Wouldn’t it be great to be perfect? Think about how amazing it would be to always make the perfect meal, say the perfect thing, be the perfect parent or spouse and ultimately, be perfectly happy.
To some degree we all feel an inner pressure to be perfect. But then if that inner pressure wasn’t enough our culture piles on even more pressure, telling us we'll only be satisfied if we achieve the absolute in materialism. Our culture often applauds those who pursue perfection, such as entrepreneurs and athletes. But there is a good chance that many of these will turn obsessive about reaching their demanding goals. The result is that many live their lives on a quest for the perfect body and perfect career while living in the perfect house in the perfect neighborhood.
Striving for the wrong kind of perfection can lead us down a destructive performance based path. It can make us feel guilty for never measuring up to all sorts of ideals. It can turn us into people who are never certain that we’ve done enough or accomplished enough.
Religion has also contributed to this conquest for perfection. In fact, in times past I have been a bearer of this message using the challenge of Jesus when he said, “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” (Matthew 5:48)
Why would Jesus call upon us to be something that was so far from being possible that it bordered on the ridiculous? To see that this was the standard is to relegate our walk with God to be completely performance based and as stated, completely unattainable. From another perspective. If God’s standard is indeed “perfection” and then when we didn’t meet his standard he sent his son to kill him to meet his standard; that’s saying that the crucifixion was for God’s sake and not ours. It’s saying that God sent his son as a sacrifice not as a demonstration of love but rather because he’s a score keeper that wants to see who measures up and as a result the Christian walk is then indeed performance based.
This reveals how important it is to unwrap the real meaning of the word for “perfect” that Jesus used. He wasn’t calling upon God followers to become piously and obsessively perfect. In this verse the original language word interpreted “perfect” would be more closely translated in a way that describes something like the stages of the development of grapes when attached to the vine. At each stage of the development of the fruit, there is a perfection which is not complete but completely pleasing to the gardener. At the stage of growth the grapes have achieved they are everything they are supposed to be. And so when seen like this, you begin to see that Jesus was calling on followers to, "Become whole, be part of a loving motion toward completeness."
This view is so much more consistent with a loving and just father. What father doesn’t have a deep desire that his children would develop and move toward being completely all that they were meant to be? There isn’t. And when I see my Abba Father in this way it frees me to live loved and live in love without an agenda for myself or others.
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