Be ye perfect
by Andrea Elizabeth
Lately I’ve been wondering if God is a perfectionist. A perfectionist rejects and disdains imperfection. When a Protestant I believed He was. And that Jesus had to cloak our disgustingness with His robe of righteousness. I still felt dirty underneath.
An alternative is to believe our innate goodness, good intentions, or even our willingness to bear Him will make us attractive enough to win His favor. If Christ is so much better, well intentioned, and devoted, how can we be enough?
The homily Sunday was about not asking why God loves us, but how it is important to believe He does. If unworthiness doesn’t prevent it, is God blind? Or extremely condescending? But don’t we condescend to our children and pets because they are attractive to us? But enemies aren’t attractive, and loving them is the true test of Christianity. But aren’t our efforts to love them usually based on forced obedience? I don’t think God loves begrudgingly. If our sins make us enemies of God, do we have to get over feeling so lovable? That’s the opposite of self esteem. Yet He loves us freely. It still seems that we are to find our enemies lovable, or it wouldn’t be love. Love implies desire, not just detached servitude. Is it then a contradiction to say unworthy lovable-ness? Seems so to me. The pure see God in the unworthy somehow, and that’s how they love them. Is their unworthiness cloaked over? I don’t think so, I think their distinctness is part of the attraction. I think understanding why they are imperfect, if even that is accurately seen, helps make them lovable. But we are to strive for perfection and repent of all of our unrighteousness. Do we have to be completely successful? Believing so is motivating, fear of God and all, and I think safer.
Don’t get overwrought. Read Job… beginning at chapter 40. Listen to the Cambridge Orthodox Forum folks on Job: God loves us as we are. Wildness and all. We’re the perfectionists….but our sense of perfection tends towards the self-serving rather than God-serving I think. What we demand of ourselves in obedience to God is good… but even God doesn’t demand it of others, so why should we? Obedience out of love surpasses obedience out of fear. Does love begin with fear? Then how do we define this sort of fear that can grow into love? Not an easy thing.
So it tends to be nuanced, and there’s another edge to the sword that makes it difficult. Ware’s line: Orthodoxy is not a rule book so much as a source of wonder really holds. Perfect weakness… now there’s a hard one. What I like about Job is the way God loves the wild animals, and that makes me think of the horse who would throw its rider, and yet slide back sheepishly for another go at it with the rider. Like my dog who can’t control himself… he wants to I think, but he just can’t. I think we honor the intention… yes, we leash the dog, but we love him still. The visible world… well… it’s about a lot of things, but not as much about intention as it might be.
So we shouldn’t be afraid of God ceasing to love us. I think we should fear broken communion though. Who knows to whom the bridal chamber doors will be closed?