O Perfect Me

"Be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect." Jesus serves up a tall order in the Sermon on the Mount. I have preached this verse in clever and insightful ways. I have told my congregation that I knew what it really meant. I had read this in the original Greek. I went to seminary. I am the resident expert. That is why you hired me. Don't trust the words. And pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.

The Greek word is teleios. It means complete, mature, the end result. I compared it to ripe fruit. We are not told to be perfect; we are obviously not supposed to be perfectionists. How perfectly ridiculous! That is a formula for failure, not to mention low self-esteem. We are to be mature. It sounded good. More importantly, it got us off the hook.

But in the back of my mind I always knew that perfect meant perfect, no matter how perfectly I tweaked the Greek. Our heavenly Father is not a ripe banana. He is perfect. We are not told to be sweet and tasty. We are told to be perfect as he is perfect.

After all, he just finished telling us to resist not evil, turn the other cheek, go the second mile, and love our enemies. These are tall orders that sound impossible and impractical. But Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King said they tried it, and it worked. But look how they died.

Besides, I know the Greek. I am an expert in explaining difficult passages. Christ may have turned water into wine, but I can turn the extraordinary into the ordinary! Don't worry, brothers and sisters. I will figure it out so we can safely go back to our ordinary lives.

That is the problem with most preaching I have done and I have heard. We preachers think we can figure out what it means, as long as we have the right commentaries and sufficient time to study. That is why we miss its meaning. We play with words and do not see beyond the words.

Like the time that Jesus said, "You are gods!" (John 10:34) Wow, that's a tough one. It could open the door for all kinds of heresies. We better shut up that verse tight.  It took me a long time and much study of the Greek, but I explained that away too. In this case I had to go back to the Hebrew also, because Jesus is quoting Psalm 82 in the Old Testament. So I had to work doubly hard, but I finally found a loophole. It doesn't mean what it says! In fact it means the opposite! Whew! That was close.

I have an eight hundred page hardcover in my personal library entitled "Hard Sayings of the Bible" to help me find loopholes in any other "hard sayings" that I might run across in the future. I am safe. I do not need to be perfect as my heavenly Father is perfect. I no longer have to be godly. Now I can relax ... imperfectly.

Artwork is Imperfection by Rob Douglas, 2008 Painting acrylic and pigment

Taking Jesus Literally

Those who take the Bible "literally" are not well thought of among the American intelligentsia. The looks of disgust I have seen on intellectuals' faces when speaking of "fundamentalists" rival Dick Chaney's sneer when speaking of Democrats. Creationists are pictured as little more than unevolved apes. Those who believe in the virgin birth and physical resurrection of Jesus are viewed as pre-Copernican ignoramuses who must also believe the earth is flat. Those who adhere to a literal reading of the moral statutes of Scripture are labeled as homophobes and bigots.

Yet Jesus appears to be a literalist. Listen to him in the Sermon on the Mount:

 "Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished. Anyone who breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven."

This is a dimension of Jesus we don't like to hear and do not understand. Mainstream Christian preachers go through gymnastic gyrations worthy of Olympic athletes to explain away passages like this. I know, because I have done it! We take the biblical Jesus, cleverly transform him into our own image, dress him in 21st century values and call ourselves followers of Christ. In truth we have just created another idol to worship.

A.J. Jacobs is a Jewish agnostic who tried to take the Bible literally. He attempted to follow all the laws and rules of the Bible - including the Old Testament dietary, clothing, and hair laws - for one year. He recounts his humorous journey through religious literalism in his book, The Year of Living Biblically: One Man's Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible.

During his yearlong experiment he is instructed in the Torah by observant Jews. But he also meets such biblical literalists as snake handlers in Appalachia, Amish in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, biblical creationists in Kentucky, and Samaritans in Israel. He even visits the liberals' dreaded nemesis, the Reverend Jerry Falwell.

At the end of his year of living literally, he is not converted to the biblical lifestyle nor the biblical God, but he does develop an appreciation for the faith and lifestyles of the literalists. In other words, he learned not judge people until you have walked a year in their sandals. He did. That is one Biblical rule the anti-literalists might consider taking literally: Judge not, lest ye be judged.

The photo progression shows Author A.J. Jacobs as he spent a year trying to live the Bible literally - and not shaving - for his book, The Year of Living Biblically.

Be Who You Is

God appeared to Moses in a burning bush on Mount Sinai, and he said, "I am who I am." God appeared in a man as Jesus on the Mount of the Beatitudes, and he said, "You are who you are."

"You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled by men. "You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven."

He didn't say, "Thou shalt be .... salt and light." No commandments here. He simply said, "You are the salt .... You are the light." He reminds us who we are....  as if we had forgotten. He reminds us to live from our essential nature.

Brennan Manning, author of Abba's Child, quotes an old African-American preacher of an earlier time. "Be who you is and not who you ain't, 'cause if ain't who you is, you is who you ain't."

These days this advice could easily degenerate into the narcissistic pampering of an already self-indulged ego. But Jesus - and the black preacher - were speaking of a deeper you. We are to be who we truly are.

According to Genesis we are created in the image of God. We are the divine image sculpted into human flesh. It is a concept that has always fascinated me.

An image is a representation, a picture, a reflection. We reflect God like a mirror reflects an object, like the moon reflects the light of the sun. We are to be a mirror reflecting God to others and reflecting God back to himself.

That is who we are. If we aren't, then we ain't who we is.

Artwork is "Hand with reflecting Sphere" by M.C. Escher.

What Would Jesus Sing?

Goshen College, a Mennonite school in Goshen, Indiana, has recently reversed a 116 year-old policy and will now play the national anthem before sporting events. Goshen College president Jim Brenneman said, "Playing the national anthem has not been among Goshen College's practices primarily because of our Christ-centered core value of compassionate peacemaking seeming to be in conflict with the anthem's militaristic language."

But now things are different. "We believe this is the right decision for the college at this time. Playing the anthem offers a welcoming gesture to many visiting our athletic events, rather than an immediate barrier to further opportunities for getting to know one another.... We believe being faithful followers of Jesus calls us to regularly consider how to be a hospitable and diverse community." (See article on college website.)

It is significant that a pacifist institution would now celebrate "the rockets' red glare, the bomb bursting in air" in the name of cultural diversity. It leads me to wonder.... what would Jesus sing? Would he proudly hail the broad stripes and bright stars gallantly streaming o'er the ramparts through the perilous fight?

After hearing so many national anthems played at the recent Winter Olympics, it makes me wonder if Mennonites in China would now sing the Chinese Communist national anthem or Mennonites in Iran sing the Iranian national anthem. Or is it just the American anthem that is now compatible with Anabaptist convictions?

Personally I have no problem with the American national anthem. I sing it proudly and pledge my allegiance to the flag and all that patriotic stuff. But then again, I am not a pacifist. I believe there is a need to fight just wars in a fallen world.

But I greatly value the testimony of the Anabaptist tradition that challenges me to question the limits of my patriotism. I admire their faithful adherence to a gospel of nonviolence. I would hate to see their prophetic voice compromised in the name of cultural inclusiveness.

So I will stand with the crowd, remove my cap, and sing of "the land of the free and the home of the brave." But I am saddened that there is no longer a Christian college that challenges my patriotism and makes me wonder if Jesus would sing along with me. "Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God."

Ocean of Mercy

It was the early 1970’s, and I had dropped out of college. I was “getting my life together,” as my mother told her friends. Actually I was in the final stages of a spiritual crisis that needed to be resolved before I could continue my education and pursue a career. To pay the bills during this spiritual search, I worked as a salesclerk in my grandfather’s hardware store in Salem, Massachusetts.

Every day during my lunch break I would go to one of two places. Sometimes I would walk to Salem’s old First Church, founded in 1629 by the Puritans, and sit quietly in the sanctuary. (This historic Unitarian congregation was the only church in town that kept its doors open during the day for people like me to come and pray.  Consequently this trinitarian Baptist still has a soft spot in his heart for Unitarians.)

If I wasn’t communing with universalists, I would drive my Ord down to the Salem Willows and sit by the ocean. (The F had fallen off my ’67 Fairlane, so I called it Ord.) Winter or summer I would sit by the sea and let the swells of the ocean soothe my soul. I learned to pray to the rhythm of the waves. I read through the New Testament for the first time while snacking on saltwater taffy.

The ocean became a spiritual companion to me. She was my mentor and teacher. She spoke to me the way the river spoke to Siddartha in Hermann Hesse’s novel. Later it was in a little Baptist church at the ocean’s edge that I placed my life in Christ’s hands. I was baptized in the ocean at a public beach while sunbathers gawked at a hippie going for a dip with his clothes on.

Though I now reside in western Pennsylvania, I still return to the ocean annually to enjoy the salt breeze, pay my respects, and listen. One thing the ocean has taught me is mercy. There is an old hymn written by an English preacher named Frederick Faber in the nineteenth century. He must have spent time at the ocean, because he also heard the song the ocean sings. “There's a wideness in God's mercy like the wideness of the sea.”

When I think of mercy it comes with the scent of seaweed and the sound of squawking gulls. I picture mercy like the wide expanse of the ocean. For me mercy is spaciousness. I know that is not the derivation of the Greek word used by the Gospel writers. Biblical scholars can set the etymological record straight. But for me mercy will always mean openness.

God opened up my clenched soul and dropped his mercy into it. The key to keeping God’s mercy alive is to keep our souls open, offering that gift of mercy to those who have closed their hearts against us. For when we try to keep mercy for ourselves, it flows through our fingers like water. “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.”

Artwork is “The One Who Showed Mercy” by Christopher Koelle. Stone.