We are going to start this sermon from the tail end of the Gospel. “Be perfect therefore as your heavenly father is perfect.” What kind of teaching is that? Everyone here who is perfect, please raise your hand. OK, we know we’re not perfect, but what is Jesus talking about?
Once again translation is not our friend. The sense of the word translated as “be perfect” is more about becoming what God intended, or to “be the person God created you to be.” God created us in God’s image. Therefore, being who God created us to be means that we are to live so that our behavior reflects the very nature of God to others. In a modern translation of the Bible, Eugene Peterson gets much closer to the original meaning when his version titled “The Message” says “You’re kingdom subjects. [Christians] Now live like it. Live out your God-created identity.”
But many of us spend our lives living behind barriers we erect to prevent us from living out who God created us to be. Let’s name a few of these.
Anger – A newlywed couple looked forward to having children. They were poster kids for healthy living. Good diet, no alcohol, never smoked, no drugs, in good physical shape. They took their first pregnancy very seriously, doing everything the natural childbirth coach said to do. When the blessed event arrived, the child was a beautiful baby girl with Down ’s syndrome and serious cardiac problems. The mother looked at me between her tears and anger saying “Crack-addicted mothers give birth to normal babies. We did everything right. Why did God do this to us?”
Denial – Jim was a radiologist I knew very well. He was the assistant chairman of one of the major academic hospitals in the United States. He lived well, partied hard, and was well liked by many people. Even when he was personally dealing with a rare disease of the optic nerves that eventually led to his total blindness, he persisted in trying to read X-rays and diagnose other people’s diseases. After some spectacular missed diagnoses, the medical director asked him to step down. He knew the course of the disease that was claiming his vision, yet in complete denial he continued to use his eyes far beyond the point at which he should have stepped down. He died angry and bitter about his loss to the very end.
Guilt – Mary was the wife of a golf pro who died in an airplane crash. Her only problem was that they had an argument the day before he left on his private jet for a tournament. She was supposed to go with him. In her guilt over their marital problems and his untimely death, she first became addicted to prescription pain medications and eventually moved to heroin. Her friends deserted her. She has enough money to live independently but she never leaves the house. She has her drugs to ease the pain. She lives a lonely, terrible life.
Like Mary, we can even manage to live well behind our own barriers, but it is a lonely disconnected life. Living behind a barrier that prevents us from dealing with reality and becoming who God created us to be is not life at all. It is hell. Those in pain who have erected barriers to keep the world away see themselves as victims of a tragedy. Often we find those living behind the biggest barriers are the biggest deniers not just of God but of the church.
It is commonly said that there are “no atheists in a foxhole.” When the enemy is firing rounds over your head, even the most hardened atheist may appeal to a higher power in such moments. So it is not unusual to find those living behind their walls agreeing to all kinds of academic concepts of God. It is just when God gets too close in the form of a Christian community that we find the walls going up all over again.
What does the church have to offer people in existential pain?
To name a few: Love, connection, acceptance, forgiveness, community, a mirror, models of sainthood, presence, reflection, encouragement – these are all characteristics of God. When we live into them, that life is “eternal life.” To live as a reflection of God’s love is much more than being a good Boy Scout however.
When a community of believers goes beyond their personal hurts and pains and they reach out to others, the victim thinking melts away. When you peel everything back, there is only one victim, Jesus Christ, who suffered everything for us. Those of us who hide behind barriers need to experience the overwhelming love and sacrifice of Christ. That is the role of the community of faith.
To deny the church is to deny the community of faith and to retreat behind the barricades. But God has a different plan for every one of us. We are called to get beyond the barriers and concerns that hold us back from becoming the whole person that God created us to be. I encourage you to write down on the paper you are being given the thing or things that hold you back from being the person God created you to be. Fold the paper and put it in the collection plate with your offering. Offer those things that hold you back up to God.
The community of faith is called to a life of generous giving. What we do is to give back what we have received already from God. In the early 400s, Augustine, bishop of Hippo, would break the bread at the Eucharist, look out at his congregation, and say, “Receive who you are. Become what you have received.”