Building Faith Series: #3 Perfection Quantified

The most hurt I've seen on my child's face happened up on stage at a church program, where he had memorized one less Bible verse than was needed for the prize that all the other kids received. He had worked so hard and attended each week with joy and dedication, trusting the Christian leaders to guide him. And as his shoulders sagged and his eyes filled with tears at his sense of failure, my heart sank. Because I knew he didn't just miss out on the prize and the recognition, he also realized that he wasn't as valuable to God as the other kids. And my heart shouted a big NO. Of course we have had nothing to do with that program since. It was a turning point for me.

I was a smart kid growing up, not always smart socially, but smart in school. In some ways it was good for my confidence, but in other ways, it built a false confidence in me. Striving for perfection became a fun challenge and without even realizing it, I began to frame many things in my life in terms of perfection. I could always memorize as much as any one or answer Bible trivia or sing songs to touch the heart of all. 

Somehow perfection got mixed in with faith for me, and I can't even pinpoint when. Was it in the summer camps when I got my name up on the bristol board for saying all the apostles or the 66 books of the Bible? Was it when I was chosen for leadership roles or awards for musical endeavours? Was it when I went to church every Sunday and didn't swear except in humour with other safe Christians so it was OK? haha. Was it my lack of the big bad sins? 

Being a perfect person would negate my need for God, essentially making any sort of faith in God meaningless. How had perfection become the goal? 

Verses like "Be perfect, as I am perfect," or "go and sin no more" kind of haunted me. What sins? Perfect in what way? I've heard all kinds of fancy dancing around those verses in Sunday School through the years, and I still don't think that my prior notion of being perfect jives with who Jesus seemed to be and God's message of love. 

I am no theologian, and I tend to think most of the ones I know don't have lives that I really wish to emulate, so it's not even my goal to figure it all out about sin and perfect faith. Figuring it out doesn't save us, and is in fact a sandy beach to build a faith upon, which in my experience washed away in the wake of a guy who seemed to have a lot of that figured out and had no evidence of a changed heart or life. 

When I read the Bible, Jesus aimed his harsh words about 'smarten up' to the religious people who were actually doing everything quite perfectly from what they understood about the way God wanted them to live under the Jewish law. The people who were floundering and were struggling and were humble were met with love and understanding and an offer of living water. Surely there's a lesson for me in there. Surely the way is different than perfection and figuring it all out.

When one of those lawyers tested Jesus by asking him how to have eternal life, Jesus threw it back to the man, saying, 'What is written in the Law? How do you read it?" (Luke 10:26) The man answered to love God with heart soul strength and mind, and love your neighbour as yourself. Jesus agreed, saying, "do this and you'll live." The man pushed him further, asking a very important question that has been transformative for me lately in my faith. He asked, "who is my neighbour?"

Jesus proceeded to tell the story of the 'Good Samaritan'. The foreigner who had compassion on a wounded stranger was the only one who was a neighbour to the man who had been robbed and attacked. The religious leaders and ones who had things perfectly figured out about faith actually moved to walk by on the other side. The Samaritan spent his own money on a stranger, got his hands dirty and carried him on his own donkey to an inn, followed up with him later, and used his connections to make a difference for the man. 

The world we are living in has a lot of people who are wounded, laying by the side of the road, in a proverbial sense. And the religious right and figured-outers are still moving over to the other side of the road to walk by, not investing in the lives of the broken and needy. I was one of them, I just kind of looked away. Oh he's gay, yikes not sure what to do about that, I'll look away. Oh, they have a mental illness, eek, I'm not sure what to expect next from them, I think I'll move to the other side of the road. Oh they are getting divorced, I'm not sure who to side with, I'll just talk about something else when we chat. 

Let's talk next time about the people on the borders, on the roadsides. Let's talk about compassion.