It happens every January. Just as sure as snow and the Super Bowl, with or without your favorite team, it always happens in January. Broken resolutions.
Broken resolutions are the order of the day in the first month of the year. Those noble impulses we all have to do better and to be better – we write them out, we post them on the walls, we do everything but sign them in blood. But we also break them, oh, how we break them!
How many of us started the year with promises to ourselves that we would go on a diet? How many of us said, "Looks like it’s time to change my eating habits"? My wife and daughter and I did that; we’re consuming lettuce a head at a time and drinking gallons of water and stuffing down dry toast. We’re going to trim down and firm up.
But guess what? If you won’t tell on me, I will tell you the honest truth. I’ve cheated on my Scarsdale dying, er, I mean diet. I didn’t exactly break that resolution, but I sure did bend it!
Anybody else want to ’fess up? Anybody else want to acknowledge that the diet plan is on the scrap heap by now?
The problem is, you see, that we set goals that are unattainable, unreasonable, and so set ourselves up to fail. We can’t keep most of our unrealistic resolutions.
Another thing I always do is to resolve to make better use of my time. I write out a plan for each day’s work ... so much time in reading, so much time in preparing to preach and teach, so much time In visiting, so much time in counseling, so much time on building issues, so much time on leadership training, and so on and so on. But by the time I’ve written out this list, I need a 25-hour day to do it all!
What have I done? I have set myself up for failure. I have pretended to be able to attain the unattainable and reach the unreachable. It’s all very well to sing about dreaming the impossible dream and fighting the unbeatable foe; but singing about it is one thing. Doing it is another. We set ourselves up for frustration and failure.
Now then along comes Jesus and breaks into our lives with the most impossible demand of all, the most unattainable goal of them all. "Be perfect, as your heavenly father is perfect."
"Be perfect, as your heavenly father is perfect."
It feels like time to close the book and go home, doesn’t it? Who can be perfect? Who can get it all together and keep it together? Who is ever going to attain this unattainable goal? Sounds like this is a new year’s resolution we’ve already broken, doesn’t it?
"Be perfect, as your heavenly father is perfect." Who is equal to that?
The word translated as "perfect" in this text means finished. It means completed. Better yet, it means mature, it means grown up. Be mature, as your heavenly father is mature. Be grown up, as your heavenly father is complete.
And, while it may not be immediately attainable, I want to argue that to follow Jesus’ demand for perfection, for maturity, is not frustrating. It is freeing. While it may be beyond immediate reach, I want to insist that Jesus’ command to be grown up and complete is not just another invitation to failure, it is not just another resolution to be broken and put on the ash heap.
Jesus’ counsel to be perfect and mature is instead a way to live in power. It is good news, not bad news. It is empowering, not frustrating. This resolution we think we’ve already broken is good news!
I
You see, first I want you to notice that this resolution we’ve already broken, this goal that seems unreachable ... it starts with learning to value others’ needs more than our own wants. Moving toward maturity, moving toward God’s kind of completeness, begins with valuing others’ needs more than we value our own wants.
"If anyone wants to sue you and take your coat, give your cloak as well. If anyone forces you to go one mile, go also the second mile. Give to everyone who begs from you, and do not refuse anyone who wants to borrow from you."
The issue is always our bondage to things. Things matter to us. We want our stuff. And we’re very tied to it. Our security is wrapped up in having things at our fingertips.
Here’s a little child, playing the sandbox with his toys. Another child sees that bright red pail and that lovely yellow shovel and decides to invade the sandbox. What happens? The first child draws his things around his knees ... gets them close in. Got to protect his stuff. And if the second child starts to take those toys, the first child will grab them and weep and wail and will probably get very possessive.
That’s what children do. That’s what we expect of children.
But Jesus says, "Grow up." "Grow up." "Mature" Be mature about this. If someone needs something you have, when you are mature, you can value other’s needs above your own wants? That’s possible. That can be done. And it’s good news. It’s liberating. It’s freeing.
My mother experienced the last years of her life in shrinking circumstances. She and my father went from living in a full-sized three-bedroom house to living in a one-bedroom apartment. And then a while after my father’s death she went to an apartment in my brother’s home where she shared the bathroom and kitchen with his family. Shrinking space. From there she went to a nursing home, where she could call one half of a room her own, but at least she did have the right to move around the rest of the building.
But in her last weeks she just confined herself to that little half room. Never went outside. Never any longer went to the commons room or the dining room. Life was confined to a twelve foot by fifteen foot space. Sounds like a prison, doesn’t it?
But my sister-in-law said, "I think Mother found herself more comfortable in managing her life in that tiny little space than she had ever felt when she was trying to run a house and drive a car and do all the things active people do." Having less, but more comfortable.
And when she died, there wasn’t even a decent dress in which to bury her, because everything had just been scattered around the nursing home. Whether she gave it away or others took it, it didn’t matter. She no longer depended on anything material.
I choose to believe that my mother was arriving at completeness. She was arriving at maturity. She no longer had any concern about her own wants. She was free to let it go for others’ needs. Free. It can be done.
I found out this week that one of our members had instructed her children not to give her any Christmas gifts. They were not to buy her things that she did not need and probably would not even use. Rather, she asked her children to give to the church’s building fund the same amount they would have spent on her for Christmas. I tell you, my heart rejoiced over that ... and not just because we received several hundred dollars for the building fund. My heart rejoiced because I saw someone who is moving toward completeness, moving toward maturity. I saw someone who is learning to value others’ needs more than her own wants.
"Be perfect, be mature, as your heavenly father is mature." If someone asks, give, and you will be free. That can be done. That’s attainable.
II
Now, I’d also like you to see that this resolution we think we’ve already broken, this unreachable goal, is reachable, it’s possible, when we learn to value others’ redemption more than our own reputation. Not only can we grow up as God wants us to grow up by reducing our dependence on things so that others’ needs can be met. But also we can grow up as God wants us to grow up by learning that it is more important to redeem other people than it is to maintain our own spotless reputations.
"I say to you, do not resist an evildoer. But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also .... You have heard that it was said, ’You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you."
Growing up, moving toward maturity means that redeeming others is more important than maintaining a spotless reputation.
This word "perfect" bothers us because we think it means negative morality. We think that a perfect person would be one who is never in the wrong place and never says the wrong thing and never has a guilty thought. Our image of perfection is of somebody who always has it all together, every hair in place, every piece of paper neatly filed, every moment perfectly in order.
But that’s not the image of completeness I hear. That’s not what our Lord is talking about. He’s talking about redemptive maturity. He’s talking about the sort of person who gets into the thick of things and who takes risks in order to redeem somebody’s life. He’s talking about the kind of person who is willing to let his own life be in some sort of glorious disarray if that’s what it takes to bring somebody else back from the abyss.
Maturity lies in being so secure about our own integrity that we will risk our reputations to redeem someone else.
I’m thinking right now of two houses I know, two homes. Don’t get nervous, because neither one of them is one of your homes. But they illustrate what I’m trying to say.
One home is as neat as the proverbial pin. Everything is scrubbed and mopped, dusted and disinfected. The furniture is beautiful, I guess. I have to guess because I’ve never actually seen it. It all has covers on it. And then the covers have covers. This home is the home of a successful businessman and his wife. Between them they probably make over $100,000 a year.
They not only have an ultra-clean home, by the way; they have an ultra-secure home. Approach it the wrong way and it will turn on its own lights. Attempt to open the door and an alarm will sound. I was afraid to sneeze for fear the sprinkler system would come on!
Now these are very generous people. They give of their means to their church, to numerous charities, to the United Fund, to everything ... that is, if they get their names properly listed. Tell them there is no patrons list, and they are not interested. Mistakenly omit their names from the donor recognition banquet, and you can count them out from here on. Their reputations are as spotless and sterling as their home is. But they are paranoid; they are always watching to make sure that they are properly recognized.
They are profoundly unhappy. Somebody might look at them and say, "These folks are just about perfect." But I know better. I know better. I know they are the prisoners of their own kind of negative perfection.
But there is another house I know. It looks like what the real estate people call, "a fixer-upper". Stuff lines the hallway floors so that you have to walk on tiptoes to get by. Baskets of clothing waiting to be washed are perched on the living room couch. Cans of food waiting to be boxed are stacked on the dining room table. When you go in ... and don’t bother knocking, it’s all right, just go in ... when you go in, you will never be sure exactly who will be there. This is a home that takes in strays ... people who are just out of sorts with life somehow end up in this house.
Like any home, this home runs on finances. But there are missing entries in the checkbook, because records-keeping is not the strong suit. Money just goes ... no one is quite sure where it goes. It just flows to the point of need.
You would say that this house is a mess, yes. People talk about it and make fun of it. But folks who live in this house are not messes. They are happy. They are wonderfully, gloriously, profoundly happy. They would rather do something redemptive for someone else than worry about their own comforts or protect their own reputations.
While the folks in family number one are polishing their haloes and getting ready for an antiseptic heaven, where everyone would play perfect little harps and sing in perfect harmony, the folks in family number two are busy making sure that heaven will be a bustling, untidy, crowded place! They are redeeming lives!
Which household is perfect? Which is growing, maturing, completing? "Do not resist evil .. love your enemies." "Be perfect, just as your heavenly father is perfect." Value others’ redemption above your own reputation. That resolution can be kept. That can be done. And that is empowering!
III
His life was awfully short. The promise of earlier days had been dissipated in foolish pursuits. He might have had a flourishing political career, if he had played along with the right people, but he was flawed. He had chosen to expose both their public corruption and their private chaos. He might have done great things in the military, where his abilities to inspire personal loyalty could have been used; but he was flawed. He had shown no interest in power. He might have had a brilliant career in the church, because he certainly had a flair for speaking and teaching, there was a touch of the dramatic about him, and people flocked to hear him speak. But, no, here too he was flawed. He had insisted on radical new interpretations that went against the grain.
He just wouldn’t go ahead with anything that could have made his career. He was flawed. Some said he was immature.
What a shame that a life with such promise would burn out so soon! What a pity that a life with so many possibilities would complete none of them!
What a tragedy that a young man so gifted would not attain the perfection that was in his grasp! What a waste that he would never finish what he set out to do! He would remain so incomplete, so imperfect.
Oh, but I tell you, in the ear of my soul I hear a piercing cry, like a warrior’s victory song, calling out across the centuries. I hear from a green hill far away with out a city wall, a cry from a Cross, "It is finished." "It is finished"
To value what others need more than what he wanted. Even from a cross of sacrifice, where they gambled away his only garment, Jesus Christ attained his resolution. "It is finished." "It is complete"
To value others’ redemption more than what would make him comfortable or protect his reputation. Even from a criminal’s perch on top of the town garbage dump, with thieves at either hand, Jesus Christ kept his resolution. "It is finished." "It is complete." "It is perfect."
"Be perfect, as your father in heaven is perfect." It can be done.
