The Cross-Road to Perfection—Matthew 5:33-48

Schools and workplaces can be highly competitive environments. At a competitive school, everyone is trying to get the A or the A+, trying to stay on top of all the work, trying to play sports and do extra-curriculars and have friends and please teachers and stay healthy and sane and have fun at the same time. At a competitive workplace, everyone is trying to be an important contributor, a reliable employee and colleague, to stay on top of all the work and be well-liked by bosses, peers, and clients. To survive, it feels like you have to be perfect.

Because of this pressure, people often remind each other, "It's OK not to be perfect." "It's OK to make mistakes." "Just be yourself." Often, I think it's important and helpful to people to be told this.

And then Jesus comes along, and he is supposed to be this really understanding teacher and mentor, and he says, "You must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect."

Don't misunderstand him. He has his own way of saying it's OK to make mistakes. In chapter 11 of Matthew, he says, "Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." That's what over-burdened over-achievers need to hear. Come to Jesus, and he will give you rest.

And yet, he says, "You must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect." The perfection he's talking about is a moral maturity that reflects the character of God. It's the heart-righteousness that he's been speaking of already. He does not mean that his disciples must get straight A's or make a lot of money for the company. But the perfection he demands is not easier than that. It's harder. If you take Jesus seriously here, and really try to obey him, it's going to hurt. As he says later in Matthew, it's going to look like carrying a cross. It's going to look like death.

So how can I come to Jesus and find rest, if he's going to tell me I have to be perfect, and the only way to be perfect is to suffer? What kind of rest is that?

The answer is found in Jesus himself. Jesus does not drive us to perfection: he leads us. And he leads us by the road of his cross, on which he died to take away all our sins. He leads us all the way into the presence of God, where he himself has gone. Since we know that Jesus died for us, we can have peace amid imperfection even while we strive for perfection. And since we know that he has risen from the grave and drawn near to God, we can be sure that we will reach perfection when he takes us to be with himself.

To summarize: Jesus leads us to perfection by the road of his cross. To be perfectly clear, we never reach perfection in this life. But we never tell ourselves, "sin is OK." What we tell ourselves is, "I'm OK -- I am truly well -- because I am in Christ."

In this passage, there are three areas in which Jesus calls us to perfection. They are (1) oaths, (2) resistance, and (3) hatred. Or, positively, (1) truth, (2) peace, and (3) love.

Oaths and Truth

First, Jesus tells us not to swear oaths. People had been told that if they swore to do something, they ought to do it, and that's certainly true. But Jesus says that there is still a problem with the swearing itself. The problem is that everything we could swear by belongs to God, and we have no authority over it. Swearing by something is like invoking a curse on it if we don't keep our word: "If I don't put $100 in the offering on Sunday, then may my hair turn gray!" Jesus says you have no right to do that, because everything belongs to God: heaven, earth, Jerusalem, and even the hair on our heads. We disrespect God when we try to use what belongs to him as a security deposit for our promises. I've used the example before that it would be a bit like me saying, "If I don't keep my promise, then may a tree fall on Paul's car!" Not very respectful.

Instead, we should just say what we mean and leave it at that. Just say "Yes" or "no."

The swearing that Jesus talks about here is different, by the way, from calling God to witness. Scripture speaks positively about people swearing by the Lord, in the sense of calling on the Lord as a witness to our truthfulness, and, since the writers of the New Testament continued to do it, we can be sure that it isn't wrong. But we should still be careful not to use God's name flippantly.

The point is that Jesus' disciples must strive for perfection in the area of truthfulness.

Resistance and Peace

And likewise in the area of peace. The next thing Jesus talks about is resisting evil and offensive people. There is a law in the book of Leviticus: "If anyone injures his neighbor, as he has done it shall be done to him: fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth; whatever injury he has given a person shall be given to him." This law discouraged brawling, ensured justice, and put a limit on punishment. But it seems that some people took it as a license for personal revenge: If he knocks my tooth out, I can (and should) knock his tooth out. Jesus says, on the contrary, don't try to hurt the guy at all. And if he slaps you on one cheek, let him slap the other too. If he sues you for your shirt, give him your coat too, and if some Roman soldier makes you carry his luggage for a mile, which Roman law allowed him to do, carry it two miles, which you didn't have to do. And if someone asks you to give or lend him money, do it.

As when our Lord talks about cutting off our right hand and gouging out our right eye, I think he is aiming for some holy shock value here. He overturns our normal assumption, which is, "I'll do what is best for me, to the full extent of the law," and he's driving home a different rule: "Do what is best for the other guy, even when the law doesn't require it." And as in the case of cutting off our right hand or gouging out our right eye, I don't think his words here are meant to be carried out to the letter on every occasion. Later in this Gospel, when Jesus went into the temple and knocked over the tables of the money-changers and the seats of the pigeon-sellers, he was firmly and forcefully resisting those with whom he disagreed. And there are all sorts of occasions where it might be unwise or impossible to apply these instructions literally: in cases of self-defense, for example, or when someone asks for money to use for evil purposes, or simply when two different people ask for opposite things at the same time.

But many of us don't need to be told that. Many of us need to be told to suffer rather than strike back, to give our time rather than to guard it, to give our money rather than to hoard it. That's where we need to grow to reach perfection.

Hatred and Love

Finally, and climactically, Jesus turns to the topic of hatred and love. "You have heard that it was said, 'You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.'" "You shall love your neighbor" is from the Scriptures, but "you shall hate your enemy" isn't: someone must have thought that it was the logical next step. But Jesus says, no, "Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you." This might be the hardest thing Jesus demands. The reason he gives is that this is what God does: "he makes his sun rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the just and the unjust." It doesn't say that God approves of the evil. It doesn't say that he lets them go unpunished. But, when he sends rain to make their crops grow, that's love. And we should love them too, so that we may be -- in action, not just in theory -- God's children.

If we only love people who love us, we're like everyone else. If we only love people who love us, we're really doing it for ourselves. But if we love our enemies, we're doing it for God, and he will reward us. And we must love them, if we are to be Jesus' disciples -- if we are to be sons of God -- because if we are to be sons of God, we must be like God, and God is perfect.

The Cross-Road

When I hear all these commands, I say, Lord Jesus, you are asking me to give up so much, it is like you are asking me to give up life itself. And that is quite true. Jesus tells us, Take up your cross and follow me.

But the thing to see is that he himself leads the way. He led the way in truth-telling. He spoke the truth, even when he was summoned before the high priest, and he knew that if he admitted who he was, it would cost him his life. He led the way in peacefulness. When people came to arrest him, and Peter tried to defend him, he told Peter to put away his sword. He led the way in loving his enemies. He gave his life for them, and after he rose from the dead, he sent his servants to make disciples of "all nations." Not "all nations except the Jews," although they betrayed him, and not "all nations except the Romans," although they crucified him. “All nations.” He still loved them.

And before he asks us to take up our cross, he asks us to look at his cross, where he took our sins upon himself. He asks us to look up to him now, where he lives, in heaven, representing us before God. If we are his followers, two things will be true. First, we can find peace with God despite our imperfections, knowing that Jesus has made us God's children despite ourselves. And second, we will never stop pursuing perfection -- pursuing heart-deep righteousness -- until we enter the very presence of God and are made like him. Jesus leads us, and he will lead us all the way.

Pastor Nate Jeffries