A Perfect Lent?

This is our last week immersed in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5. In it Jesus offers a theological foundation both for what he has done so far, and what he will say and do for the rest of the gospel With Lent just around the corner it is good to hear Jesus invitation to imagine an entirely different world from the one they were looking out on, and from what we experience. A world where the measure of who is deemed important, notable, eminent and influential was not the rich, the powerful, the high born; but the wretched, despised, and the meek. The rest of the sermon and the gospel are about this and our role in this world being realised.

One of the problems with reading something in a translation from its original language, like the bible, is that words do not always translate easily across languages, and the words chosen do not have the same meaning in the original language as it does for us.  This week we have– “perfect.” We are told to be perfect as our Father in heaven is perfect. We often hear and read this as needing to be without fault, flawless, heavenly, divine. And we think “I can’t be that” and we read on thinking this is all out of reach.

But in the Greek the word used more often means “mature, complete, grown up, ripe”.  Being perfect is not being flawless, but mature, complete – being all that we might be. What does that look like? That is what the Sermon on the Mount is all about. When we live the kind of generosity, mercy, compassion, love for all Jesus is talking about in the teaching up to this point we are perfect. We will never be flawless, and we are not being asked to be. We are instead asked to be an image of God’s compassion (righteousness).

May God’s desire for us to grow in compassion, working for a world where all thrive, especially the poor and meek, shape our journey into Lent.