Imperfect Perfection

My favorite part of the sacrament of reconciliation is the end. It’s the ultimate reward for having to inventory all my wrongs since the last confession to get that absolution and penance. Assuming that I’ve been honest and forthright in the box, I come out squeaky clean, at least until I venture outside and make my first judgmental observation or begin to lose my focus during my penitential prayers. Like the childish scamp that I am, no sooner does Papa clean me up than he finds me playing in the nearest mud puddle.

What I really liked when I first entered the confession closet was the idea of imperfect and perfect contrition. Initially, I had the mistaken notion that I might not have to be really sorry for my transgressions, but just repentant enough to reach imperfection. As most of my acquaintances will testify, I have no problem falling short of perfection, and some may claim that I am a professional in this realm.

I soon discovered that I did have to be truly and completely remorseful for my sins, but that my motivation for the confession did not have to be as exemplary. It was allowed (though not preferred) that I was spilling the beans on myself because I didn’t want to get zapped by the Being with the thunderbolt or find myself with an eternal reservation at the Hell Fire Motel. Keep in mind that imperfect contrition is only supposed to be a stop-over on the way to a deeper relationship with the Creator. According to those in the know, as I grow closer to God, contrition becomes more perfect as I am sacramentally sharing my failures because I love the one who loved me first, and don’t want to injure the intimacy.

To some, perhaps, this is a little strange, like the Divine Boss rewarding His laborers the same if they work hard only for the pay off, or because they want to do well for Him. In other words, the grieved penitent gets the same reward as the relieved penitent who is just trying to stay out of God’s crosshairs. And what do we expect from the Master who, as characterized parably, shells out the same pay to the ones working all day and those who stopped in for a couple hours?¹ Could this have to do with what Jesus taught to the law-lovers, that there is something more profound than just being a proud, little, rulistic robot?

Back in the day when the general populace was convinced that a glance at God would be their last, that the lower their profile the less likely the wrathful lightning would strike them out, those times when prayers were filled with requests for enemy annihilation and sinner slaying, regulations seemed the safest way to go. After all, those prophetic souls who were on a first name basis with deity usually came to a bad end.

No matter how eloquent kings and prophets could be, they just couldn’t change the widespread notion that an encounter with God could be bad for your health and prematurely terminate your future. Then as now, God usually gets the blame when things go bad. After all, even if He isn’t in the smiting mood, He does allow hardship and tragedy. There are occasions when the Heavenly Honcho gets credit if things go well, though there is that luck thing that we all get tangled up with. When we aren’t pointing the finger at our supernatural Papa, isn’t tribulation sometimes called misfortune, with its flip-side, fortune, meaning good luck?

After several millennia of this kind of attitude prevalent among populace, the One who rolled out this ball of dirt had to come down in person, not with fireworks and earthquakes and typhoons and flaming swords, but with the still, small voice of a baby. He walked lots of miles in our sandals, laughed with us, suffered with us, and died in our place to show us the genuine article called love. Then, in spite of the fact that we killed Him (which He forgave while we were doing it), He returned to heaven to prepare a place for us, sending His Spirit as our advocate—the cosmic connection between flesh and eternity.

Now don’t get me wrong, He still wants us to abide by the commandments, coming as He did to fulfill the law not abolish it.² However, at the heart of this regulation cogitation is the Potter’s desire to perfect the clay via perfect love, rather than the imperfect statutory, fear-infested faith, one misstep away from the forever frying pan. In order to be perfect as You-Know-Who is, we have to love one another and our enemies and God and even those do their best to keep us from it—not because it’s a dirty, rotten, stinkin’, filthy job that Christians got to do, but so that we do not grieve the one who loves us the most and the best even when we are at our worst. Our Father, His Son, and Their Spirit never stop giving, and They have scripturally expressed a desire that we at least take a shot at this perfection³, fueled by the love beyond all bounds. Ultimately, we may find the new, improved version of ourselves in a state of peace which surpasses understanding. Sounds like a perfect payoff for us little imperfect imps.

¹ Matthew 20:1-16
² Matthew 5:17
³ Matthew 5:48