Homily 7th Sunday Ordinary A: So be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect!

Homily for the 7th Sunday in Ordinary Time Year A 2017 

Lev 19:1-2, 17-18; 1 Cor 3:16-23 and Matthew 5:38-48

Introduction 

"So be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect;" that is how Jesus ends today's gospel.  But is that really possible?  Can any of us be perfect?  And even if we could be perfect, can we human beings be perfect in the way that God is perfect? 

Scripture and Theology 

We have to read this saying in the context of the gospel passages of the last four Sundays from the Sermon on the Mount, in which Jesus is teaching some demanding things. 

• Four Sundays ago in the Beatitudes, Jesus exhorted his disciples to live by unpopular values like humility, meekness, poverty of spirit. 
• Then three Sundays ago he asked Christians to be the salt of the earth, the light of the world and the city built on a hillside like a beacon. 
• Last Sunday, Jesus taught that he had come, not to abolish but to fulfil the Old Testament Law, redefining murder, adultery, divorce and swearing. 
• And then today, he improves on two more Old Testament laws by reversing them.  No longer is the law, "An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth."  No longer is the ideal "You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy."  Now Christians must treat even their enemy with love. 

With all these high moral demands on his disciples, it should not surprise us then that Jesus concludes: "So be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect." 

"Like father, like son" we say, when we see children imitating their parents.  We also say that the apple does not fall far from the tree, when a child takes after their parents.  I guess that is what Jesus wants his disciples to be, like father like son.  And to understand how we wants us to imitate the Father, let us look at other places in the Bible where the same words are used.

1. First, later in the same gospel of Matthew, Jesus says to the rich young man: “If you wish to be perfect, go, sell what you have and give to [the] poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”  Like we saw in the Beatitudes, perfection for Jesus involves poverty of spirit coupled with generosity and charity. 

2. And then in Luke's version of our gospel, he does not say "be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect" but "Be merciful, just as [also] your Father is merciful."  So the perfection that Jesus is asking his disciples to imitate has to do with mercy.  Just as the Father is merciful, treats people better than they deserve, so must Christians must. 

3. That mercy is the meaning of perfection is made even clearer in our first reading, where God commands Moses to tell the people of Israel: "Be holy, for I, the LORD, your God, am holy."  And then immediately the reading goes on to describe what the Lord meant by being holy: 

1. Not bearing "hatred for your brother or sister in your heart." 

2. Not incurring sin and hatred as you reprove your fellow citizen. 

3. Not taking revenge and cherishing grudges against people. 

4. But "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." 

These are the things that constitute perfection, both in God and in man.  And so, when Jesus asks us to be perfect as our heavenly father is perfect, he is asking something really difficult, but not impossible.   

While vengeance is a natural human desire, while seeking justice against wrong-doers is even an honourable pursuit, Christians cannot achieve it by taking an eye for an eye or a tooth for a tooth, or even the pound of flesh that the Merchant of Venice sought.  Christians may sometimes have to forego even righteous revenge and just deserts, because that is exactly what God the Father does to us; forgiving us when he should punish us, punishing us less than we deserve.  When Jesus was on the cross, he did not take any eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth; instead he gave his eye, he gave his tooth, he gave his life, so that we who have chosen to be his enemies, might have life.  That is the example he set for us Christians. 

Jesus wants Christians to "love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your heavenly Father.”  He is raising the bar for us, telling us that he expects more from us.  He asks: “For if you love those who love you. . . Do not the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet your brothers only, what is unusual about that? Do not the pagans do the same?”  Perfection for Jesus means going beyond the common standards of justice found among tax-collectors and pagans, terrorists and murderers, society and the world. 

Christian Life 

What does it then mean for you and me, to try and be perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect?  What does it mean for you and me to be holy as God is holy?  What does it mean for you and me to be merciful as our heavenly Father is merciful?  Let me offer three examples that show that it is possible, difficult but possible with God's grace.

First, as charity begins at home, so must perfection.  Far too many families lack love, but instead have hatred.  Some hatred can step from small childhood disagreements and petty jealousies; some hatred can stem from differences such as how to take care of mom and dad in their old age; some hatred can even stem from how to share the inheritance, with siblings not speaking to each other for decades.  The model for family relationships should not be that of Cain and Abel.  The model of perfection in the family should be that of Joseph in Egypt, who treated his brothers that had sold him into slavery, much better than they had treated him; that is the very definition of mercy. 

Second, we must extend perfection as mercy outside the home.  What is our attitude towards those who fall short of God's law and even of civil law?  Surely they deserve punishment, if God's justice is to be restored, if order in society is to be maintained.  But vengeance has no place in the administration of justice.  That is why Catholic teaching forbids the use of the death penalty, except as a rare last resort; for unlike just punishment that reforms the criminal, the death penalty only removes the criminal, taking take an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth and a life for a life.  As pro-life Catholics, we cannot selectively choose what life to promote and what life to take.  Jesus holds us to the higher standard that promotes a culture of life, rather than a culture of death. 

A third area of trying to reach the perfection of Jesus, is in our attitude to groups that are different from us, especially those groups whose only crime is that some of their members are not very nice people.  Think of the 120,000 Japanese-Americans placed in concentration camps during World War Two.  Think of the vilification in some quarters today of all Arabs, Muslims and Mexicans.  Think of the blanket denigration today of refugees and immigrants.  Thankfully, in 1988 President Reagan officially recognized the injustice against the Japanese as being unAmerican.  Jesus declares these flawed efforts at justice as being unChristian, because they seek hate and vengeance rather than love and justice. 

Conclusion 

There is no doubt that message of Jesus in today’s gospel is a tall order.  But again, Jesus never promised that the Christian way would be an easy one.  In fact he promised that it would not be a bed of roses, but a way of the Cross. As we carry this heavy Cross, let us look forward to the heavenly rewards that awaits those who remain faithful; for the Kingdom of Heaven will be ours.