Snakeshead lilies and daffodils in the Forest of Dean, made famous by the brilliant TV series The Change.
Last week the wonderful Pray as You Go app invited me to reflect on the significance of Jesus’s actions in John 7. By this point in the Gospel narrative Jesus was keeping well away from Judea, since his life was under threat. Despite this, his brothers encouraged him to go to Jerusalem for the festival of Booths, but Jesus point blank refused. Shortly afterwards, he went to the festival after all, but in secret. By the middle of the festival, Jesus stopped hiding and started to teach openly in the temple.
What are we to make of this chain of events? Surely since Jesus was fully God, he must have known that he needed to teach in the temple. And if that were the case, how is it that he appears to have misled or lied to his brothers? Something else must be going on here and the most obvious answer is that we see Jesus changing his mind. We see him working things out as he goes along.
As well as being fully God, Jesus was fully human, and I believe this story is a lovely expression of that humanity. This is not the only example, we also see his humanity in the ‘disobedient’ child hanging around the temple when he should have been on his way home, and in the episode with the Canaanite woman where he learned a thing or two. After all, what is more human than to change our mind? To learn, to grow and to develop?
Which brings me to the question of perfection. If Jesus had been ‘perfect’ he would have known all along that he needed to teach in the temple and would have found a way to do that. Instead, he needed the gentle encouragement of the Spirit to move him from staying in Galilee, to going secretly to Jerusalem, to coming out of hiding. If Jesus needed some help, then so do we, which means that we needn’t be so concerned about making ‘wrong’ decisions. We too can be guided into new directions as the spirit leads and calls us. Fumbling our way forward and taking apparent blind alleys is not failure to adhere to God’s predestined path for our life, but is rather taking steps in a dance into an unformed future; a dance that requires both partners to move together.
And since Jesus wasn’t perfect, God certainly isn’t asking that of us. Instead of striving to ‘get it right’ the whole time, we are called to seek the kingdom of God – a messy, spontaneous, beautiful, ramshackle place that is easy for ‘prostitutes and sinners’ to find a home in – not sterile perfection. Were we ever to attain ‘perfection’ in any area of our lives, then we would have a reached a static point and, since one of the criteria for being alive is the capacity to move, we would effectively have died.
The people most committed to perfection in the Gospel stories were the Pharisees, and Jesus made it clear that they were going down the wrong track. Striving for perfection, and even excellence, can be toxic. Of course, there is a place for expertise, but at this point in history we urgently need people of wisdom and compassion, and such people have rarely led a ‘perfect’ life.
So, Pray As You, here is my reflection, heavily influenced by my own struggle with perfectionism.