EPIPHANY VII

Scourging of Christ  -- Urs Graf (c. 1485-1527)

Leviticus 19:1-2,9-18
1 Corinthians 3:10-11,16-23
Matthew 5:38-48
Psalm 119:33-40

The Epistle this week continues a favorite theme of St Paul’s – the foolishness of the Christian faith from the point of view of the world at large. The Gospel passage provides more evidence in its favor, as Jesus raises the bar of good conduct higher and higher. Rules like those laid down in the lesson from Leviticus – reciprocal justice, loving your neighbor, doing your duty -- are now replaced with demands that we forgo justice, submit to tyranny and do good to the people who are out to destroy us. These are contrary to every human culture that ever was. On the face of it, they make nonsense of legal systems, military forces and human rights. To declare that Jesus’ teaching looks like foolishness ‘from the point of the world’ takes the edge off a balder, more uncomfortable judgment ; it just looks like foolishness.

‘Counsels of perfection’ are standards of conduct that we can never expect people to keep. That is what makes them foolish. We know full well that human life can’t be run in accordance with them, a truth confirmed as much by the unhappy divisions and conflicts in the Church as in any other human organization. Jesus doesn’t make it any easier to avoid this conclusion when he summarizes his instructions by saying “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect." How could we be? We are not God, and to think that we could be like God is spiritual pride of the worst sort, surely.

All this is true. And yet it is no less obvious that the realities that legal and military systems try to contain are serious flaws in human nature and the human condition. When we confront injustice, hatred, tyranny, and so on, and see how poorly the legal and political remedies we turn to address them, we cannot but long for a quite different world.

Here is the paradox. We long to be perfect, as our heavenly Father is perfect, and know that we can’t be. Here is the hope. The perfect God who knows our weakness, has chosen to be one of us, to become the one human being who can truly love his enemies, turn the other cheek, go the second mile. We cannot be perfect, but we can give our lives to one who can – Jesus Christ. Of course, there will be many to whom that too looks like foolishness. The readings for these weeks in the run up to Lent can show us why it is not – and what redemption means.