Spring begins on Tuesday, March 20th at 12:15pm. So, just after noon Tuesday, we’re sunbathing on the roof. Well, maybe not. But we’re hoping. I’m hoping. Like so many, I’m tired of scraping my car windows in the morning. I’m tired of seeing the dusting on the ground or the flakes in the air, tired of feeling cold and not knowing which coat I should wear. We’ve been teased with warm weather now and then, but only to have it swallowed up by another cold front, Yankee clipper, bomb cyclone, whatever. It’s like a test. A test of our stamina, our attitude, our faith.
Life is full of tests. Just living each day is to be tested. Not in an out to get you someone up there is after me kind of way. But in a life is hard sometimes kind of way. To be alive is to be tested. But what is tested, exactly? Our demeanor? Our perseverance? Our better self? Well, yes. It’s our will. Our will is what makes us what we are. Our intention. Our driving identity. What is being tested is what makes us us. Who we are. What we are. And what is that?
Matthew 22:34-39 When the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together, 35 and one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. 36 "Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?" 37 He said to him, "'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.' 38 This is the greatest and first commandment. 39 And a second is like it: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.'
To test Him. That’s what Matthew says. And Luke agrees (10:25ff). Mark has a different take (12:28-34). Mark says that the scribe, or lawyer, was really interested. Was really asking. And when Jesus answered the lawyer claps his hands and says, “yeah, that’s what I thought, that’s what makes sense, cool, thanks Jesus.” And Jesus is impressed by him, and says “you’ve got it. You’re on the right track, almost there.”
Almost there. Not far from the Kingdom, that’s what He says. What I wouldn’t give to hear that from Jesus. But whether it was a test or a genuine question, Jesus answers the same. What’s the greatest commandment? The number one law. The summation of the code. Which is not really the question He is answering. I mean it is the question He is answering. But not only that. Not just a legal question. Not just a doctrinal question. This is a life question. No, a living question. How can I be alive? That could have been, should have been the question that He was asked. How can I be alive? Fully alive? How can I be perfect?
Hold on there sparky! You do not want to go there. You do not want to use the p-word. It goes against one of our treasured defining statements of life in general: Nobody is perfect! Yeah, we know Jesus told us to be perfect, as our heavenly Father is perfect. But surely He didn’t really mean it. Or said it with His divine fingers crossed, or a holy eye roll. Surely. Yeah, we know that John Wesley wanted to talk about Christian Perfection as if it were something reachable. But he got a lot of flak for that. Then and now. And even he seemed to waver on his confidence about whether it was attainable later in his life and ministry. Perhaps he had been exposed to too many human humans and began to despair that Christian perfection was even in the same time zone, let alone in the neighborhood.
Yet he did not give up, old father John Wesley. He still preached Christian perfection, despite the overwhelming evidence of imperfection. That’s where we are now, in our series, the “way to heaven” path that we are on this Lent. We started with sin, the sin that cripples us, infects us, overwhelms us. Then we acknowledged grace, the grace that comes before. Before what? Before we’ve done anything, before we’ve responded, before we’ve asked, before we were even aware we needed grace, knew about grace, understood grace. It comes before all of that. Prevenient grace, that’s what it’s called.
But then we discover that we can respond to this grace that we’ve found, or that has found us. We can say yes, we can say please, we can say give me some of that grace, I know I need it, I know I’m far from it, I know I’m lost without it. I want to be right again, right with the One who made me, the One who loves me. Justifying grace. That moment of claiming and being claimed. A new birth, a new creation, a new start.
It is a start, just the start. The beginning of a journey, a life long journey of hope and joy. Of living in to the possibilities of faith. Of being made more like Christ, being made more alive. Sanctifying grace, that which equips us for a life of loving like Christ loves. Of loving God with all our heart and soul and mind, and loving our neighbor as ourselves.
Surely that’s it. That’s the journey, that’s our life. What else could there be? Perfection. Seriously? Yeah. But wait, it’s not what you think. Not the unattainable, not the infallible, mistake free image of perfection that we have in mind. Wesley defined Christian perfection, or perfection in love, in specific ways. He says that perfection in love doesn’t mean perfection in knowledge. It doesn’t mean we will always do the right thing at the right time. It doesn’t mean that we will never have anything go wrong, that we won’t be subject to the ills of life and living. We are subject to the same viruses, the same calamities, the errors that everyone else is subject to. We do not become super Christians or spiritual giants. Neither does it mean that we have no room to grow, no development to engage in. There is room for more. More perfection? Not exactly. More like you are perfect as you are now, but you can be more in the future and perfect then too.
Wha....? Perfection, Christian perfection, or perfection in love anyway, is not a state of being. Not a standard to achieve, not a behavior to perform. Instead it is a singularity of intent. It is the desire to will the will of God in all things. And I can will God’s will now, knowing what I know, having lived the life I have lived to this point. But I can will God’s will in the future, when I know more, have lived more, loved more. Steve Harper, the author of the book “The Way to Heaven,” describes a parent who measures a child in development and declares that they are perfect for a four year old. But not done, obviously. Not complete. There is always more to come, more to reach for more to give and more to be. Even as we claim perfect love.
Not that I’m there. Yet. Not that I have been made perfect in love. Yet. Not that I love the Lord with all my heart and soul and mind and my neighbor as myself. I want to. I really do. Sometimes. Now and then. On my better days. OK, the problem is my will. It gets in the way of God’s will in my life. I’m like the lawyer in the text this week. I’m asking, but not really asking. I want to know how to live my life in the best, most fulfilling way possible. But I’m not really making a commitment, yet. I’m testing the waters. Testing, you know?
And I’ll bet I’m not the only one. Spring is coming. Will we be ready?
Shalom,
Derek
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