the Jews,
that Christ died to free us from that burden.
And yet, in the Gospel lesson, Jesus seems to raise the bar.
He recognizes that the law handed down by Moses
sets a minimum standard.
He admonishes us to do much more:
“Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.
Be perfect, as your father in heaven is perfect.”
This call to action can be daunting.
But the good news is the Action that really matters is God’s loving,
saving action toward us.
The action of giving us Christ.
Theologian Karl Barth says that God’s action is the only one that matters.
When we try to be good, holy and perfect we miss the mark.
But when we focus our attention on Jesus,
When we say Yes to the love shown to us in Christ,
Then we are set free.
We are set free not, as the US Army says, to “Be all that we can be”.
We are set free to share the love of Christ with others,
to let our whole beings serve as a witness to the world
of God’s limitless love and grace.
The past few weeks, we have watched amazing events
unfold on the world stage.
The people of the southern portion of Sudan have chosen
to secede and form their own, democratic nation.
They have acted with immense courage in a war-torn land
plagued by hate and murder.
They have defied a reign of terror,
insisting on living a life marked by dignity and freedom.
We have watched while the people of Egypt rose up
in a prolonged and, at times, deadly act of protest
that galvanized that country.
This action resulted in the beginning
of a transition to a new era of democratic rule and
the promise of justice for all.
For me, one of the most haunting images from the events in Egypt
was a photograph of thousands of Muslims
kneeling in prayer in the public square.
This image alone was deeply moving.
What touched me even more were the countless numbers
of Christians who linked arms to form a human chain – a circle around
their Muslim brothers and sisters,
so that they could have a measure of safety as they worshipped.
This was a holy moment, a holy act.
And we Christians were not alone in this.
In early February, Mouneer Anis, bishop of the Episcopal Anglican
Diocese of Egypt sent a letter to my home diocese,
Letting us know they were safe and grateful for our prayers.
He wrote:: “In the midst of the turmoil which Egypt is going through,
we have felt that the Lord is very near to us …
I was touched to see young adults, Muslims and Christians,
guarding the streets, homes, and our churches.”
In Matthew, Jesus tells us to “be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”
This word “perfect” rings all sorts of bells and raises red flags in our culture.
It is a word that causes a lot of trouble.
Perfectionism is a deeply entrenched form of idolatry.
It is a wicked form of oppression –
one that we use against each other and most definitely
against ourselves, often relentlessly.
There is no freedom in that.
But Jesus is not speaking of that kind of perfection,
that self-centered obsession with getting it right or making the grade.
This past week, a number of us seminarians wandered
in and out of Professor Adela Collins’s office.
Professor Collins, a deeply faithful Catholic,
is one of the top New Testament scholars in the world.
We wanted to get her take on this troubling text.
She says that the word that we read here as being “perfect”
Is difficult to translate into English.
It means something akin to being “complete,”
or being “whole” or fully “good.”
It is deeply related to love –
Jesus explains how this “perfection” is manifested
when he tells his followers “Love your enemies, and
pray for those who persecute you.”
As I mulled this over, I thought of a summer I spent with my grandmother.
My mother’s mother – for whom I am named – was born in 1901.
She spent most of her life in North Carolina, and
she was always a bit of an enigma.
I am not proud to tell you that she often used the “n” word.
I believe she did so out of sheer habit and reflecting
what was common for that time and place,
not out of conscious, intentional meanness or hate.
In spite of this, she often was able to see beyond “color.”
One of her heroes was Barbara Jordan, the first African American
elected to the House of Representatives from a Southern state.
She presided over some of the Watergate hearings,
and I have a vivid memory of my grandmother,
glued to the TV, cheering Barbara on!
Her other much beloved hero was Shirley Chisholm,
the first African American woman to be elected
to the House of Representatives and the first African American
to make a bid for the democratic presidential nomination.
Yesterday I watched a YouTube video of Shirley from a series entitled:
“How I want to be Remembered.”
She was adamant that she does not want to be remembered
as the first Black woman elected to Congress or
as the first Black to run for president.
She said she wanted to be remembered as a
“black woman who lived in the 20th Century and dared to be herself –
and that, in daring to be herself, she served as a catalyst for change in America.
I think we can agree that she succeeded.
One of the most memorable stories about Chisholm
was of a time during her bid for the Democratic presidential nomination.
Perhaps her most outspoken opponent in that race
was segregationist George Wallace of Alabama.
It is safe to say that he was undeniably her enemy.
When George Wallace was shot,
Shirley Chisholm went to the hospital to visit him.
He was absolutely stunned to see her walk in the door.
The entire nation was stunned.
“What will your people say?” he asked her.
“I know what they’ll say,” she answered.
“But I wouldn’t want what happened to you to happen to anyone.”
As she sat with him, he cried and cried.
This was definitely a holy moment between two holy people.
It was a completion, and two were made whole.
God’s love had poured into her heart, and into his heart, too.
God’s goodness overflowed in that hospital room.
And it flows each time this story is told,
and someone is inspired to make a change.
When we loosen our grip and make room for God’s grace
to move through us, then God’s love can be made manifest in the world.
That is perfection.
We do this together.
Know that you are all God’s temple,
and that God’s Holy Spirit is here.
AMEN
Sunday, Feb. 20, 2011- Christ Church Redding Ridge
Lev 19:1-2,9-18; Ps 119:33-40; 1 Cor 3:10-11, 16-23; Mt 5:38-48
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