Wednesday, May 16, 2007

Imperfections... Must Sterilize

That line is from a classic Star Trek episode. The speaker is a freaked out piece of machinery who holds that its programmed mission is to seek out and sterilize imperfections. It is absolutely maniacal about its mission. It cannot stand imperfection.

On the other end of the spectrum is something which says "we must not be perfect." Really I think the intent is to say we must not act perfect when we are not. But what exactly does that mean, practically? Does it mean that we must be willing to acknowledge that we still have a way to go before being fully sanctified? Minimally that should be so. Such admissions would be healthy for one's spiritual life; they ensure that you do not become over-confident with respect to one's spiritual growth and maturity.

But what if it means something more than that? What if it means that if you don't say you are somehow dysfunctional, or have some kind of imbalance, then you are hiding something?
The implications are not at all pleasant. Those who are more spiritually mature end up being marginalized, even viewed as aberrant. The norm would be dysfunctional spiritually immature people.

Really, the goal should not be to emphasize what is a given, that we are imperfect. Rather, we should emphasize what we should be, and will one day be (perfect). Doing so may highlight for some the fact of our imperfection, but that is not necessarily a bad thing. We should not try going through our walk with Christ thinking that we are something other than we are: sinful.

Yes, the "S" word. We tend to think of ourselves as "broken" or "disconnected". We are those things, but only because we are sinful. We should not confuse the symptoms with the disease.

Besides, there is nothing wrong with admitting we are sinful, ungodly. Paul seems to think that God is in the business of justifying such people. Jesus said that he came to save sinners.

If we don't think of ourselves that way, how can we expect to be saved?

2 comments:

Unknown said...

si vc continuar assim vc vai ser muito felis na sua vida

Unknown said...

vc vai ser muito felis.