If you want to be perfect...

[AI translation] A famous man, who was very taciturn, is said to have been once asked by his wife on his way home from church, "Where have you been? In church!" she replied. What was the pastor talking about?" she asked. "About sin!" was the answer. What did the pastor say about it?" came the question again. "He was against it!" said her husband briefly. Well, yes! Sin is something that every well-meaning person is against in some way. And yet we always commit it again in some way - even though we are against it. We always fall into it again, we always sin again. But why? Well: the short passage I have read puts the problem of sin, of sinning, in a very different light for us than the way we usually understand it. That is what I want to talk about now.I do not want to give a detailed explanation of what sin is. Every human being has some idea of it. Sin is when one sins against the laws of good and evil. Every man has some form of knowledge of right and wrong, whether he is a believer or not, and if a man does wrong and not right, he is committing sin, he is sinning.
There was a time when people thought about this problem in a very optimistic way. They thought that sin was actually just a mistake. You have to educate the mind and then sin will go away by itself. Sin can be eliminated by increasing education. You have to educate people out of sin, because you can educate people out of sin. Well, this opinion has also been refuted by the 20th century with its great education. Two world wars, a lot of suffering, an atomic bomb! Today we are no longer so optimistic about sin! In fact, it has become an even bigger problem for us.
There have been and there are always people who say: we must step up our efforts, we must make every good effort to overcome evil, first of all in ourselves. Sin must be overcome by setting oneself lofty goals, such as absolute purity, absolute selflessness, absolute honesty, and by striving to achieve them. There are even those who believe that they have already more or less achieved these moral requirements, and have thus in fact solved the problem of sin in themselves. They simply have no guilt. How many times have I met a decent, honest man who, when the subject of sin was raised, responded in an almost indignant way: Have I sinned? I am guilty? - Please! I am an honest man, a good Christian, perhaps, who has never harmed anyone, who has always tried to do good - I can die in peace one day. Of course, I'm not perfect, but we are human, we are weak, and God will forgive us for that little weakness! I have seen a very decent, very honest, very honourable man whose soul was full of hatred, and who considered this terrible sin, this hatred, to be quite natural, justified and justified. Almost a virtue! Almost a duty! I have seen under the guise of a truly respectable virtue a great deal of pride, selfish desire, uncharitableness! For example: is it always possible to tell the truth to everyone's face? Is it not the case that we are all hypocrites, that we are all acting, that we are all just walking among people? Is it not the case that our whole life is a game to enjoy as much of it as possible, while appearing as honest as possible?
It is even more fair if one consciously compromises, saying: in an imperfect world, one cannot live perfectly. If one really wanted to be absolutely pure and selfless, one could not live! It is a tactic between right and wrong, between truth and lies. To hate some in the heart, but to openly and officially condemn all racial discrimination! To proclaim love for one's neighbour, but to be careful not to short-circuit myself. We cannot be sinless, let us just be careful not to get into too much conflict with our conscience and with God, but otherwise let us try to get along in this sinful world as best we can, as best we can. Sometimes with a little cheating, sometimes with a little stealing, sometimes with a little lying. It is not a noble aspiration, but it cannot be helped! One has to bargain sometimes, one cannot be perfect. Some people make deals with themselves. Yes, but Jesus does say on one occasion: 'Be ye therefore perfect, even as your heavenly Father is perfect' (Mt 5,48) Is Jesus not wrong? Is this not how Jesus knows man, human life, the human situation in this world? Be perfect! Yes, but how? We have just seen that we sin all the time! But what does Jesus mean by perfection?
Once, a wealthy young man came to Jesus, a man who had spent his whole life trying to be perfect. He kept the commandments. He was able to do this because he was rich, and so he could detach himself from the world, from the troubles of everyday life, from its ugliness, its problems. He didn't have to quarrel with his landlords, suffer unfair neglect at the office, or deal with the thousand problems of family life. Completely independent of everything and everyone, he could study the law day and night! And this man, who has had every opportunity not to sin, is not satisfied with himself, something is lacking in his perfection. And then Jesus tells us what he means by perfection: 'If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come and follow me' (Mt 19,21), and you will be perfect.
The lesson we usually learn from this is that we should not be too attached to earthly possessions, because then we will not get to heaven. Well, that is not the case. Jesus is speaking here against the Pharisaic piety of his day, which sought perfection by detaching itself from everything and everyone, by almost hermit-like detachment from the world, by trying to fulfil the law as strictly as possible. He also walked the streets with his eyes closed or covered, so as not to be tempted by accident if he saw something or someone. So Jesus is saying: if you want to be perfect, you must first of all put an end to the whole way of life you have been living, then you too must be a very ordinary person. You have to be someone who is up to his neck in the struggles of daily life, who earns his bread and butter, who fights for his rights in political life, who lives in a grey world where you are surrounded by temptations, where you make mistakes. You must realise that, for all your fine virtue and law-abidingness, you are just as vulgar and sinful a man as any other, like the poorest vagabond. Well, therefore, sell all your wealth, and so follow me! If you want to be perfect, then first of all recognize in yourself that you are nothing, that you cannot be perfect. Then "jer, and follow me"!
So the way to perfection is not by crucifying all my strength and trying to keep the commandments - but by following Him through faith in Jesus. This is the way through a world full of sin, ambiguity, temptations, failures, mistakes, failures. This, the path of sinful man, is the path that follows Jesus to Calvary, where Jesus died for sinners. So, if you want to be perfect, become then the sinner who comes to the cross of Jesus, who there realizes with profound horror that Jesus died on the cross for you and through you. And see there that for this sacrifice of Jesus, God forgave all your sins, and you, who in vain strived for good, who compromised with evil, who could not in any way overcome your sinful nature, He received you into His grace.
So what? Then what Augustine said is true: "Love God and do what you will." Love God for what He has done for you in Jesus, and if you truly love Him, then indeed: do what you will! Then take on this strange life in this strange world as a happy person who knows that everything is all right now. Jesus is your Saviour! Live liberated! Let me illustrate this with an example. If a mother has forgiven her little son who has done something very bad and wrong and it is all right, then a sensible mother does not impose laws on her child about what is allowed and what is not allowed, nor does she impose another punishment if the child does not do it, but says: "Son, you will not cause your mother such grief again, will you? And the child is happy that he can do something for his mother. When she sends him, he goes to the shop for half a kilo of sugar, and in his great effort, he clutches the bag so tightly that the bag bursts and only half of the sugar reaches his mother. So again, he's doing it wrong. But the real mother is not angry because the mother is not interested in the sugar anymore, but in her child. The mother stays a mother and hugs her child, who is grieving over what happened. That is why Augustine says: "Love God and do what you will."
If you have truly accepted God's forgiving grace through Jesus, then you will most certainly ask Jesus always, as Paul did, "Lord, what do you want me to do?"(Acts 9:6) And then Jesus, in His great love for you, will give you commissions. He gives you the commandment, He gives you the great commandment of love, to love your neighbour, to read the Bible, and every day you receive from Him the mandate of what you can do for Him.Then you will try with all your might to fulfil that mandate for Jesus, but sometimes it happens to you as it happened to the child and the bag of sweets: for a child remains a child, even if he is the dearest child of his mother, a sinner remains a sinner, even if God remains a forgiving and loving God...
So do you see? It is in vain to have more knowledge, to be better educated, to strive to fulfill the law, to strive for the moral good: yet we sin again, again and again. Why? Because we do not believe, and we sin to the extent that we do not believe! We always regard the concept of sin as some moral fault. We think the fewer moral faults we commit, the less sinful we are. But this is a complete misunderstanding of sin. The Bible does not say that sin is wrong, that it is wrong, but that what is not of faith is sin! Sin is always that which is not of faith in Jesus, that which is not of love for Jesus.
Let us look again at the example of the little child. He comes home with a beaming face from the shop where his mother has sent him, clutching a sweet under his arm. His mother says to him: But, my son, what have you done now, almost all the sugar has run out! And the child, realizing that he has done something wrong again, says, crying, "I wanted to do it so well! What does the mother do then? Does she punish the child? No! She hugs the little clumsy one who has done it wrong again and tells him: "Darling, you did it wrong, but you did it right for me! And kisses her child with love!
Well, that's it. We too, when we have done all our errands for our Lord, and in the meantime we have "spilled a great deal of sugar in the street", and in our great effort to do something for our Lord, we have indeed spoiled a great many things, and we come home to the Father in heaven, then God will say this: What have you done?... And only there, in the light of God's glory, we will see that everything was very wrong, that we did almost everything wrong, that we messed up. But if we have done it out of grateful love for our Saviour, then it was good in spite of everything - because in the end it is not the "sugar" that counts, but filial love and gratitude. It is not the goodness of our actions that is most important - for they are always mixed with so much evil, no matter how hard we try - but our faith in Jesus! Everything we do out of love for Jesus is precious, true, good, and will remain so forever! What is important is that it is done by faith, by living faith, by true love for God!
This is how a Christian man lives in the world: liberated, set free by Jesus. Of course, all this does not mean that he does not have to take God's law, the moral commandments of the Bible, seriously. On the contrary! He who loves God takes His laws much more seriously than he who loves the law! And it is much more difficult to be so free than to be a servant, whose every step is always prescribed. But never understand the law of God, or the moral precepts of the Bible, as a set of moral rules which you must obey to be perfect, but always as a fatherly commission, given to you by God out of love. Jesus says: "Do not forgive your enemy because it is the duty of a believer, but forgive him for my sake. "For my sake, forbear to offend! For my sake do good! I mean help this man or that man. I am for you to keep your heart pure. Do nothing out of necessity, not out of gnashing of teeth, not out of habit, but out of gratitude for my love. Love is perfection!
God has forgiven all for the sacrifice of Jesus! He has received me back into his grace! You are His sweet child! Well, out of love for Him do all things! All for Jesus!
Speak, speak to me, Lord, for your servant hears your voice!
So I say, for I have long felt that way myself.
Let me walk in your ways, let me wait for your heavenly yodeling
With faithful heart unceasing, with faithful heart unceasing.
(Canto 512, verse 1)
Amen
Date: 12 May 1968.