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"Perfectionism is one of the
deadliest sins in the book for resurrection
communities." (Eugene
Peterson)
Perfect Sinners
Perfectionists
consider themselves a blessing to the world.
Without them, standards would be low, productivity
would be minimal, and chaos would reign. I know.
I'm a recovering perfectionist. But our
justification for this obsessive behavior
does not survive under the scrutiny of the gospel.
Far from being a blessing, perfectionism is a
blight.
One
of the mantras of my youth included: "If a job's
worth doing, it's worth doing properly."
The term "properly" usually carried the
overtones of "precisely." But I quickly
learned that people responded very favorably to
high volumes of work achieved in a precise
manner. Precision and "perfection" received
loud affirmation, and proved
addictive.
Many
of us have been down this pathway. But the
journey exhausts us and leaves us isolated.
While people applaud outstanding
efforts, our drive for high performance makes
us impervious to authentic
intimacy.
Perhaps
the most sinister aspect of perfectionism is that
our pursuit of the flawless veneer makes us
incapable of admitting (and thus dealing with) our
sin.
The
perfectionist's fear of inadequacy, incompetence,
or failure makes it tremendously difficult to
genuinely accept sin ... in ourselves or in
others. We are not oblivious to our flaws. We
detest them. But we'd never go public. And,
since every other success in our lives has been
wrought by our own skillful abilities, we assume
we can deal with sin the same way. Fiercely
independent.
That
independence leaves us often without friends,
without family, without forgiveness, and without
love.
A
paradox of perfectionism is this: Those
whose lives are most perfectly competent are
often least able to receive grace for
themselves or impart grace to others. The perfect
life - by human standards - therefore becomes the
perfect innoculation to the
gospel.
We
may issue loud cries of protest. Some folk will
argue strongly the merits of excellence. We
want to deny the links between legalism and
perfectionism. But this malady of the Christian
community anaesthetizes us to grace and inhibits
meaningful relationships based on mutual
brokenness. We can't love or be loved when our
lives are
performance-based.
The
most authentic community comprises the fellowship
of the beaten and broken. Respectability, status,
and image-consciousness are wedges not glue
between
us.
In
the Kingdom ... Blessed are the poor,
not the perfect. Blessed are the wounded, not the
wonderful. Blessed are the crying, not the
competent. Blessed are those who struggle, not
those who
soar.
In HOPE - that our
recovery will one day be complete.
David
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