7th Sunday, Ordinary Time, 2023 - Filling In For Father Leo – by Erin O’ Leary
“So be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect.”
This is Jesus’ final word in today’s Gospel. It feels daunting to even consider being perfect as God! We know already that we can’t do it because we are human and not God. Scripture reminds us often of God’s amazing mercy. In fact, today’s Psalm tells us the Lord is kind and merciful. So why does Jesus tell us to be perfect even when he and we know we can’t?
Jesus may have been referring to his earlier comments about the Pharisees and the fact that they were striving to be perfect in the Law but missing the point of what God expected about showing love and compassion to others. So, we are to be perfect like God is - not like others claim to be. Or, according to some scholars, Jesus may have meant perfect in the sense of being complete or in the process of completion - a whole person, living God’s ways in all facets of life - not just in chosen areas.
If we look at the earlier part of the Gospel, we see that we are encouraged to love - even to the point of loving our enemies. Just as God loves fully and with abundance. God loves us all - no matter what. So perhaps what Jesus is calling us to do is to love perfectly - fully and with abundance, even when the people we are called to love are not our friends and families. Last week, we were called to go beyond the minimums of the Law in order to love God and others to the fullest extent we can. Now we are called to go beyond the Law to being perfect in love like God.
Being perfect does sound daunting, but remember that old saying - “Shoot for the moon. If you miss, at least you’ll be among the stars!” It might sound a little trite, but it has truth. The higher our aspirations, the more likely we are to be better at loving, at caring, at being perfect like God.