EPIPHANY 7A – Leviticus 19:1-2, 9-18; Psalm 119:33-40; 1 Cor. 3:10-11, 16-23; Matthew 5:38-48 – 20 February 2011 – A sermon given by The Rev. Peter A. Munson for St. Ambrose Episcopal Church, Boulder, Colorado
Holiness and Perfection – Imitating God
INTRODUCTION – I can’t possibly…
When you hear “You shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy” (Leviticus 19:2), what is your reaction? What’s your reaction to Jesus’ words, “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” (Matthew 5:44)? Or how about his words that follow soon after those? “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” (Matthew 5:48)
Is there a sort of “Who – me?” reaction? Holy? Me? Love and pray for my enemies? Really? Me? Be perfect? Come on now! Nobody can be perfect! We even teach that only Jesus was perfect. Are these just verses in the Bible that we should read very quickly and pretend like they don’t apply to us? When they were being read a few minutes ago, what did you notice in your body? Did you give a big sigh, and then start drifting away?
HOLINESS AND PERFECTION – A context to these passages
Like any verses in the Bible, there is a context. What is the context to each of these passages?
In Leviticus, the Lord God is speaking to Moses, and Moses hears that the call to holiness arises from the command to imitate God – who is holy. But holiness here isn’t so much about holding certain objects in deepest reverence, or acting like you are better than others because you have God in your life. No. It has to do with how one treats others. It’s about how we love really, and how that love is concretely expressed in deeds. If we are to imitate God, then we must try to love as God loves.
And so the people of Israel were not to reap to the very edges of their land. They weren’t supposed to bring in every last bit of produce for themselves. They were to leave some for the poor, which included the women and the orphans, and the alien. These gleaners would show up in the fields right after they had been harvested, and they were not to be stopped. Why? Because the Lord was concerned about these folks, too. Therefore, as the people of God, they should be, too. In the same way, they weren’t to strip their vineyards bare, or pick up the grapes that had fallen to the ground. And they were to pay their laborers at the end of the day, and not defraud or steal from their neighbors. They were to treat the deaf and the blind with care and respect. They were not to defer to the poor or to the great, and not slander anyone, and not hate any of their kin, or take vengeance or bear a grudge against any of their people.
The end of verse 18 sums it all up: “… you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord.” The examples given make it clear that their neighbors include the poor, the deaf, the blind, and even the resident alien.
Holiness here is all about loving as God loves, and God’s love, you might say, is an “all-inclusive” kind of love. As the people of God, they were to emulate God and extend their love to one and all.
And the context of Jesus talking about “being perfect” also has to do with love. What Jesus does in this section of the Sermon on the Mount is quote this same passage from Leviticus –“love your neighbor” – and take it further. “But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you…” Why? Again, the answer has everything to do with emulating God – “… so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the righteous.” (Matthew 5:45) God does not discriminate, when it comes to love.
The Bible makes it clear that God is not happy when his people are disobedient and sinful. And yet, the Bible also makes it clear that when we are disobedient, God never stops loving us. Douglas Hare writes, “Praying for enemies involves a serious attempt to see them from God’s point of view. We cannot earnestly pray for enemies without acknowledging our common humanity; they too have been created in the image of God, and no behavior, no matter how nefarious, can erase that image. Honest prayer thus compels us to make the distinction every parent must make continually between the child and his or her behavior: “I love you, but I don’t like what you are doing.” (Matthew, Douglas R. A. Hare, p. 59)
For Jesus, the context of being perfect again has to do with being all-inclusive in our acts of love: not resisting an evildoer, but turning the other cheek when struck; walking the extra mile when someone compels you to carry his load for a mile; giving to everyone who begs from you and to anyone who wants to borrow from you; and yes, loving your enemies, who might be personal or national.
COMPLICATION – That’s not normal
You and I might be heard to protest: “But we can’t do that! That’s not normal! It’s not normal to turn the other cheek when struck. It’s not normal to give to everyone who begs from you. It’s not normal to not try to get every last bit of produce from the land, to not try to make every single dollar that you can when you have a limited career as a professional athlete. It’s not normal to love and pray for your enemies!”
Exactly. That’s exactly right. God’s love is not normal. We might even say that God loves foolishly. Jesus forgave those who killed him why he hung from the cross. This is not normal. And yet, this is our example of holiness; this is our example of perfection. And though we will never be fully holy, and never be perfect, we are called to imitate and approximate the One who is, in the way that we love. Because we are his people.
It’s not the normal kind of reaction. It’s not “normal love”, for that matter. Jesus knows this. He knows what “normal” kind of love looks like. “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 or sisters, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same?” (Matthew 5:46-47) He’s saying, “That’s ‘normal love’ – the way that the tax collectors and the Gentiles love. Love those who love you. Love those who do something for you. Go beyond normal. Love as your heavenly Father loves.”
Jesus is saying (and teaching) something very different, very abnormal. Love as God loves. Love as I love you. Love indiscriminately. Love sacrificially. Love in an all-inclusive way. To put it another way (which Jesus did), your righteousness must exceed that of the scribes and Pharisees (Matt. 5:20) Love in a way that the world sees as totally abnormal… as total foolishness.
It’s the kind of foolish love that leads the Messiah, the Son of God, to be crucified. But as Paul put it so well, “God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom…” (1 Corinthians 1:25)
CONCLUSION
There was that advertising campaign that came out a number of years ago involving Michael Jordan, and the punch line was “Be like Mike.” I think it had to do with drinking Gatorade. You might not be able to hoop like Michael Jordan, but you can be like him: you can drink Gatorade.
Being holy, being perfect… is not about trying to do everything in your life perfectly. We will fall short of that standard. It’s also not about trying to put on some image or persona of some goody-two-shoes. It’s about striving to be like God – or be like Jesus – in the way that God and Jesus love. It’s in the very nature of God to love unconditionally… indiscriminately… in an all-inclusive manner.
The expression “God is holy” has less to do with God being up in some unapproachable cloud on top of the mountain, and a lot more to do with the way God loves all created things. This love of God is totally abnormal.
Be holy. Be perfect. Strive to love others – everyone – as God loves the world. Strive to love others as God loves you. Strive to lovers others in a totally abnormal, ridiculous, foolish kind of way. We can begin by responding to the needs of the poor and the resident alien. And – oh yeah – don’t forget to love your enemies and to pray for those who persecute you. Why? Because that is what Jesus did. This is what God does.
Drink whatever drink that you want to drink. But be like Jesus. You are followers of Jesus. So be like Jesus.