“All you need is love,” those of a certain generation remember the Beatles famously singing to us. What could be better than love? Who could argue with that? After all, “Love makes the world go round,” doesn’t it? (The idiom “Love makes the world go round,” was immortalized in American popular culture in songs by many artists and especially as the theme song to the 1961 Broadway musical Carousel.)  

The writer of the Carousel theme undoubtedly was speaking about starry-eyed, dizzying feelings from falling in love, while the Beatles, on the other hand, were speaking of a deeper, more universal human love. In fact, their song was initially performed on Our World, the first live global television broadcast by satellite, which reached 400 million people in 26 countries on June 25, 1967. At the time, the song was seen as a statement on the power of universal love and a vision of the world as a global village.

But for Christians, the ideas the Beatles presented about love were not anything new.

Many of the Christian principles we are familiar with are part of the significant, core teachings Jesus presented in the Sermon on the Mount. Today’s gospel, Matthew 5: 43-48, is a portion of the Sermon on the Mount, wherein Jesus imparts illuminating and groundbreaking ideas: “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you … For if you love those who love you, what recompense will you have? … And if you greet your brothers only, what is unusual about that?”

These ideals are what we strive for and are what motivate us when we listen to the words of Jesus and allow the Holy Spirit to guide us.

But his words in the last line of today’s gospel, “So be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect,” have always jolted me. The mandate always seemed so unreachable that I wondered why Jesus even said it.

But I didn’t realize that Matthew used the Greek word teleois for “perfect” in this quote from Jesus, which refers to being complete or whole. To me, striving to be complete or whole in God, while not easy, is possible and is what being a Christian is all about. It’s a daily process of steps and missteps, with love for God and love for our fellow humans, even our enemies, our goal through the power of the Holy Spirit.