'Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.'

At the start of this term, I gave a Bible exposition on a section of the Sermon on the Mount. Matthew 5:17-48, to be exact. The 'be perfect' line is just the conclusion.

The rest? Well, it is a lot! To really plumb the depths of all that Jesus is saying in this text that covers matters of anger, hatred, murder, lust, retributive justice, not to mention Jesus' relationship to the Torah and the Prophets? Well, I'd need more than 30 minutes to speak and a bit more time to prepare.

And honestly, the 'be perfect' line can be troubling enough. If we take Jesus' words seriously here, it suggests a 'do more' attitude, a spiritual workaholism. As though if we just tried a little bit harder, we'd somehow be able to do the rest of what Jesus talks about in his Sermon on the Mount.

But what about the wisdom in things like: Don't just do something, sit there. Retreat to advance.

Where does that fit within the command to 'be perfect'?

You might even sigh and feel a bit burdened by another thing on your to-do list. Another thing alongside looking after the kids, work, life maintenance, doctors' appointments, church commitments, the PTA and so on.

By saying 'be perfect', is Jesus saying 'do more'? 'Get a higher grade'? Maximise your output?

Well, I don't think so. I think the conclusion to this sermon is not about doing more.

There are some good reasons to believe it's a bit more life-giving, expansive, and hopeful than that:

1: 'Be perfect' isn't an external thing alone. That's hypocrisy.

Jesus was not just moving the goal posts for morality in his sermon on the mount. You heard that it was not murder? Well now, don't even hate. No! He was exposing a lie, namely the lie that says hypocrisy is okay. Acting well on the outside is all that's needed, even if we have a corrupt inside.

Notice the focus on judgement throughout chapter 5. Murder results in punishment, but so does hate and insulting others. Adultery results in punishment, but so does lust. If we judge and condemn one but not the other we are hypocrites! And yet that is what we so often do.

Jesus' command to love and pray for our enemies, to bless them, to go the extra mile... all this exposes just how much our hearts are often out of sync with our lives. If we only love those who love us back, care for our own friends, our own families, our own people, that is not uniquely Christian, Jesus says. That just means we're human (5:46-47).

External perfection to the people we like isn't what Jesus is getting at.

2: 'Be perfect' doesn't equate to perfectionism. Quite the opposite.

It also doesn't mean perfectionism. Striving. Constantly working to be better and self-punishing ourselves in the process or losing a sense of who we are. The word here can also be translated 'complete' or 'whole' or 'mature.' In fact, elsewhere in the New Testament, that's precisely how it's translated. Consider Paul in these texts:

Epaphras, who is one of you, a servant of Christ Jesus, greets you. He is always wrestling in his prayers on your behalf, so that you may stand mature and fully assured in everything that God wills. (Colossians 4:12)

Let those of us then who are mature be of the same mind; and if you think differently about anything, this too God will reveal to you. (Philippians 3:15)

The real irony here is that as such, Jesus’ command to ‘be perfect’ means more or less the plain opposite of perfectionism.

At its root, perfectionism comes from an attempt to escape our sense of inadequacy and existential shame about who we are [John Bradshaw's Healing the Shame that Binds You has a lot on just this topic]. It is focused on being a version of ourselves that we believe we need to be to be accepted by those around us.

In other words, perfectionism is a mask, an escape from our real selves. 

Being perfect, in Jesus' words, is about taking off our masks, coming to God, and, by the grace and power of the gospel, integrating the good and bad, the dark and the light, and becoming whole, renewed children of God.

Be mature, as your heavenly Father is mature.

Be complete, as your heavenly Father is complete.

Have integrity and wholeness, just as your heavenly Father has integrity and wholeness.

Let your insides match your outsides.

3: 'Be perfect' embraces the enemy within. And without.

But of course, it's difficult. That's perhaps why it's easier to imagine 'be perfect' is a green light for something external and that looks good to our neighbours.

Taking off masks means looking within. It means coming out of hiding. It means being honest about our anger, our judgementalism, our lust. (5:21-32)

Taking off masks means being honest about where we've made promises we cannot keep and deceived others as to our abilities. (5:33-37)

Taking off masks means getting off our high horses. Accepting apologies. Offering forgiveness. Not taking revenge. When someone wrongs us, we are handed a mirror. A mirror to our own behaviour. Yes, they've wronged us in some way. Maybe they lied about us, deceived us, cheated us or whatever else, but don't we also do similar things to others? I'm not saying we've got no right to be angry or upset, but do we have the right to stay angry and upset when we're also guilty of such things? The Sermon on the Mount says no.

Jesus says we are to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us. It's my belief that we can only do that when we love the enemy within--the dark and offensive parts of our own souls. And vice versa too. We can only love the enemy within when we're willing to love our enemy too.

So let's 'be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect'. Let's focus on our side of the street. It's right there in the Lord's Prayer:

Forgive us our trespasses,

as we forgive those who trespasses against us.

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Photo by Vadym Alyekseyenko on Unsplash