Our readings today call us to the very perfection of God. This may seem to be something unattainable or even undesirable for us! Perfection sounds so boring and uneventful! Too much peace and tranquility is not my "thing" – so many people think!
But when we reconsider – and see what life really is like without God and his perfection: the chaos, the darkness, the inability of people to get along with God and with one another – then, God's insistence that we shoot for the perfection that he himself will provide – if we ask – is not too much after all.
In the time of Moses – the results of lawlessness were quite evident – certainly the perfection of life was nowhere to be seen. But then God intervened in human history and began to form a people "peculiarly his own" – a people from whom would come the redeemer of the world – the one who would bring restoration and perfection in its fullness to all of creation!: Jesus Christ.
And so, in the first reading we see God establishing a covenant with Moses and his community – a special relationship with the people he chose to be his own. He would be their God, and they would be his faithful people who feared him, walked in his ways, and followed the commandments and laws that he was now giving so that they could know they were pleasing to him.
And they did, follow the law of God (the guide to perfection) that he gave them; and they were his special people!
In the gospel passage, however, Jesus tells his disciples that now that he is present on the scene, it is necessary to go a step farther: just obeying the letter of the law was no longer enough: he came to fulfill the law – to make its spirit the focal point and not the letter! And so again, in today's passage, Jesus takes a familiar law: "love your neighbor, not your enemy" – and changes it: with the authority that he had to do so: "LOVE YOUR ENEMIES" he now says: PRAY FOR THOSE WHO PERSECUTE YOU that you may be children of your heavenly Father – for God allows the sun to rise on, and the rain to fall on - the good and bad alike!
Jesus says: be different from the pagans – even they greet their brothers – I tell you: GREET EVERYONE as GOD YOUR FATHER GREETS EVERYONE! BE PERFECT AS HE IS PERFECT! With his help – the grace of the Holy Spirit – it is certainly not impossible to be perfect! In fact it is the entire goal of our lives: to reach perfection!
This kind of perfection is not something dull and boring at all – it is life in the dynamic eternal exchange of love between God the Father and God the Son – there is music, and dancing, and merry-making; there is feasting, celebrating and giving thanks that goes on – forever!
All we need do to be there is to seek it; ask for it; and receive it!
On this day of Lent, let us seek, ask and receive!
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