The scriptures were written to bless and encourage us,
and surely they do that.
We do thank heaven for every chapter and verse
we've ever been given.
But have you noticed that every now and then a passage will
appear that reminds us we are falling a little short?
For example, the Sermon on the Mount begins with soothing,
beautiful, gentle beatitudes, but in the verses that follow,
we are told--among other things--not only not to kill
but also not even to be angry.
We are told not only not to commit adultery
but also not to even have impure thoughts.
To those who ask for it, we are to give our coat
and then give our cloak also.
We are to love our enemies, bless those who curse us,
and do good to them that hate us.
If that's your morning scripture study,
and after reading just that far you are pretty certain you are
not going to get good marks on your gospel report card,
then the final commandment in the chain is sure to finish
the job: "Be ye therefore perfect,
even as your Father ... in heaven is perfect."
With that concluding imperative, we want to go back to bed
and pull the covers over our head.
Such celestial goals seem beyond our reach.
Yet surely the Lord would never give us a commandment
He knew we could not keep.
Let's see where this quandary takes us.
Around the Church I hear many struggle with this issue:
"I am just not good enough."
"I fall so far short."
"I will never measure up."
I hear this from teenagers.
I hear it from missionaries.
I hear it from new converts.
I hear it from lifelong members.
One insightful Latter-day Saint, Sister Darla Isackson,
has observed that Satan has somehow
managed to make covenants and commandments seem
like curses and condemnations.
For some he has turned the ideals and inspiration
of the gospel into self-loathing and misery-making.
What I now say in no way denies or diminishes
any commandment of God He has ever given us.
I believe in His perfection, and I
know we are His spiritual sons and daughters
with divine potential to become as He is.
I also know that as children of God,
we should not demean or vilify ourselves,
as if beating up on ourselves is somehow going to make us
the person God wants us to become.
No!
With a willingness to repent and a desire
for increased righteousness always in our hearts,
I would hope we could pursue personal improvement
in a way that doesn't include getting ulcers or anorexia,
feeling depressed, or demolishing self-esteem.
That is not what the Lord wants for Primary children or anyone
else who honestly sings, "I'm trying to be like Jesus."
To put this issue in context, may I remind all of us
that we live in a fallen world and for now we
are a fallen people.
We are in the telestial kingdom; that's
spelled with a t, not a c, yet.
As President Russell M. Nelson has taught,
here in mortality perfection is still "pending."
So I believe that Jesus did not intend His sermon
on this subject to be a verbal hammer for battering us
into our shortcomings.
No, I believe He intended it to be a tribute to who
and what God the Eternal Father is
and what we can achieve with Him in eternity.
In any case, I am grateful to know that in spite
of my imperfections, at least God is perfect--that at least
He is, for example, able to love His enemies, because too often,
due to the "natural man" and woman in us,
you and I are sometimes that enemy.
How grateful I am that at least God
can bless those who despitefully use Him
because, without wanting to or intending to,
we all despitefully use Him sometimes.
I am grateful that God is merciful and a peacemaker
because I need mercy and the world needs peace.
Of course, all we say of the Father's virtues
we also say of His Only Begotten Son,
who lived and died unto the same perfection.
I hasten to say that focusing on the Father's and the Son's
achievements rather than our failures does not give us
one ounce of justification for undisciplined lives
or dumbing down our standards.
No, from the beginning the gospel has been
"for the perfecting of the saints, ... till we ...
come ... unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature
of the fulness of Christ."
No, I am simply suggesting that at least one purpose
of a scripture or a commandment can
be to remind us just how magnificent "the measure
of the stature of the fulness of Christ"
really is, inspiring in us greater love
and admiration for Him and a greater desire to be like Him.
"Yea, come unto Christ, and be perfected in him,"
Moroni pleads.
"Love God with all your might, mind and strength, then ...
by his grace [you] may be perfect in Christ."
Our only hope for true perfection
is in receiving it as a gift from heaven.
We won't earn it.
Thus, the grace of Christ offers us not only salvation
from sorrow and sin and death but also salvation
from our own persistent self-criticism.
Let me use one of the Savior's parables
to say this in a little different way.
A servant was in debt to his king for the amount
of 10,000 talents.
Hearing the servant's plea for patience and mercy,
"the lord of that servant was moved with compassion, and ...
forgave ... the debt."
But then that same servant would not
forgive a fellow servant who owed him 100 pence.
On hearing this, the king lamented to the one
he had forgiven, "Shouldest not thou
also have had compassion on thy fellowservant,
even as I had pity on thee?"
Now, there's some little difference
of opinion among scholars regarding the monetary values
mentioned here.
And forgive the U.S. monetary reference.
But to make the math easy, if the smaller,
unforgiven 100-pence debt were, say, $100 in current times,
then the 10,000-talent debt so freely forgiven would have
approached $1 billion--or more!
As a personal debt, that is an astronomical number,
totally beyond our comprehension.
Nobody can shop that much.
[LAUGHTER]
For the purposes of this parable,
it is supposed to be incomprehensible;
it is supposed to be beyond our ability to grasp,
to say nothing of beyond our ability to repay.
That is because this isn't a story about two servants
arguing in the New Testament.
It is a story about us, the fallen human family--mortal
debtors, transgressors, and prisoners all.
Every one of us is a debtor, and the verdict
was imprisonment for every one of us.
And there we would have all remained
were it not for the grace of a King,
who sets us free because He loves us and is
"moved with compassion toward us."
Jesus uses an unfathomable measurement here
because His Atonement is an unfathomable gift given
at an incomprehensible cost.
That, it seems to me, is at least
part of the meaning behind Jesus's charge to be perfect.
We may not be able to demonstrate yet
the 10,000-talent perfection the Father and the Son have
achieved, but it is not too much for Them to ask us that we be
a little more godlike in little things,
that we speak and act and love and forgive and repent
and improve at least at a 100-pence level of perfection,
which it is clearly within our ability to do.
My brothers and sisters, except for Jesus,
there have been no flawless performances
on this earthly journey we are pursuing.
So while in mortality let's strive for steady improvement
without obsessing over what behavioral scientists might
call "toxic perfectionism."
We should avoid that latter excessive expectation
of ourselves and of others and, I might add,
of those who are called to serve in the Church--which
for Latter-day Saints means everyone,
for we are all called to serve somewhere.
In that regard, Leo Tolstoy wrote once
of a priest who was criticized by one of his congregants
for not living as resolutely as he should,
the critic concluding that the principles the erring preacher
taught must therefore also be erroneous.
In response to that criticism, the priest
says: "Look at my life now and compare it to my former life.
You will see that I am trying to live ... the truth I proclaim."
Unable to live up to the high ideals he taught,
the priest admits he has failed.
But he cries:
"Attack me [then if you wish], I do this myself,
but [don't] attack ... the path I follow.
...
If I know the way home [but] am walking along it drunkenly,
is it any less the right way simply because I am
staggering from side to side?
"...
Do not gleefully shout, 'Look at him! ...
There he is crawling into a bog!'
No, [don't] gloat, ...
give ... your help [to anyone trying to walk the road back
to God.]"
Brothers and sisters, every one of us
aspires to a more Christlike life
than we often succeed in living.
If we admit that honestly and are trying to improve,
we are not hypocrites; we are human.
May we refuse to let our own mortal follies,
and the inevitable shortcomings of even the best men and women
around us, to make us cynical about the truths of the gospel,
the truthfulness of the Church, our hope for the future,
or the possibility of godliness.
If we persevere, then somewhere in eternity our refinement will
be finished and complete--which is the New Testament meaning
of perfection.
I testify of that grand destiny, made available to us
by the Atonement of the Lord Jesus Christ,
who Himself continued "from grace
to grace" until in His immortality
He received a perfect fulness of celestial glory.
I testify that in this and every hour
He is, with nail-scarred hands, extending
to us that same grace, holding on to us
and encouraging us, refusing to let
us go, until we are safely home in the embrace of Heavenly
Parents.
For such a perfect moment, I continue
to strive, however clumsily.
For such a perfect gift, I continue to give thanks,
however inadequately.
I do so in the very name of Perfection
itself, Him who has never been clumsy or inadequate
but who loves all of us who are, even
the Lord Jesus Christ, amen.