Epiphany 7A
Leviticus 190:1-2, 9-18; Psalm 119: 33-40; 1 Corinthians 3:10-11, 16-23; Matthew 5:38-48
In this age of reality shows, today’s Scripture might be advertised as “The Extreme Challenge.” The irony is that all of us have already been chosen as participants in this show, “for as long as we shall live.”
The challenge is right there in Leviticus, the third book of the Pentateuch, in chapter 19, which is one of the chapters that make up “The Holiness Code,” and has been called the apex of ethical teachings in the Old Testament (The New Interpreters Study Bible). Here it is, already in verse 2: “Be holy, for I, the Lord your God, am holy.”
In Matthew 5, after raising the Mosaic Law “up a notch” or two or three, Jesus repeats this ancient command: “…you must be made perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect.”
All those who are perfect, please raise your hand. Those who always offer the other cheek when kicked in the face, those who have given more than they were asked for, those who have never shown resistance to injury, those who pray every day for those that hate them and gossip about them and stab them in the back, those who love their enemies and let the light of their countenance shine on all the bad people, please step forward and receive your “perfect” certificate.
We have to water this stuff down, right? Even the Psalmist in the portion of Psalm 119 that is sung today asks for God’s help in keeping His law. He knows all too well the danger of stepping off the edge and losing the respect of the community and of cultivating what Ken Wilbur calls “The small self” (Grace and Grit) or ego instead of the “Large Self’ or God within us. We might make this Psalm our daily prayer, especially the verse that prays for understanding (Ps. 119:34): “Give me understanding, that I may keep your law and observe it with my whole heart” (NRSV).
Or we can use it as the foundation of our acting and speaking. Paul quotes from the dry bones chapter of Ezekiel, in which God says He wants to “dwell” with His people (Ez. 37:27). He implies that this is precisely what God has done in Jesus: He has come to dwell with us. He has made us His temple. And if we keep Him as our foundation, we’ll find ourselves going way beyond the Old Testament laws and giving ourselves up for others, as He did.
In a speech he recently broadcast in a teleconference from the Trinity Institute in New York, biblical scholar Dr. Walter Brueggemann made the astonishing statement that even after lifetimes of study, scholars of the Bible know that it doesn’t all fit together. And so he asked if Scripture gives us any foundation, or a place to stand, as we practice our faith in today’s world. His answer was that it does, but only if we stop asking “did such and such really happen,” and begin asking, “To what does this Scripture call us? What are we being asked to imagine?”
Perfection may be the answer. –A perfect God Who is for us and with us and in us.
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