Seventh Sunday after Epiphany
Feb. 20, 2011 reading:
Leviticus 19: 1-2,9-18
Matthew 5: 38-48
The opening words of the Old Testament reading and the closing words of the gospel may tempt us to tackle the epistle this Sunday. God says, “Be holy, for I am holy.” Jesus says, “Be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” Holy! Perfect! No way! It’s hard enough just to get up and come to church on a Canadian February Sunday morning. If the sun’s shining, it’s ski weather. If it’s dark, we want to stay in bed and dream of resorts in Cuba, where warm breezes and cool drinks dispel all worries about holiness or perfection.
“Holy.” It conjures up images of hawk-eyed Pharisees. Levitical nit-pickers. Grim-faced, white-whiskered, tweed-suited, fence-building elders o’ the kirk. Boring, silent Sundays. Missed opportunities for fun. We’re quick to see the fine line between holiness and mania. Or holiness and hypocrisy.
“Holy” is about plaster saints on high shelves and martyred missionaries in church history books. Or is it?
“Perfect.” Another word that drives people to mania. Addiction. Living death. The child who cries over a mark of 98 on a test because it’s not 100. The adult who lives alone because the perfect mate just can’t be found.
“Perfect” is about striving for an ideal life that proves, again and again, that it can never be reached. Making peace with chronic disappointment. Or is it?
Holy means “set apart for a peculiar purpose.” We know that. Perfect means “just right, suited to a particular purpose.” Do we know that? Both mean, in the context of today’s readings, that God has something important in mind for us. It’s as simple, and as necessary, as that.
We may choose to read two of the verses the lectionary skips. Leviticus 19:3 and 4 repeat two important commandments. The following verses may not be so important. The reading picks up at verse 9, with some very important stuff that makes clear what holiness means. Being holy means being just, compassionate, respectful and consistent in all dealings with others. Being holy means saying what you mean and meaning what you say. Making peace in our families and watching out for our neighbours.
Here’s where Jesus got part two of his greatest commandment. Holiness means loving our neighbours as if we couldn’t be who we are without them. Even in Leviticus we find a simple call to be like God by mirroring God’s lovingkindness to others. Simple, not easy. But not impossible.
What about this perfection Jesus commands? It’s not about keeping our hands clean and our noses high. It’s about getting close to people who frighten us, fight us, even hate us and want to hurt us. It’s not about looking out for number one. It’s about risking, and giving, all. Not easy. But not impossible.
Holy. Perfect. They’re both about living in ways that set us apart from most accepted norms of behaviour. Ways that suggest our purposes aren’t those of the violent, consumption-driven world. Holiness is always dangerous, whether it’s revealed in the tabernacle or lived in the marketplace. Perfection is risky. It calls for resistance to influences that are powerful to shape us to purposes other than God’s.
What, then, is God’s purpose for us? Reading Leviticus (or parts of it) and the Sermon on the Mount (all of it!) suggests God intends us to be a distinctive, redemptive presence in the world. Through us, God intends to make God’s presence known through acts of justice and mercy.
“We become what we worship.” A simple text as old as the church, reclaimed as the title of a new book about idolatry. Another word from the early church: “He became like us, that we might become like Him.” The Incarnation is our model. It reveals how God chooses to work in this world. God’s holiness doesn’t mean distance from us and our world. God’s perfection embraces human imperfection.
