Devotional from Pastor Dave July 6, 2023

A very rare thing happened the other day in the world of Major League Baseball—a pitcher pitched a perfect game. A perfect game is a game lasting at least nine innings in which not a single batter from the opposing team reaches base by any means whatsoever (hit, walk, or error). It is so rare it has only happened twenty-four times, and only twenty-two times since the modern era began in 1901. Statisticians calculate that when a pitcher assumes the mound at the beginning of a MLB game, he has .000983 percent chance of pitching a perfect game. It is so rare that it has probably never happened in the over 40 men’s church softball league.

On June 28, Domingo German of the New York Yankees became the 24th MLB pitcher to pitch a perfect game. He is the first pitcher born in the Dominican Republic to have done so. His name is now in the history books among an elite number of pitchers.

Since hearing the news of this most recent perfect baseball game, I have been thinking about that word “perfect” (in fact, I used to use a word processor called Word Perfect). It’s a word that Jesus uses. In his famous Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5-7, he calls us to “be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Mt 5:48).

I used to be something of a perfectionist. I tried to be perfect in just about everything I did. When I was in elementary school, I had three straight years of perfect attendance (maybe I was really motivated by the field day and pizza party at the end of the year for all those who had perfect attendance). I sought perfection in my grades. This was something that I pursued all throughout college and seminary as well. I even sought a sort of moral perfection. For example, I remember trying to go all through ninth grade without saying a single cuss word.

When I was in seminary, I learned more about this word “perfect” that Jesus is using here. The original Greek word is teleois, which can also mean mature, whole, complete. Substitute one of those words for “perfect” and see how that sounds to you. Be mature. Be whole. Be complete. To me, that sounds a lot less intimidating, a little less impossible.

John Wesley also talked a lot about perfection. He used that word interchangeably with sanctification and transformation. For Wesley, perfection was less about reaching some state of perfection as it was the process of being perfected, being made more perfect, more mature, more complete, more Christ-like. It is essentially all about becoming more loving. Being perfected in love, in God’s love, God’s perfect love. Be loving, as your Father in heaven is loving.

After all, that’s really what Jesus is talking about here in Matthew 5. He’s calling us to love others like God loves us. To love not just our neighbors, but also our enemies. To love not only those who love us, but those who don’t. That’s what it means to love perfectly, like God does.

Now, this may sound like it’s coming out of left field. This may be way off base. But in the game of life, most of us may never reach perfection. It’s possible, but it would seem to be very rare. But we can all still strive for it, grow—by God’s grace working in and through us—in it as we try to love others more and more fully, completely, and perfectly, like God in Christ loves each one of us.