The beginning of this series can be found here.

Given the development of the idea of perfection explored this far, when Jesus tells people, "Be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect," we should be thinking of perfection as being wise and morally righteous, maybe trying to play our part in God's story. Jesus calls such an understanding shortsighted and pushes any who would strive for perfection to go beyond morality and wisdom to deep self-examination. So let’s look at the perfect instance in Matthew 5:48 with all this background information.

Reinterpreting the Law

The people who first heard Jesus would have listened with all the history we have reviewed as part of how they heard was he was saying, but they would have heard Jesus teaching in Aramaic, not Greek or Hebrew. That first group of listeners would have had more context as well because Matthew 5:48 is the end of the first third of the Sermon in the Mount (Matthew 5 thru 7) and they would have known about the debate Jesus references and even had with some of them.

Jesus wants us to see perfection not as wisdom or morality but the assumptions we make about how we treat other people, how we show them love or not. Jesus starts the Sermon on the Mount with the Beatitudes (Matthew 5:3-12), which are surprising in their own right. In each Beatitude, Jesus pairs those who seem to not be in God's love with how God will show them love.

Jesus then presents two quick parables about what it means to be God’s faithful people, one that ends with a threat and one that ends with a call to let faith show in life (Matthew 5:13-16). Salt, a symbol of purity (so morality) and wisdom, is trash when there is no saltiness left. Jesus warns those listening about losing their morality and wisdom.

Nothing surprising there, but then Jesus insist that the point of living morally and in wisdom is not for the sake of the person but for others. Good works are for other people so they might worship God. Jesus has just told a bunch of people that their morality and wisdom is neither for their own sake nor to appease God, and then starts raising the bar for both morality and wisdom!

Turning directly to the Law, Jesus says that the Law still matters and that God wants people to follow the Law, but then Jesus begins reinterpreting what it means to follow the Law. He starts by saying that any kind of morality that could get you into heaven has to be beyond perfect, exceeding "that of the scribes and Pharisees" (Matthew 5:20). Jesus then explains what this means using very specific, somewhat obvious examples, pushing them until we break.

"You Have Heard that It was Said..."

Jesus keeps raising the bar of morality by interpreting the law through a series of examples preceded by the repeated phrase, “You have heard that it was said…” All of these are surprising, especially the last one, and the surprise only deepens when we realize that half of these examples are from the Commandments!

Jesus first takes aim at the Commandment, "You shall not murder." (Matthew 5:21-26.) This seems pretty direct. Statistically speaking, people who show up for worship aren't murderers. So this one should be a gimme, right? Not so fast. Jesus says if you've ever been angry with someone, ever called someone a bad name, ever made fun of anyone, you have broken this Commandment.

Did you get mad at the one driver in front of you as you went home from worship? Oops. Call your sibling a name as you head back to your seat after receiving communion? Uh oh. Made a derogatory comment at a coworker or classmate? I have some bad news.

Jesus does the same with the Commandments, "You shall not commit adultery," and, "You shall not swear falsely." (Matthew 5:27-32, and 5:33-37.) Ever look at an advertisement and think, "That guy's hot," or, "Ooo, that babe..." Sorry, that's adultery. Ever embellish your answers to make people believe you more? Sorry, that's bearing false witness.

Oh, and revenge? Thinking a little tit for tat is okay? Eye for an eye and all that (Exodus 21:24, Leviticus 24:20, and Deuteronomy 19:21). It's not the Commandments, but it's close right? (Literally close. The first giving of the Commandments is in Exodus 20 and the first instance of "eye for eye" is in Exodus 21!) Nope. Give freely, Jesus says, be it in the form of your cheek to those who would strike you to dehumanize you, your possessions to those who would claim in court to be the rightful owner, or even your energy and time.

Jesus pushes people to replace revenge with generosity! And not just generosity, but love! Love!

Perfect Love

"You have heard it was said, 'You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy'" (Matthew 5:43). But we need to take a moment and think about where anyone in Jesus' time would have heard this, because this is not a phrase that appears in the Hebrew scriptures or apocryphal writings anywhere. So where do we start? The Dead Sea Scrolls.

Well before Jesus was born, communities of Jews would gather together around various centralizing ideas, much like Christian denominations today, and much like Christian denominations, these Jewish groups would write about their centralizing ideas. This continues after Jesus’ death and resurrection among Christian communities and gives us some unique documents, like the Gospel of Thomas.

In one of the Dead Sea Scrolls (1QS if you want to look it up), we find a set of rules for defining who is part of this group and who is not. There are grounds for exclusion and a way to read an authorization of hatred toward those who are not part of the group. These breakaway groups did not represent mainstream first-century Judaism or Christianity, but small sects and ideological outliers. The idea that hating your enemy was authorized by God, however, was enough of a thought in the in Jesus’ time that he talks directly about it.

Jesus calls those who would follow him to not just replace revenge with generosity, but to actually love and care for those who persecute you. And why? Because loving those who hate you reflects God's love. You read that right. Loving those who hate you reflects God's love. So be perfect as God is perfect and love those who hate you, abundantly and ridiculously.

This it not endorsement of staying in an abusive relationship. If you are being abused, seek help. The abuser will not change without a significant disruption in their life, and probably not even then. The way you can help them is by reporting the abuse to someone who will keep you safe and get them help.

Jesus' call to be perfect like our Creator and Provider is perfect is not about fulfilling some law or never making mistakes. Jesus wants us to love like the one who provides for all people, whether they deserve it or not, whether they return love or not, whether they say thanks or not, whether they like it or not.

Next time: distorted teleology.