Pastor's Blog: The Unattainable Ideal
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I have always been uncomfortable with Jesus’ teaching in the Sermon on the Mount where He speaks with His disciples about their need to strive for perfection. You remember the verse: “Be perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect” (Matthew 5:48). The whole notion that any of us could strive to be equal to God in any respect boggles my mind. How could Jesus expect sinful folk to rise to this level of performance? It always seemed like in some way Jesus was setting us disciples up for failure, and massively so.
When I got to seminary and began to learn Greek, I read the passage as encouraging something more akin to wholeness or completeness than moral perfection. Yet it still caused me to wonder how I was to arrive at such a place in life because of the inevitable fragmentation that had come my way due to my tendency to be pulled in so many directions, not all of them healthy ones, much less holy ones.
Instead of pushing these thoughts to the back burner of my soul, I’ve managed to stay with them over the years. Though they’ve haunted me because of my type-A personality and my high achievement frame of mind, I’ve stayed with the tension, and have quite frankly found it to be an important part of my spiritual journey. As we see throughout Scripture, God often does remarkable things with people who are in tune with their brokenness but aren’t ready in any way to remain in that state.
So, how do we imperfect souls arrive at anything near perfection, completeness, wholeness, or any other way we might interpret Jesus’ teaching? The answer I’ve come to is that we allow God to reign supreme in us so that our lives become nothing more than expressions of what divine grace can do.
The truth is, so much of the Sermon on the Mount strikes that same note. Is there any part of this most famous of Jesus’ teachings that comes naturally or easily? I think not. Whether it’s striving for the blessing of the Beatitudes or working to live into the challenge of showing our righteousness to be in excess of the scribes and the Pharisees, or loving our enemies, or turning the other cheek, none of it seems to be second nature. All of it seems instead to be the result of God’s nature being at work in us.
And so I’ve learned that instead of giving up the unattainable ideal of perfection, I’d be better served by giving in to the One “whose work is perfect, and whose every way is just” (Deuteronomy 32:4). What I’ve discovered is that when I do so, I find myself capable of being more and doing more than I ever thought possible; and I think you would as well.
Think for a moment about how much more we might accomplish together if we joined hands and hearts in trusting in Jesus’ grace so that His power “might be made perfect in our weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9). We’d have no reason to fear, for His perfect love in us would have cast out all fear (1 John 4:18). We’d have no excuse for giving up, for “His steadfastness would have its full effect, making us perfect and complete, lacking in nothing” (James 1:2-4). We’d have no cause for selling ourselves short, for “the God who equips us with strength makes our way blameless” (Psalm 18:32). Far from setting us up for failure, Jesus with this teaching is actually setting us up for something that only His followers will ever be able to know.
Yes, perfection, however you define it, is a tall order. Just remember we serve a Mighty God, for whom and with whom all things are indeed possible, even something as heavenly as this.
“Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me” (Phil. 3:12).