Perfectly Imperfect

Perfectly Imperfect
Matthew 5:48


I used to be arrogant, but now I’m perfect.

Or maybe I should say, I used to try to be perfect, but now I’m arrogant.  I’m just kidding, of course.  I’ve never had an elevated sense of myself.  Just the opposite.  But I was somewhat of a perfectionist about myself.  It took me a long time to realize I was never going to make it.  I was never going to be perfect.  That I was fundamentally flawed.  Every thing I did was flawed.

Why was that so hard to accept for so long?  Why did I beat myself up because I could never quite grasp that for which I was reaching:  some self-created sense of perfection.  Why did it take so long to become comfortable with myself for what I was:  a human being who was OK, and lovable, even if I wasn’t a 10.  Why was nothing I ever did quite good enough, in my own eyes?  How come I could allow others to be imperfect?  I could even help people celebrate their humanness, their imperfection.  But I couldn’t do that for myself.

I confess, Jesus didn’t help me with my problem.  On one hand, it seems to me, that Jesus was compassionate toward people’s shortcomings and imperfections.  There were some gross misbehaviors--some glaring imperfections--that he was very lenient with.  He was forgiving and caring.

So why, on the other hand, did Jesus make this statement:  “You must be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect”?  Didn’t Jesus realize the frustration that statement was going to cause?  That people like me would come along and try to fulfill that impossible quest?  Didn’t Jesus realize that perfectionism becomes a passion--a driving force that feeds on itself?  That trying to be perfect slowly but surely consumes a person, not to mention make life miserable for everyone around them?

My turning away from perfectionism and perfectionistic attitudes came about from two Christian sources:  Alcoholics Anonymous, in dealing with being a child of an alcoholic; and, the writings of the so-called ancient desert Fathers.  The Desert Fathers were the monks who went out into the desert by themselves to live and pray and encounter God, outside the boundaries of civilization.

The Desert Fathers were trying to guard themselves against what they called “the three passions.”  At first I thought they must have been talking about sex, since all of the Desert Fathers were celibate.  But I was wrong.  The three passions they sought to bring under control were perfectionism, judgementalism, and despair.

If the Desert Fathers, these spiritual giants, these disciplined men of the faith, were trying to keep themselves from perfectionism, then what was I doing trying to be so perfect?  And what did they do with Jesus’ statement?  You’d think the opposite would be true.  You’d think they were trying to fulfill Jesus’ words, not work against them.

They realized, though, that perfectionism is a passion.  It is a negative energy that destroys life, rather than make life fulfilling.  Take, for example, a guy who was the son of one of the members of the church in Colby where I served for 11 years.  This guy was moving up his professional ladder to a vice-president position.  He was poised as next in line to be CEO.  He displayed energy and drive.  He was showcased as a role model to new employees.  Everyone was enamored by his focus on perfect performance.

Yet, no one really felt close to that guy.  No one in the company and no one at home.  His wife and two children certainly didn’t.  On those weekends when he was not on the road or at the office, he brought work home.  He demanded that he be allowed to use his family’s time so he could perfect his reports and memos.  After all, he reasoned perfectly to himself, he was doing all this for his family.  The bitter irony was that trying harder and harder for perfection and recognition alienated the people he hoped would love him.

Here’s another example.  Lucy, in the “Peanuts” comic strip, sort of comes to that realization.  In the first frame, Lucy is leaning on Schroeder's piano and she says, "I have examined my life and found it to be without flaw."  In the second frame, she turns to Schroeder, still intent on his piano playing, and tells him, "Therefore, I'm going to hold a ceremony and present myself with a medal..."  Continuing in the third frame she says, "I will then give a very moving acceptance speech...after that I'll greet myself in the receiving line..."  Then finally in the last frame she states, "When you're perfect, you have to do everything yourself."

"When you're perfect, you have to do everything yourself."  Isn’t that the truth?!  It’s the truth because perfectionists, like Lucy, come up with their own definitions of what perfect is.  Once you make up your own definitions, you try to achieve them.  But it just doesn’t work.

The harder truth to face is that there is nothing perfect.  Everything is flawed and affected by disintegration.  Because everything and everyone is controlled by its environment, nothing can stand perfectly alone to remain perfect.  It is affected and influenced by the interaction with others, who are just as flawed.  That interaction always elicits a flawed response--according to your definition of perfection.

For example, when my kids were much younger, I would ask them to take turns with the dishes.  Because I always washed dishes by hand (because that’s the perfect way) they would either wash or dry.  Part of my strategy was to also have some one-on-one time with them while we did the dishes together.

I remember one time the dishes were stacking up, and Ryan hadn’t shown up to help dry.  I said, “Ryan, come help dry and put the dishes away, please.”  His response was, “Just a second.”  Well, after about 10,000 seconds had passed, the dishes were still sitting in the drainer.

Sometimes I’d have to yell at him to get in the kitchen, NOW!  My perfectionistic idea was that when a father asks a son to do something, his son should drop everything he’s doing and immediately comply with his father’s wishes.  The “perfect” reply is not, “Just a second,” but, “I’m on my way.”

But I had to come to learn that Ryan worked on a different idea of what it means to perfectly put the dishes away.  Ryan eventually got the job done.  And well.  The dishes got dried, and they got put away.  But when he was ready to do the job.  So I had to evaluate, what’s most important here?  That the dishes got put away according to my idea of how it should be done, or his?  The dishes were put away.  Isn’t that all that’s important?

The point is, perfectionists ideas of what is perfect are usually their own, and not shared by too many other people.  What is perfect to one person is merely what they are most comfortable with.  Perfect is something defined by our own outlook.  It is determined by our own habits and notions that have come to us according to our upbringing.  Most, if not all notions of perfection are not, by any means, universally agreed upon.

The Christian Desert Fathers saw a destructive tornado forming around the attitude of perfectionism.  If you tie your self-esteem to your perfectionistic attitudes, then you’ll only allow yourself to feel good about yourself when you have done something perfectly.  But how often does that happen?  The only way you can feel better about yourself is to achieve even more perfectly.

But because nothing is perfect, frustration and worse is the result.  Perfectionists become self-punishers.  They will never win.  Ed Vargo, a major league baseball umpire once said of his job, “We’re supposed to be perfect our first day on the job, and then show constant improvement.”  It’s a terrible rat race for a non-existent prize.

Those who struggle with being a perfectionist also know about another “p” word:  procrastination.  Perfectionists can be passionate procrastinators.  They are so afraid of making a mistake, or not doing something perfectly.  So things keep getting put off.  If you know a prolific procrastinator, you might be actually dealing with a perfectionist.

Perfectionists hide behind all sorts of false excuses when they are really just afraid.  When perfectionism leads to procrastination, procrastination leads to paralysis.  Instead of just putting things off, there is the fear of being imperfect.  So nothing gets done.  All the gears get jammed and locked in place.  The only task that the perfectionist can pretend to perform perfectly is the one that he or she leaves entirely undone.

There is no prize, but there is a sane alternative.  It has been taught me by friends and parishioners who have battled alcoholism through AA, and from a lot of reading about adult children of alcoholics.  One thing they talk about is the relief of being average.  There is a certain relief to allowing yourself to grasp the gift of averageness.  If you stopped and thought about it, average is what you are and what you do most of the time.  Half the time you do better, and half you may do worse.  It’s a more realistic outlook.

The choice is to aim for progress rather than perfection.  Reality dictates that we are always on the way, never at the same place.  That’s one of the great truths we will see as we read Pilgrim’s Progress together during Lent.  The only thing that matters, really, is the direction we are moving.  Life is not one big command performance at which you have to nail it, as if that’s the only chance you’re going to get.  I felt bad for Christina Aguilera at the singing of the National Anthem at the Super Bowl a couple of weeks ago.  That’s got to be everyone’s biggest fear, who gets to sing that song in front of so many people.  But she will get another chance.  She got back up in front of a world stage at the Grammy awards last Monday and nailed her song.  You get up, you keep going.

Life is more like a continuing series of experiments.  Some of them will fail.  Some of them will succeed.  It’s more important to take time to concentrate on the progress you’ve made.  Celebrate the progress you make today, rather than worry about the ways you think you’ve been imperfect.  How much more sane is the outlook of making progress instead of trying to become perfect?

So where does all this put us with Jesus’ statement?  I think what I’m talking about, in terms of progress, is closer to Jesus’ meaning.  A lot of the translations use the word perfect.  But the Greek word Jesus spoke has more the meaning of being complete or completed.  It means seeing something through all the way to the end in an undivided way.  When Jesus was dying on the cross, one of his last statements was, “It is finished.”  The word “finished,” in Greek is the same word used here for “perfect.”  What Jesus was saying on the cross was, “It is completed.  I have seen this through all the way to the end.  I haven’t wavered one way or the other, but saw it straight through to the end.”

That’s why I like The Message translation in this verse from Matthew:
“In a word, what I’m saying is, Grow up.  You’re kingdom subjects.  Now live like it.  Live out your God-created identity...”

To be “perfect,” then is to live a life that fulfills, that completes, and brings to completion the best you, as God intends.  It means being on a journey throughout life that seeks to make undivided progress all the way to the end where you can say, also, “It is finished.”  It is complete.  I have seen my life through to the end, as God wanted me to.

We will stumble along the way.  But even our stumbling can be with a forward momentum.  When we get up, we are still heading in the right direction.  Still making progress.  Still undivided in our resolve to make progress in our faith in God, in our love for God, and in our love for each other.