Perfection and Other Misconceptions of Life

Perfection: “noun, the condition, state, or quality of being free or as free as possible from all flaws or defects.” (Oxford Languages)

Perfectionism: noun, refusal to accept any standard short of perfection; “the need to be or appear to be perfect, or even to believe that it is possible to achieve perfection.…Perfectionism is not the same thing as striving to be our best. Perfection is not about healthy achievement and growth.” (GoodTherapy.org)

Perfection and perfectionism are two difficult words in the English language. The notion that we are able to be free from flaw or defect sets many people on a path of self-destruction in search of an unattainable goal. This is slipping over the line to perfectionism. After all, we are only mortal. This is the first bit of good news.

There is something to be said for striving to be our best, but that’s not the framework here. Surely every great stride in science, medicine, writing and all the arts have grown from the desire to be and do better. Watching the Olympics is a study in athletic excellence that pushes the human body to be its very best. Still, it is different from the pull of perfection that plagues and paralyzes so many.

There is a big hunk of religious baggage that attaches itself to the words perfect and perfectionism. In Matthew 5:48, these words are attributed to Jesus: “Be perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect.” As a kid I figured I was pretty much screwed as I had no chance of touching those words with a ten foot pole.

It wasn’t until I was in seminary that I learned that the translation of the Greek word to be “perfect” was complete garbage. I heaved a sigh of relief. Maybe I did have a better chance than a snowball in August. The jury was still out.

The verse should read, “Be complete, even as your Father in heaven is complete.” The verse is an invitation to wholeness.  Being complete begins with the assertion that we are made in the image of God and that we are most complete when we live in a defining relationship with God. It means a relationship that supersedes all other relationships. Gratefully this is not a task to be accomplished in a proscribed time frame, say a week from next Tuesday, but rather a life-long journey that centers and grounds the rest of life.

To say it is unfortunate that the translating fathers (and yes they were men) messed up this verse is an understatement. It contributes to so many followers seeing themselves as total failures who have no chance of being anything else. Being perfect may not  be one of the Big Ten, but being attributed to Jesus gives it a bit more clout than the average Joe muttering it under his breath on the way to his lunch break.

We tend to give the “words of Jesus” a whole lot of power, so it really sucks when people get them wrong. Jesus invites his followers to be complete, to be whole. It is nothing short of a wholesale transformation of our way of being in the world. And luckily we have the rest of our lives to live into the journey, knowing we will never fully attain it. This is one of those times when the goal is secondary to the journey. This is the next bit of good news.

We are invited into an eternal waltz with the Holy One where life is changed and reshaped as a result of the dance. It teaches us to love creation and treat it with reverence and respect. No more throwing trash out the window. Doing a better job caring for the few square feet of land entrusted to us for the time being. It means remembering that, as the old kids’ song goes, “All God’s Critters Got a Place in the Choir.” It means paying attention to Climate Change and so many other things. This dance means we see all of life and all of creation as holy and if that doesn’t change us, I don’t know what will.

The dance of relationship also changes how we look at one another. It means we have to dig deep down and rout out all the places where fear and prejudice and bias cause us to see others as “less than.” All the “isms” that separate us, all the judgements we pass on one another, all the socially constructed definitions of what is acceptable and what is not, need to go. All we need to know is that all people are created in the image of the divine. It is only through relationship that we look beyond what is presented to see the face of the holy within another.

God’s eternal love affair with humanity is nothing more and nothing less than an invitation to completeness. The dance doesn’t change God, it changes us–little by little, day by day from today until the day we draw our last breath. It is the most glorious and humbling dance we can do. And the best news of all is that it has nothing to do with being perfect. Put on your dancing shoes, the Divine awaits your entering the music that grounds the essence of life.