Epiphany 7 (A) + Love maturity perfection + 2.23.14

www.bbc.co.uk (Your Paintings: Lives of the Hermits)

M. Campbell-Langdell

All Santos, Oxnard

(Lev. 19:1–2, 9–18; Ps. 119:33–40; 1 Cor. 3:10–11, 16–23; Mat. 5:38–48)

O Lord, you have taught us that without love whatever we do is worth nothing…

Let me tell you a mystery.

“… Abba Macarius while he was in Egypt discovered a man who owned a beast of burden engaged in plundering Macarius' goods. So he came up to the thief as if he was a stranger and he helped him to load the animal. He saw him off in great peace of soul saying, 'We have brought nothing into this world, and we cannot take anything out of the world.'(1Tim.6:7) 'The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.'(Job 1:21)”[1]

You shall be holy, for I the LORD your God am holy.

For those of you familiar with JRR Tolkien’s Hobbit and Lord of the Rings trilogy, you may have been struck by the many acts of Christian charity subtly portrayed in the stories. One example makes me think of today’s gospel and Jewish scriptures passages. In the books, the creature Gollum started healthy and was twisted by evil, and at times attempts to do harm to both Bilbo and Frodo, the two hobbits that primarily interact with him around the Ring that they are meant to claim, a powerful symbol. As the Center for Christian Ethics at Baylor puts it, “The moral center of the epic is ‘the pity of Bilbo,’ the mercy showed by Frodo’s uncle to Gollum, a wretched creature lost in self-absorption by his indulging use of the Ring.”[2] Bilbo and Frodo refuse to destroy Gollum, no matter how far he has descended into evil, and this shows true Christian forgiveness and love.[3]

Send your Holy Spirit and pour into our hearts your greatest gift, which is love, the true bond of peace and of all virtue…

Frodo loved, Bilbo loved, and therein showed true Christian virtue.

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

What does perfection mean? In our society, it is often interpreted as doing all things technically well. In one place I heard that “only the devil is perfect,” but that depends on what you see as perfect. In many ways, only God is perfect. What does perfection mean to us, who are primarily called to love?

In the Greek here, the word for “perfect” is “teleios,” and it means: “complete, perfect, whole, full-grown, mature.” So we are not called to technical precision as much as a wholeness of being, a maturity of life and love.

On this passage, theologian Robert H. Smith says: “The perfection is the condition of being fully mature, all grown up, of having reached the end and goal (“telos”) of human life under God. It means being children of God, sharing in the divine nature that is marked by stunning and indiscriminate acts of generosity to all. God, who is “teleios”, sends sun and rain upon the evil and the good, the righteous and the unrighteous (5:45). So, if you say you are children of God, offspring of the Most High, made of the same stuff as God, then love not only those who will reciprocate, but “love your enemies” (5:44).[4]

…love, the true bond of peace and of all virtue, without which whoever lives is accounted dead before you.

Because we are dead inside when we neglect to love, or we love only those who can serve us back. We are as dead inside as Gollum when our self-absorption causes us to use others and twists our desires just like the ring warps those who allow it to. Even an obsession for technical perfection can keep us from the wholeness that is asked of us in this passage.

But we are alive inside when we act in love. When we are generous, leaving the edges of fields for the odd occasional Ruth who may need to come along and eat that day by gleaning the edges of our fields. Leaving the margin of our paycheck to give a little extra to the poor. Leaving the margin of our time and energy to be able to share and listen with another who needs support.

In 1 Corinthians, we have been hearing about spiritual maturity. Last week, we heard that those who are mature are ready for the meat of faith and not just the milk, the weaker kind of faith life that nurtures us only to a point. We are ready to be fed on heartier stuff so that we can nurture others when we grow more mature, more holy, more perfect in faith. Today we are reminded that we belong to Christ. We are Christ’s own, marked and sealed forever in our baptism. We do not have to find perfection as this world would name it, but Christ offers it within. Christ offers it when we go the extra mile for another person, when we give of ourselves, when we engage with non-violence.  When Christ shows us a way to love even the person who annoys us or seems to distract us from the good. We are not of this world.
God, make us able to share your love, shedding all that would make us incomplete, lacking in the perfection only you can share. Help us to grow in you day by day into the fullness and maturity of your grace. Grant this for the sake of your only Son Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

---

[1] Benedicta Ward, “The Paradise of the Desert Fathers,” found at Epiphany 7 (A), Edge of the Enclosure Reflection by Suzanne Guthrie, found at: www.edgeoftheenclosure.org

[2] “Frodo’s Forgiveness,” Center for Christian Ethics at Baylor, found at: http://www.baylor.edu/christianethics/Inklingsstudyguide4.pdf (Accessed 21 February 2014).

[3] Ibid.

[4] Robert H. Smith, “The End in Matthew (5:48 and 28:20): How to Preach It and How Not To” in Word & World  (Vol XIX, No. 3, Summer 1999), 307.