The Imperfect Christian

What does it mean to be and to live as a Christian in our world today?

Like many Christians, I struggle with living out my faith in a real and meaningful way. To me, that means figuring out how to live, act and become more like Christ through making the right choices, for the right reasons, in the right way. It means being in right relationship with God, with myself and with others. Moreover, being a Christian comes with a purpose: being salt to the earth and a light to the world. Our faith was never meant to be private, but shared among all people, bringing forth the Kingdom of God on earth.

Many Christians have heard that as a Church, we are meant to be different from the world. From the way Christians live, conduct themselves and worship, we are meant to be a witness to Christ in our world. We have often heard this as a calling and aspiration to strive to greater heights, to be worthy of the grace that Jesus has so freely given to us; in other words, to show others why they need God in their lives too, so they too can accept the free graces of Christ.

I wholeheartedly agree that Christians do need to be different from the world. But what concerns me is that this sort of attitude, this kind of unspoken norm, which permeates from the individual Christian, to churches and fellowships, to denominations and finally, to the Church as a whole, results in an overarching expectation that Christians have to be perfect. Which is fatally dangerous to evangelism (and ultimately, the Church as a whole) for three reasons: a) no one is perfect, so by pretending to be so, Christians are often thought of as hypocrites, b) even when we do recognize our imperfections, we tend to flaunt our strengths (we're-not-perfect-but-we're-damn-close) and hide our weaknesses, which is just plain intimidating and perpetuates this need to pretend and lastly c) we feel guilty for when we fail, so we resolve to try harder, not recognizing that the foundational value of grace in all of this but falling into the fallacy that by willpower alone, we can become the people Christ desire us to be.

Now, I do want to point out that this sort of cycle tends to perpetuate out of good intentions. These people, myself included, really do desire to seek Christ and to live out our faith in an authentic way. We've just been, er, sidetracked along the way.

And so, in my own struggle, having gone through a bit of an up and down lately, it hits me that, oh, even though I've failed many, multiple times at doing or being the kind of person I know I should be, it doesn't make me a bad disciple or an unfaithful follower. I started to realize that maybe it's not such a terrible thing that Christians and non-Christians suffer and fall into the same temptations; we are all humans and we have all fallen short. And now I think I have come to the crux of the matter, for this is where we, as Christians, should differ from the world -- it is our foundational understanding of grace. Grace meaning that the unconditional love that God has for all of us is given freely, not earned, and cannot be taken away because of our sins. This grace - not from our capability, but His - empowers us to be willing to repent from our sins, to forgive one another and to love unconditionally is what should truly make Christians different from the world.

It is as St. Paul says in his letter to the Corinthians "He said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong." (2 Corinth 12:9-10)

As I'm thinking about Sunday's gospel reading, the parable of weeds (Matthew 13:24-30), I'm reminded that God has allowed both the good (the wheat) and the bad (the weeds) grow together on earth. Right now, I know that there is both good and evil in all of us. He reminds us to be patient and kind (Wisdom 12:19, "those who are just must be kind", Sunday's first reading), with ourselves and with one another.

I'm going to try to wrap up because my thoughts are kind of everywhere, but I think most of all, I need to be reminded that God's unconditional and constant love and forgiveness is available to me, that I need it for this life and the next.