Holy and Perfect

In fact, to be concerned about being a flawless personality would represent a deflection from total devotion to God, because one would be caring for one's own perfection rather than about God!

Rather, to be perfect is to do what is right,

to live out concern beyond one-self.

to care for the whole of creation.

God is holy in that he is separate from us for a purpose.

God is perfect in that he is totally, undividedly devoted to us.

God is faithful to his covenants with us.

He is totally given to those whom he loves.

He is Good News for us and to us.

This is why we celebrate the incarnation,

the startling event of God as a person among us.

His holiness could have meant that having created the world he would just let it drift aimlessly while remaining entirely apart....but he did not!

He came into the midst of this grimy world as a real person, to show us the way to a life that is fully human.

His separateness, his holiness as God was established so that he could devote himself fully, completely, and perfectly to us his people!

We can generally handle things this far, because we are talking about Jesus.

But the words are not addressed to Jesus; they are for us.

You shall be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect.

You shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy.

We now have a double calling:

we are called in, and called out.

We are called in, apart and separate, in order to know to whom we belong and why.

We are shaped as we worship together, and made holy people here.

By its very nature, that calling in to holiness implies a calling out from this assembly and from our individual concerns,

in order to give ourselves completely, that is, perfectly, to a weary world.

That is our double call:

--to be holy, separate for a purpose,

--to be perfect, undividedly devoted to that purpose.

And to act out that double purpose is what it means to be truly human.

There is no room for saying “Well, I'm only human” as an excuse for lackluster performance or slapdash attitude.

But perhaps we can say of someone,

“Now there is a special person.”

Perhaps we would be thinking of someone like St. Elizabeth of Thuringia, who gave away much of her wealth in order to care for the poor and sick in her town of Eisenach in the 13^th century.

But it doesn't need to be someone long ago and far away.

Let's think about our emergency personnel.

They know themselves to be separate,

not so as to avoid contamination from an impure world,

but to be separate for a positive purpose.

They train, they know their equipment, they are ready to answer a summons to service.

They would not say, “Well there is the siren, but I don't feel like going right now...maybe next week.”

They know that their training, their equipment, and the alarm sounding is all for the purpose of being sent out.

They need to tend to a critical need in the community, no matter what.

It may cost a life to respond!

Doing the job means leaving the station and plunging into the situation.

In this sense, might it be that the firefighters or ambulance personnel have a better grasp on what it means to be holy and perfect than we in the congregation do?

We might try to use this building and this gathering as a place to hide from the problems of community and the world.

It won't work, of course.

For in hymns and prayers and lessons and sermon and Holy Communion we are hearing the truth about the world

in the form of God's perfect love for the world and for us.

And we also hear his commission to be perfect as he is perfect;

to “Go in peace. Serve the Lord.”

We can respond to that word with

“Thanks be to God” , and do so with conviction because of our confidence in his perfection.

Except for some occasions in our adult catechumenate, The Way, it is sadly very rare for someone to come up to me and say, “Pastor, I'd like to sit down as talk about what my ministry in the parish could be.”

We should all be looking for lots more of those conversations!

They would be very healthy activities for us as members of the body of Christ in this time and place.

The call to be both holy and perfect means

to be called in and also to be called out.

We hear that this day as both Good News and as challenge.

What will each person here do with that Good News and with that challenge?

Amen.

Please note: The preceding sermon is provided as a resource for the thought, prayer, and meditation of the members and friends of St. Mark's. It is the residue of a verbal event, and thus it does not have academic footnotes and other details that would be expected in a written document. The writer gladly acknowledges the prior thought and work of many Christians before him.