Editor's note: This is a guest post from Michael Gormley, St. John Neumann Catholic Church youth minister
Be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect!
These words of Christ in the Sermon on the Mount may fill us with fear: "But I'm not perfect, and I never will be. This Christian life is impossible!"
Such a response is totally natural because as human persons after the Fall we are continually confronted with the reality of our own imperfections. Mistakes, weaknesses, past sins, baggage, drama and family history seem to conspire to make of us the worse version of ourselves. We can whole-heartedly agree with Saint Paul that more often than not, we do that which we do not want to do and do not do the very thing we want! How is this amplified in our ministries?
Faced with our frailty, there are three responses to this commandment of Christ to be perfect.
First, we can reject it and turn back to our former ways, despising Christ and His Church. This is a genuine reaction (I would rather you were hot or cold...), but is obviously not ideal. Second, and most common, but also the most pathetic, we can reinvent Jesus' Christianity to suit our perspectives, our times, our version of life so that the demands are not so darned difficult. But this is an entirely false Christianity, ME-ianity, one that lets the creature tell the Creator how things ought to be (but you are not hot or cold but lukewarm. Therefore I will vomit you out of my mouth). This Christianity says to God, "Listen, Lord, Your servant is speaking," instead of Samuel's response, "Speak Lord, your servant is listening."
Or finally, we can live repentance and surrender to His grace. As G. K. Chesterton once said, It is not that Christianity has been tried and found wanting. But rather, it has been found difficult and left untried. This lived repentance is our contribution to Jesus' gift of salvation.
Repentance is the first impulse of a true Christian. It declares that Jesus' words are true, that we are called to be perfect as God the Father Himself is perfect but that we are far from that perfection. We are not independent business partners engaging in a contract with God for salvation in exchange for tithing and some moralistic behaviors. We are creatures who openly and consistently rebel against our Father in favor of ourselves. There is no deal brokered, no goods and services exchanging hands equally. There is only our lack, our brokenness, our sinfulness and His desire to save us beyond all death.
Lent is the Season of Repentance, not just the time when the Church makes us feel guilty for drinking too much soda or liking meat too much. It is an intense period of meditation on our very personal need for a Savior, for God to remove from us the things that keep us in the tomb of our own wretchedness. Easter's message is that the tomb is empty, that we are free because Christ has conquered death and sin has no claim over us. Lenten fasts challenge us to confront those tombs and conquer them, not with white-knuckled human effort, but through prayerful surrender.
Lent is not about working our way to heaven but about realizing that, thanks to Baptism, Confirmation and the Eucharist, heaven is already working its way in us. We so often have it backwards! God has already saved us. Repenting is the path toward making more room in our hearts for that grace to seep in. Repenting declares to the universe that we are responsible for our own sins "through what I have done and what I have failed to do." But thanks to the cross and resurrection and to the institution of the Church, His Body, our repentance becomes the source of the forgiveness that Christ won for us on the cross, especially in Confession.
Ministry in or from the Church must always carry within it both the cross and the empty tomb. Whether we are serving at tables or preaching the Gospel, serving soup or pouring our hearts out at a Christ Renews His Parish Retreat testimony or in small groups with high school students, we do it knowing that God's grace is alive and is moving His people toward repentance. Conversion is not a one-time-only event but must become integral to life. The goal is to be perfect as God the Father is perfect and every single time we fall short of that goal, then repenting and converting re-pristinates this gospel within us.
It does not matter if we are literally perfect at our deaths (that's what Purgatory is for!) but that we strive always toward this goal. It perpetually makes the complacent disciples uncomfortable, rather than comforted by the false gospel of ME-ianity.
Look at the story of the woman caught in adultery. She was caught in the very act of adultery (where's the man?) and dragged by the supposed Righteous Ones (self-appointed, as always) into the center of the town to be used in a trap for Jesus Christ. We know Jesus' response to the Pharisees, "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone," but do we remember His words to the woman? "Is there anyone here to condemn you?" She responds, probably trembling at what next will happen, "No one, sir." And now He says to her, "Neither do I condemn you. Go, and sin no more."
Transformed from sinner to public object of scorn to salvation by the ministering words of our Lord. She was not perfect as her heavenly Father is perfect. But through encountering the radical forgiveness of Jesus in that public space, she now is on the path toward perfection.
So let this Lent become a call for you to repent and believe again in the Gospel, but also let this message of lived repentance challenge your ministry. Look deeply into the daily mechanics of what makes your ministry happen and ask yourself and your volunteers, "How can we make this work more His work? How can we become more transparent to let His mercy shine through? From what do we need to repent?"
Asking these questions and honestly seeking the answers can cause some radical changes in your ministry or maybe small adjustments. Often we can get bogged down in the attitude that, "It's always been done this way," but that tool of Satan can cause us to demand the Spirit follow our institutions rather than having our hearts follow the Spirit.
Ministry led by unrepentant sinners will fail because it becomes self-glorifying rather than God-glorifying. Ministries led by men and women who are living out their repentance, who are following the Spirit, who are not afraid to say, "I messed up and I am sorry," these ministries will endure and bear fruit sixty, eighty and a hundred fold. So be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect. This Lent is a perfect opportunity to begin anew with a cry of repentance on our lips!
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Michael Gormley, aka "Gomer," is the youth minister at St. John Neumann Catholic Church. His main mission is to evangelize within the Church, seeing major problems with both the pre-Vatican II emphasis on rote memorization and the post-Vatican II emphasis on a watered-down experiential catechesis. Gomer heads Life Teen, Confirmation and EDGE and you can see him helping out around the RCIA program and "Between the Masses" from time to time. Follow his blogs, Passionate Catholic and Another Thing.
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