Leviticus 19: 1-2; 9-18; 33-34
I Corinthians 3: 16-17
Matthew 5: 38-48
Being Perfect
February 19, 2017
Mary R. Brownlow
In his poem Mending Wall, Robert Frost quotes an old farmer who says, “Good fences make
good neighbors,” and I wonder if that might not be a way to look at the Book of Leviticus. We just
heard one brief passage – the only section of the Leviticus that makes it’s way into the 3-year cycle of
lectionary readings – that gives us some guidelines, like a fence, to help us structure our relations with
neighbors. It starts us thinking: what makes a good neighbor? Frost wonders “Before I built a wall I'd
ask to know - What I was walling in or walling out.” Because that’s what a wall does: it makes an “in”
and an “out.” How does that line help us to live with each other?
The ancient Israelites paired this basic question about human relations with another one: How
can we be holy? How does our worship of the Eternal One, the Holy God, set us apart from the rest of
the world? In the process of liberation from slavery, these people were called into a covenant
relationship. This seemed to call forth both special worship and special ethical demands; it called on
the people to reflect God.
Both the Hebrew and the Gospel readings show this understanding of covenant. We hear: “You
shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy” and “Be perfect, therefore, as your Heavenly Parent is
perfect.” These passages lead to the questions: What does it mean to be “holy” and what is divine and
human holiness? And, what does it mean to be “perfect” and what is divine and human perfection? Let’s look at the list in Leviticus to identify human and divine holiness. It gives some practical
advice: leave the gleanings of your field and vineyard for the poor and the alien: don’t use every bit of
your harvest for yourself. Don not steal or lie or perjure yourself. Do not cheat your neighbor, and pay
your workers on time. Be kind to people with disabilities. Treat both rich and poor with justice. Do not
slander. Do not take vengeance settle a grudge. Love your neighbor as yourself. Love the alien as
yourself. We might define “Holiness” as being “set apart” or “unique.” But it seems that reflecting
God involves relationship and intimacy, of going beyond your own self-interest. Your well-being is
wrapped up tight with the well-being of others, including aliens. Maybe holiness is saying that our
selfish or excluding tendencies are out of bounds. Perhaps holiness involves a way of life that engages
those who are different in a particular way, in a unique way.
Scholars sometimes call Leviticus a “Holiness Code,” because of that call to “be holy, for I the
Lord your God am holy.” Being holy means to be set aside, blessed, for God’s use. In other words, be
different. We like to think of it in other-worldly, spiritual, terms. A holy person floats around barely
touching the ground, with a halo, perfect and loving and serene all the time, with a bit of an aura
glowing as well. That is not at all a biblical picture: in our scriptures, holiness is described in tangible,
everyday, relational terms. We get a spectrum of different human relationships. To be holy is to love
one’s neighbor in concrete ways….your neighbor: the rich, the poor, the disabled and the “alien.”
Xenophobia, it seems, is not holy: foreigners should treated fairly and lovingly. In spite of the fences
and guidelines, it seems that the lines between neighbor and alien are getting blurred. Maybe holiness
is not walling yourself off from people, but making a clear line between what is fair and loving and
what is not. It is about having a clear memory of slavery in Egypt – whatever that means to you…to
me it means an empathy-inducing experience – and applying that memory to your present actions.
The Gospel reading in Matthew 5 is a continuation of the Sermon on the Mount (yes, we are
still in the Sermon on the Mount for the 4th week in a row), a compilation of Jesus’ teachings about
living in tune with God’s laws. He invites us to “be perfect” as God is perfect. And, just like the writer
of Leviticus, he gives some concrete examples. The letter of the law allowed for controlled retaliation
– the Torah goes into even more detail: “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a hand for a hand, a foot
for a foot, a burn for a burn, a wound for a wound, stripe for a stripe.” This sounds a little gruesome to
us, but in an ancient society where escalating blood feuds were a real threat, this law gave a fence,
some control, a line that you did not cross. Jesus takes a more radical approach to resolving difference,
an approach that illuminates violence and oppression for what they are, and refuses to join in. The one
who refuses to hit back, the one who shames the aggressor who wants to take your last stitch of
clothing, the one who shows the Roman soldier the injustice of treating a human like a pack animal –
that person has drawn a new line in the sand. They are willing to call the whole system into question.
All while following the “law.”
They are even calling our vocabulary into question. Not only, who is a neighbor and who is a
foreigner, but who is a friend and who is an enemy. The follower of Jesus’ version of the law will not
be able to draw hard lines or build hard walls around those categories. A few days ago I heard about a
grassroots movement called “A Day Without Immigrants.” On Thursday, immigrant laborers went on
strike and restaurants voluntarily closed to draw attention to the fact that immigrants are an essential
part of our American work force. In Washington, DC, 48 percent of people working in the restaurant
industry were born in a foreign country. I can’t imagine what my diet would be like if I restricted it to
“American-only” – whatever that means – food. What? No gelato? J
Speaking of vocabulary, let’s look at that word, “perfect.” An image may come to our mind of
unblemished beauty, something pristine, something we don’t touch lest we disturb its perfection. It is
also something unattainable. But we are told to imitate the perfection of God. How can this be? And
speaking of questions, I like this observation of Winston Churchill: "They say that nobody is perfect.
Then they tell you practice makes perfect. I wish they'd make up their minds."
Turns out that the word for “perfect” used here is a bit deeper than that. Teleioi is a word that
might better be translated as "complete" or "mature" or "integrated." It refers to living into your
ultimate purpose. If we follow the Hebrew idea of allowing our relationship with God to lead us into
holiness, then we are to love the way God loves: freely, completely, consistently. We are to creatively
imagine the world as a blessed community, and then mature into behaving as citizens of that world.
The law may help us on the first step, giving guidelines for fairness and limiting our selfishness. But
there is an expansiveness in the call to perfection that goes beyond the guideline. It is as ridiculously
expansive as walking two miles with a Roman pack on your pack when you could get away with one.
It is as crazy as praying for a person who hurts you. We put on new lenses and look around. We may
see aliens, but God does not. We may see enemies, but God does not. To be perfect like God means to
embrace difference, to promote reconciliation, and seek the well-being of all kinds of people. This is
truly “holy” or “set apart” from our culture in many ways. We reject the values of an individualistic,
competitive, win-lose culture. Our perfection is lived out in a nitty-gritty world and it may not be neat
or comfortable or serene.
To leave the old violent world behind, we begin with giving up the idea of retribution. This is a
hint that we are giving up forms of conduct that have always seemed to be natural and legitimate. For
instance, we think it quite fair to respond to good dealings with good dealings, and to evil treatment
with evil treatment. But there is no progress here, we are caught in a hamster wheel. Jesus calls us to
break the patterns in the hopes of becoming children of heaven, in the hopes of maturing into the
image of God.
Many of you know the story of Ruby Bridges, the six-year-old girl who walked alone into a
newly integrated elementary school in New Orleans in 1960. Ruby was in a classroom all by herself.
All of the white parents were so angry about integration that they took their children out of school.
These parents would gather outside the front door of the school and scream at Ruby as she walked in.
The wall of segregation was holy to them, and she was ignoring it. And so she walked between those
screaming human walls each day, hearing death threats, seeing them hold up toy coffins with a black
doll inside. Her mother had suggested that she pray every day before she got to the school. One day her
teacher, watching from the window, saw Ruby’s lips moving as she made her way passed the mob.
When Ruby got to the classroom, the teacher asked, “What were you saying to those people?” Ruby
said, “Oh, I wasn’t talking to them. I was praying for them, asking God to forgive them, because they
didn’t know what they were doing.”
This is a messy, concrete example of holiness. What shame we must feel that it takes a poor
black girl to take the high ground. Good fences make good neighbors. The fence of segregation was
not a good fence: it was destroying lives. A new line was drawn, new guidelines for fair behavior. But
Ruby and her family went the extra mile: not only following the new rules, not only confronting the
hate, but refusing to get sucked in. Not only walking into danger, but breathing prayer at danger.
Perfection: a perfect example of purposeful integrity.
I spoke earlier of empathy, as when the Israelites were commanded to remember when they
were slaves in Egypt. I don’t really see how Ruby could have empathized with the mob. It was so
foreign to her six-year-old experience. But maybe we can use the Leviticus teaching to love the
foreigner as ourselves, because we were once foreigners, as a starting point. Drawing on our innate
human powers of empathy, we can begin to take down unnecessary walls. As we mature in faith, as we
seek perfection, we need more. I think at some point we realize the limitations of our own power to
change. First we may turn to our community, our household of faith, to help us grow. We find support
here, we find perspective here. Then we continue our growth in perfection, our purposeful integration
of the holy and the mundane, and we know the need for grace. We turn to God, as Ruby did. We pray,
echoing the words of Jesus, because our words fall short.
This is a place, and ours is a spirituality, where words lead us to action. So we examine our
words carefully. We want to know who or what we are walling in and walling out. Who is my
neighbor? Who is an alien? Who is my enemy? Does our covenant set us apart for a special purpose?
Or does our covenant call us to a closer engagement with those who do not speak it with us? Where do
we draw the line in the sand? By the way, a more complete section of the part of Mending Wall where
Frost questions why good fences make good neighbors goes:
"Why do they make good neighbors? Isn't it
Where there are cows? But here there are no cows.
Before I built a wall I'd ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offence.
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That wants it down."
I thank God that I am reminded that something there is that doesn’t love a wall. I thank God
because this is a place and time where I can ask questions about walls. I thank God for a faith that
inspired Ruby Bridges. I thank God for a holiness that allows us to get messy. I thank God for the path
to perfection, knowing that we walk it together, growing in light, growing in grace.