So one of the worst stereotypes of and in Christianity is that of the "perfect" Christian. The person who has it all together. They've got the perfectly balanced work, spiritual and personal life. They don't have any struggles or flaws or secrets. They've got it all worked out. Obviously to be a Christian you have to be perfect.
Well, if you've ever been in a Church you probably had this image dispelled fairly quickly. And yet the ghost of this expectation continues to haunt us. The Spirit of Holy Perfection continues to worry our minds long after its possibility is disproved. So why do we struggle so hard to attain a perfection that we can never achieve?
Well, first and foremost, we still bandy about the "P word" (as my college band director used to call it) quite a bit in Church language. We are made perfect. Be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect. And when its not a quote there is the ever-present Church facade of perfection. In Church no one has real issues, no one is truly broken, we attend Church cause we like the music and think Jesus was cool not because we're people in need of a savior. Whether we say it or not most of us have donned this visage at one point or another in our Churchy lives.
But there seem to be a lot of problems with the idea of human "perfection". Lets try and think a bit critically for a moment about our theology of perfection. For example, how do we resolve the scriptural conflict between a Paul who tells us God's power is made perfect in our weakness and a Christ who tells us to be perfect? Why would the God who rejected pharisaic piety turn around and seemingly ask for the same? The scriptures seem to insist over and over that God chooses to work through the broken and lacking things to overturn the great. Why does the God of the Underdog seemingly call us to perfection? Why does the God who promises never to test us beyond our ability ask for the seemingly impossible?
Well folks the simple answer is God doesn't call us to perfection. For centuries we've been at the mercy of a minute but extremely important nuance in our English bible translations. The word in question here, our biblical "perfection", is in fact the Greek noun telos. For those of a philosophical or eschatological bent you might recognize this word from the field of teleology. You see, while bible translators have seemingly taken little effort to differentiate these uses, its very clear in its other uses that a strong possibility for the translation of telos is not perfection but rather something more akin to finishing or completion. In fact, this is the root verb in John 19 when Jesus offers his final words in the Johannine account. Not "It is perfected" as a consistent translation would lead us to suspect but rather "It is finished."
God doesn't call us to perfection. At least not in the way we understand it. Human imperfection is built in at a fundamental level. God saw a purpose in crafting a servant which was less than perfect. So if rather than perfect, God calls us to be "whole" or "complete" then what exactly does this look like and why does he do so?
Ultimately, the answer seems to lie in the sometimes beautiful, sometimes dangerous or simply dingy tapestry of human experience known as Community. God calls each of us to completion. Not some kind of universal perfection but rather the utmost expression of ourselves in Him, replete with flaws and weakness. God doesn't want us to discard our individuality. Rather, as the master craftsman He is, God has formed each of us in a unique manner for a unique purpose. It is only in our uniqueness, especially our flaws and weaknesses, in which we can be a part of the grand Community which God has called each of us to. It is only in our weakness that our need for God can truly be felt, only in our weakness that His presence is revealed to us. The God of the poor and broken will seem silent to the strong, as the noise of our own sense of achievement and importance drowns out the quiet still voice. When we can embrace our own limitations only then can we enter into relationship with God.
And yet this is only half the story. Throughout the entirety of scripture Jews and Christians alike have sought the highest level of relationship with God, pursuing ever higher and deeper levels of relationship with the Creator. And yet God does something strange to these seekers. In another dichotomy shattering contradiction God reveals to those that seek after Him that to deepen their understanding and relationship with Him they must first embrace their fellow men, in all their imperfection. Even in the garden when Man is theoretically in his original intended state God looks at Adam and already sees something missing. In the bond of Community God takes our imperfections and our strengths and binds them together in mutual support and need. While our completion as individuals retains human weakness God redeems these flaws in Community, turning our less than into more, our flaws into a new perfection and our brokenness into mosaic.
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