Homily for March 7th, 2020: Matthew 5: 43-48. “Be
perfect”
“Be perfect,”
Jesus tells us in today’s gospel reading. How is that possible? One of the
greatest 20th century apologists for biblical Christianity, the
British Anglican, C.S. Lewis, writes this about this seemingly impossible command:
“On the one
hand, God’s demand for perfection need not discourage you in the least in your
present attempts to be good, or even in your failures. Each time you fall, he
will pick you up again. And He knows perfectly well that your own efforts are never
going to bring you anywhere near perfection. On the other hand, you must
realize from the outset that the goal toward which He is beginning to guide you
is absolute perfection; and no power in the whole universe, except you yourself,
can prevent Him for taking you to that goal. That is what you are in for. And
it is very important to realize that. If we do not, then we are very likely to
start pulling back and resisting him after a certain point . . .
“But this is a
fatal mistake. Of course, we never wanted, and never asked, to be made into the
sort of creatures He is going to make us into. But the question is not what we intended
ourselves to be, but what He intended us to be when he made us.”
C.S. Lewis
Mere Christianity
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