Sermon - 2014-02-23

“Be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”  What is Jesus asking us to be?  No one is perfect.  Doesn’t he know that we have fallen from God’s presence and it is the work of the Messiah to restore our relationship with God?  How can we be perfect?  I make mistakes all the time. I am by no means perfect.  So how then can Jesus be asking us to be perfect like God is perfect?? When we think of perfection, we may think of getting all the answers right on the test, being able to always win the race or other sports. You would be the one who fulfilled all the requirements and setting a new standard by which others would seek to strive after. Excelling at anything that would be placed in front of you.  

Yet, what if Jesus isn’t calling us to be perfect as in the way that we think of perfection?  Remember the way in which we think about things is vastly different than the way God thinks about things.  Throughout the past few Sundays, Jesus has been talking through the Sermon on the Mount, about the difference between what we want and strive for and the things that God wants and strives for.  

Two weeks ago, Jesus was talking about our actions and how important they are.  Not only for our own sake but also for the sake of others.  For it is through our actions, that others understand what it means to be of the Chosen People of God.  However, Jesus continues and reminds us that our outward actions can be done for the glory of God or more often, for our own glory and honor.  So last week, Jesus reminded us that it is not simply acting in the right way. Jesus wants us to live out and understand, but really God wants our heart and mind leading us and directing us in all that we are and all that we are doing within the world.  For when our heart and mind is focused on God, then our actions will follow.  

So now we come to today.  Jesus is calling us to not simply think upon our own, but that our life was created for the purpose of serving others.  When we serve those around us, we then trust that those around us will also care for us.  We need not worry about having less than others.  We should not consider ourselves better than those around us because we are cared for in all that we need and are.  Yet when we come upon someone who is greedy, or someone who is bent upon being better, or wishes to hold things over you, or when you are confronted with someone who is in opposition with you, you should also offer them even more.  

Look at the examples that Jesus speaks of.  Offering the other cheek when someone has already struck you on the cheek.  For at the time of Jesus, when someone would strike you with their right hand and you would offer the other cheek, the person would have to use the back of their hand.  This would be an even worse insult to be struck by the back of a hand.   So when someone asks or needs something, we should really offer to them more.  Perhaps this understanding comes even more to light with the saying, “Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day; show him how to catch fish, and you feed him for a lifetime”.

Over the centuries, we have worked on trying to best support and care for all who are in need.  Not only for their immediate needs but also for their long term needs.  Now as you are serving those who are in need, you are using the gifts and talents that God has given to you.  God is calling us to use them not in the way the world is calling us to use them, but rather to use them in the way that God would want us to use them. Jesus calls you to be perfect, as your Heavenly Father is perfect.  Jesus is calling you and telling you to use your gifts, not when you have the time but when the people need you to help them.  Not regarding the people as friends or enemies, but rather all people as just that, PEOPLE.  They are in need of love, in need of caring, and in need of relationship with you and God.

For when God gives to you and everyone on Earth, he bestows upon the righteous and the unrighteous.  The sun shines, the rain falls, and we are all cared for by our Creator.  Yet now, our redeemer is calling us back to this relationship.  We are called back to this love and to live within the Kingdom that God has created, and not the kingdom that we have created.  For this is way, the truth, and the life that God is calling us to know, understand and to live.  

So go, may your heart and mind be on God and may all that you do be as God has and is calling you to be.  Perfect. Amen.