Perfect
October 26, 2011
Excerpt from Matthew 19:16-22
"If you wish to be perfect, go, sell your possessions, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me."
Reflection by Quinn G. Caldwell
I read this one book in elementary school about a hapless kid who's always making a mess of things. One day, he finds a guide that promises to make him perfect. Hilarity ensues. In the end, he discovers that perfect people spend all day sitting around drinking weak tea with the window shades drawn.
Which is just about what happens when people try to make themselves perfect.
A young man asks Jesus what he should do to inherit eternal life. Jesus tells him to follow the commandments; he says he has been. Jesus tells him it's time to let God do the rest. Sell your possessions, get rid of all your stuff and all your power and all your ability to believe you can do this on your own, he says. Trust God to do the rest. Which doesn't sound any better to the young man than it does for most of us.
Most of us want to make ourselves perfect—which usually ends up meaning boring, tightly-controlled, and disengaged. Weak-tea perfect. But Jesus isn't offering weak-tea perfect; he's offering new-wine perfect. Burst-old-wineskins-and-run-all-over-the-place-staining-everything-with-holiness perfect. Delicious, strong, brave, loud, outside, un-windowshaded perfect.
Following rules will only get you so far; after that, you're going to have to let God do the rest. Which is hard, but worth it; you don't want to be the kind of perfect you could manage to achieve on your own, anyway.
Prayer
Lord, help me go as far as I can, and then help me let go and let you. Amen.
Quinn Caldwell will be speaking at "bless!" A National Conference for Worship Leaders, Nov. 10-11 in Boston. Learn more at www.ucc.org/bless
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