“Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect,” Jesus tells us. That’s a pretty daunting ideal for most of us who are so aware of our many imperfections. In spite of our initial reaction to the word, if we look deeper we’ll realize that “perfect” also means complete and whole as, for example, a jigsaw puzzle that has been finished with all its pieces fitted together in the appropriate places. When we look at “whole,” we see it comes from the same root as “holy”, and that’s the thread that runs through today’s lessons for me.

From the Torah, in the Leviticus lesson, we hear God telling Moses to speak to the congregation saying, “You shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy.” Read that message again slowly—hear God call you by name as the announcement is made to you. The implication is that making us holy is God’s work—not something we can conjure up on our own. We become holy as we are enfolded in, indwelt with divine Love and transformed into the imago dei we were created to be. Hear Paul in his letter to the Corinthians reminding us : “Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you? . . . God’s temple is holy and you are that temple.” There it is all spelled out for us. It is the indwelling Spirit of God that makes us holy, consecrated to be God’s love in the world here and now.

Our part in the equation is to accept God’s life-giving grace that makes us whole and holy in body, mind, and spirit, and to be open to receive that indwelling Presence which enables us to love God and all creation, especially those around us, those whom we may think are our enemies as well as those we recognize as our neighbors. In the eyes of God who sees deep within, we are whole and holy, complete and perfect, no matter how imperfect we see ourselves and others on the outside.