May God’s words alone be spoken, may God’s words alone be heard. Amen.
Last week I said that our Lord and Savior would be an Olympic skier. I have since reconsidered that remark. I think he would be an Olympic skier alright – but the freestyle kind – the ones that ski down railings before flying up into the air to do unbelievable twists, turns and flips, all while barreling down a steep ski slope of ice and snow at top speeds. Did you see the women doing this – awesome – and crazy – one olympian, Sarah Burke, died in a training run getting ready to do this at the Olympics! So yup, that’s exactly what I think Jesus would be…because that takes courage, a willingness to risk, and a whole lot of crazy – the good kind of crazy – the kind of crazy that changes the world, the kind crazy that says I believe in myself. And that leads me to this week.
St. Paul is telling us that God is within us. He writes “According to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled master builder I laid a foundation, and someone else is building on it. Each builder must choose with care how to build on it. For no one can lay any foundation other than the one that has been laid; that foundation is Jesus Christ. Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you?…For all things are yours, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future– all belong to you, and you belong to Christ, and Christ belongs to God.”
Wow. Now that is a whole lot of crazy. Really.
Paul is telling us that we are God’s children – that God is within each of us. We need not look elsewhere for God, but within, and on that foundation all else can rest. God is within us – we are wholly good and built upon a solid foundation that strengthens us.
Paul is right. The sad thing is though, we too often forget who we are. We begin to believe that God is external to us (if we believe God exists at all – and many do not). But in so many ways worse than that, we start to think we are not good enough for God’s love, or any love. And I think that is where we really skid off the snowy slopes and hit a few trees.
While I was watching the winter Olympics – and if you haven’t figured this out by now, I am a winter Olympic junkie – anyway, while watching the games, there has been a persistent and very annoying commercial – one that I found so offensive, I wrote an email to the company in protest. It is from Cadillac (or GMC) and it begins with a guy standing outside in his backyard overlooking a pool, and he says “Why do we work so hard? For what? For this? For stuff? Other countries, they work, they stroll home, they stop by the cafe, they take August off. Why aren’t you like that? Why aren’t we like that? Because we’re crazy, driven, hard-working believers, that’s why. Those other countries think we’re nuts. Whatever. …It’s pretty simple. You work hard, you create your own luck, and you gotta believe anything is possible. As for all the stuff, that’s the upside of only taking two weeks off in August.”
Now THAT, my friends is a whole other kind of crazy. It isn’t Jesus crazy. In fact, it is antithetical to everything we are hearing from scripture today. So, taking a lead from the commercial. Why aren’t we like that? Why aren’t Christians (or why shouldn’t Christians) be like this guy in the commercial – because our foundation isn’t built of our own hard work. Our foundation exists before we are even born, and no matter what we do, it will always be there for us – we just have to feel it under our feet, in our hearts, and in our souls. We just have to believe in ourselves.
Now that sounds awesome! And then we get to the gospel. Jesus is telling everyone the way we need to live – to forgive and to love – not only those we like, but everyone – even our enemies. Okay, now that is a bit hard to consider. I mean I know that Jesus always tells us to love our neighbors, but even our enemies?
“Mahatma Ghandi once said, “The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.” I wish I could live up that, because I have to admit that often I am more in tune with playwright Oscar Wilde, who said, “Always forgive your enemies…nothing annoys them so much.”” 1
But if we thought THAT was hard, Jesus then says…”be perfect as God is perfect.” Now THAT’s crazy. I mean, isn’t this drive to perfection what makes people do insane things like take only two weeks off so they can park their luxury car by their backyard pool? Isn’t that what leads to what Billy Joel wrote about in his song “Movin’ Out,” where he says, “Sergeant O’Leary is walkin’ the beat. At night he becomes a bartender. He works at Mister Cacciatore’s down on Sullivan Street – across from the medical center. He’s tradin’ in his Chevy for a Cadillac (ac ac ac), you oughta know by now. And if he can’t drive with a broken back, at least he can polish the fenders.”
Isn’t it also the drive to perfection that leads us to not forgive ourselves? To beat ourselves up over every mistake (perceived or real). Isn’t this idealized way of being what led many to feel unworthy of God’s love, or any love, in the first place? Is that where you are leading us Jesus?
And while we are talking about perfection – God and Jesus perfect together like New Jersey and you? Hmmm….”I’d like to say okay Jesus, but the problem is I have been to seminary and made a study of this bible sort of my life. There seems to be quite a bit of do as I say, but not as I do going on in there. Genesis stories are some of my favorite of all the bible stories. It is the very beginning of God in relationship with humankind and there is no amount of a God short on forgiveness and long on performing acts of revenge and punishment. Not exactly an image of perfection. Consider Adam and Eve evicted out of Eden for eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge that God put there in the first place. And how about Noah and his family? The story of the flood is full of sin, revenge and forgiveness withheld when God in a most unforgiving act as God kills everyone. God is angry and hurt by human behavior and drowns the entire planet – the animals too [I mean what did they ever do to deserve such treatment] – in order to start again. But wait, then God becomes perfect again in God’s relationship with us by absolving God’s self and offering Noah an “Oops My Bad.” 2
And what about Jesus. Pretty perfect though, right? But what about his treatment of the Syrophoenician woman (or Canaanite woman – depending on which Gospel you are reading) who he brushes off after she begs for his grace, only to realize that he was being totally bigoted. So, not so perfect after all. I have to say too that it endears me more to him as my savior because of it, but that’s another sermon for another time.
So, be perfect as God is perfect…but maybe the problem is that we are putting a 21st century English language lens on a 1st century Greek word. You see the word Jesus is said to have used was τέλειοι, which means fully complete, whole, mature. To the ancient Greeks, it meant to be good and in harmony with all things. Christianity picked this up, but split over the idea of perfection as being like Christ through our own actions, or if it is essentially given by the grace of God – and also whether it was achievable at all while on earth or only an afterlife sort of thing. Leave it to the church to make a fuss over something that at the start was fairly simple. But in the 19th century enlightenment, a shift from the measure of perfection being connected with a trascendental thing tied up with grace and harmony to an idea of perfection as a secular ideal achievable (wiki) in much the same way we hear about in the Cadillac commercial became prevalent.
So maybe Jesus wasn’t telling us to live up to an impossible ideal. Maybe Jesus wasn’t saying we had to live without any sin against ourselves, our neighbors, or God. What if it was all about being whole – being complete in ourselves – standing firm on the foundation God gave us from birth – a foundation of unconditional love (which not for nuthin’ came after the great flood).
Jesus isn’t telling us to be perfect achievers – A+ students, corporate ladder climbers, gold medal winning athletes – Jesus is telling us to just be who we are, believe in ourselves, be whole and complete – not to rely on others for our sense of wholeness. Jesus would hate to hear these Olympic announcers who say “she had to settle for the silver medal” Really? Settle for an Olympic medal – one of only three in each sport in the whole world? That kind of settling I would gladly take (and so would our freestyle skiing Savior too). Which brings me to something that I absolutely have to address – Hallmark. Well, Hallmark and Hollywood.
A few years ago, in the movie “Jerry McGuire” (not a bad movie really), there’s a scene where Jerry yells out to his girlfriend “You complete me!” Apparently, Hallmark thought that was a brilliant sentiment. Just look at romantic cards in the Hallmark store – that message is on a good 75% of them. But it is all wrong.
No person can complete another person, because as Paul makes clear we are complete from the moment we are made, and Jesus calls us to live into that wholeness.
And here’s the thing about what happens when we realize who we are, and live in that harmony with each other and the world…forgiveness becomes easier, loving ones enemies becomes easier. Heck, even enemies become fewer. Why? Because so much of the pain of this world comes from envy of others, anger at ourselves for our mistakes, hurt by those who, in their feelings of low self-esteem, push others down, greed that springs from fear. When we are complete, whole, filled with a knowledge of God’s all inclusive love, then there is no need for envy, greed, or fear. Our self-worth is no longer rooted in the opinions of others, or in what we have compared to them. We are whole and complete in ourselves in relationship with God.
Note that I didn’t say we were complete on our own. No. See, while GMC, the makers of Cadillac would say that we make our own “luck” as the commercial says, St. Paul makes it clear that even the foundation he laid for the Christians in Corinth to whom he is writing was not laid by him, but by the grace of God.
And the core of it all – the very base of that foundation – the essence of God’s spirit that dwells in us – that is unconditional love. The love of God that says “You are my beloved, my child, in you I am well pleased.” And that love is what Paul tells us is there always, and Jesus calls us to embrace it. Because Jesus knows that if we can – if we can open ourselves up to the reality of who we are – beloved children of God, then perfection – the kind he speaks of, the kind that is not won from achievement but freely given to us by God – that wholeness will be felt and lived out. And the effects of that will resound like a stone hitting a still lake – rippling throughout the world. It has too. If we believe ourselves to be fully loved, then we begin to realize the fuller truth…that everyone is a beloved child of God. And, we become no longer vested in anything that will seek to hurt or oppress. It is then that we will come to know the truth of Mahatma Ghandi words “The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.” Or perhaps Jesus would say…forgiveness is the attribute of the whole.”
So be perfect, as God is perfect – live fearlessly, love fiercely, make mistakes, forgive others, and forgive yourself. And remember that you are the temple of the spirit of God which dwells within you – take good care of yourself and in that you take care of the temple of God’s spirit – and most definitely take more than two weeks vacation – maybe even try some freestyle skiiing (but please wear a helmet). Amen.
1/2: (From a sermon by the Rev. Melissa Hall. Used with permission.)
[Please note: All sermons are as written, not necessarily as delivered on that Sunday]
Rev. Diana Wilcox
Christ Episcopal Church in Bloomfield & Glen Ridge
February 23, 2014
Seventh Sunday After The Epiphany – Year A
First Reading – Leviticus 19:1-2,9-18
Psalm 119:33-40
Second Reading – 1 Corinthians 3:10-11,16-23
Gospel – Matthew 5:38-48
