Be perfect…. what???
Parables do give a hint
Therefore you are to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect (Mathew 5, 48)
Our common understanding (highly influenced by Aristotle) of the perfection of God is that it is impossible to achieve. And Jesus gives this impossible commandment. After all, he is a crazy fellow, who makes many unnecessary demands. Another one is, “love your enemies”.
Rather than looking for a definition, some characters of the Bible (especially from the parables) may give us some hint.
It may seem outrageous to equate many of them with definitions of perfection as in the dictionary or in logic. Probably the “perfection” of Jesus is quite different from the definition in logic or in the dictionary. And in that case, these people in the above images and many around us (even some of you who are reading this article) may fit that bill.
Be compassionate as your heavenly father is compassionate (Luke 6, 36)
***A talk by Fr Jose Suresh (in Malayalam) was inspirational for this article.
