Perfectionism in Relationships, a sermon based in Philippians 1: 21-30, preached on September 24, 2023

It’s been a sad week in Marietta, Georgia. On Monday, after her cross-country practice, a high school student named Liv Teverino died in a single-car accident on Burnt Hickory. You may have read about it in the paper. Our whole town has been in shock. Many students at Marietta High School have been feeling this loss profoundly. Prayers for her parents and her brothers have been lifted from every place of worship in our town. It seems like everyone has been talking about the accident, and everyone has been talking about her. In the wake of her death, what have people been saying about Liv Teverino? She was an outstanding student, but no one has really mentioned her grades in detail. She ran cross country, but I don’t know how fast she ran a mile. No one is talking about the kind of car she drove, the brand of shoes on her feet, or who she was going with to the homecoming dance. When you read about Liv, it’s almost all about the way she made people feel. It’s almost all about relationships, and when tragedy strikes, it’s often this way because death reframes things. When tragedy breaks into our lives, it changes our focus to what matters most, and what matters most in the end is love. When we realize how fragile our lives are, so much of what we spend time obsessing over suddenly feels trivial, so, while I have known many students who cared deeply about their grades, I have yet to see anyone’s ACT, SAT, or grade point average in an obituary. Never have I heard anyone’s dress size or body weight mentioned in a eulogy, and yet we spend so much time thinking about the way we look. When our time comes, what is vanity will be forgotten. What will remain is the way we made people feel. Knowing that, how will you live? Jesus told a parable about a man who was walking down the road when he was attacked, robbed, and left for dead. There he was, naked and dying on the side of the road, but up walked a priest. Surely, the priest would stop and help, but he didn’t; he kept on walking. Maybe he had a meeting to get to. After the priest came a well-born man from the tribe of Levi. He was born and raised to perform the work of holiness at the Temple, only it must have been his day to burn the incense because he walked right by the wounded man and went on his way. Finally, up came a Samaritan man. The Samaritan man, the lowest type of person on the societal totem pole. He’s the janitor, the garbage collector, the illegal immigrant, the convicted felon; just fill in “kind of person it is socially acceptable to make jokes about,” and you’ve got it, yet he’s the one who stops. He’s the one who put the wounded man on his own horse and takes him to get the help he needs. Knowing that, how will you live? Knowing that tragedy has a way of showing us that what matters most is not our ability to show up to meetings on time or how well thought of we are, how will you live? Knowing that what matters the most to Jesus is our willingness to stop and help when someone needs us, how will you live? It’s the way we treat each other that matters. It’s our relationships that matter. Still, relationships are hard. My favorite proverb in the Bible is Proverbs 21: 9: It’s better to live on a corner of the roof than inside the house with a quarrelsome spouse. That’s right there in the Bible. Look it up. It’s really in there, and it’s in there because it’s true. Our relationships matter most, but our relationships also require work, so, while some spend all kinds of time working for perfection in academics or athletics, and some spend all their time thinking about money or how well-decorated their home is, and while I understand wrapped up in all kinds of senseless pursuits, if we’re going to work for perfection in something, let it be in our relationships. Does that make sense? Of course, that’s easy to say while it’s harder to do, especially when we spend little time thinking about how to do it. I recently read an opinion column by David Brooks, where he said that talking with young adults has recently made him concerned. He noticed how animatedly young adults talk about their career prospects, having spent considerable time thinking about what they’ll do and how they’ll meet their vocational goals, yet they haven’t spent much of any time thinking about with whom they will spend their future. Relationships matter most in the end, and so the Apostle Paul, who in our second Scripture lesson writes from the perspective of his own death, has his relationship with the church in Philippi on his mind. He doesn’t know if he’ll ever see the people he is writing to, yet he clearly loves them, and so he says, Whether I ever see you again or not, “whatever happens, conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ.” What he means by worthy of the gospel of Christ is to “strive together as one for the faith of the gospel without being frightened.” Fear and isolation go hand in hand, don’t they? The more afraid of rejection we are, the less we work for relationships. The less we work for relationships, the more isolated we become. The more isolated, the more frightened of the world we are. What are we to do about these twin scourges in our modern society: fear and isolation? A new member of our church staff, Jauana Eidelwein, works with the kids in Club 3:30, our afterschool program. She’s also in seminary. She’s been doing a wonderful job, and she’s been promoting our church so well. Last week, she invited her manicurist to church. She came, along with all her family, just last Sunday, but to my point, a couple weeks ago, she gave me this quote, and I’ve been repeating it ever since: Safety is not the absence of threat. Safety is the presence of community. Write that one down. It’s worth repeating. Safety is not the absence of threat. Safety is the presence of community. If all that matters in the end are not our professional accomplishments but our relationships, and if Jesus is more interested in seeing us care for each other than He is in us making it to the temple on time, and if the thing that truly makes us feel safe is the presence of community, why aren’t we working harder at building healthy relationships? Honestly, why would anyone say, “I can’t make it to dinner tonight because I have to work late” when dinner is what’s going to make him feel safe and loved? Why would anyone slander her friend to beat her out of the promotion, when the promotion will be forgotten while the relationship will be remembered? If what makes us the happiest, makes us feel the safest, and pleases the One we claim to follow is the way we treat each other, why do people pay more for wedding photographers than for premarital counseling? I don’t know. If that last statement sounded a little resentful, forgive me. I have so much trouble posing for pictures that I get a little self-conscious around wedding photographers. My wife, Sara, once wondered how many wedding photographers have captured me with my eyes closed. She can just imagine some couple whose wedding I officiated looking at their old wedding pictures on down the road with their grandchildren, and some bright-eyed granddaughter wants to know why the preacher looks like he just woke up from a nap. Perfection in photographs won’t matter in the end, right? I hope that’s right. After all, you don’t have to be perfect to be in a perfect relationship. In fact, accepting each other’s imperfection is most of what makes relationships work. Reading Paul, notice how much he talks about his struggles. This morning, we hear him talk again about his suffering, which makes me think that admitting that we need help because we aren’t perfect and asking for help is so much of what makes relationships perfect. Meanwhile, we hide our imperfections. We try to get everything just right. We judge our waiters based on how well they take our order and deliver it correctly, as though the perfect meal, the most nourishing meal, was the meal where everything went perfectly. Last Wednesday morning, I was listening to a podcast that Catherine Breed, our Director of Children & Youth Faith Formation, sent me. It was about a restaurant in Japan where the service is notoriously awful. Normally, that’s a bad thing. Good service matters, and at this restaurant, customers rarely get what they ordered. At this restaurant, if you order sushi, you might end up with dumplings. If you order steak, you end up with miso soup. A glass of water might make it to your table having been drunk already by your waiter, who might or might not bring your order to the table next to you because every member of the waitstaff at this restaurant suffers from dementia. That’s not the kind of restaurant we usually look for, but what if we’ve been looking for the wrong thing? What if we have it all wrong? What if our culture of high achievement is only pushing us apart? My friends, perfection in academics, athletics, beauty, or vocation is unattainable. It’s also boring. Emily Adams left the 8:30 service and told me I was right about that. Perfect is boring, she said, having gone to a baseball game where the pitcher pitched a perfect game, which is an accomplishment that’s worth celebrating, though it’s not very fun to watch. Nothing happens. When we reveal our imperfect, broken hearts, miracles happen. Last Tuesday morning, the morning after Liv Teverino’s death, I went to Marietta High School and saw crowds of broken-hearted kids. Not a one of them was alone in her grief. Not a one. In the end, relationships are what matter most, so build better relationships, and build them with the people you love by being bold enough to reveal your imperfection and by tolerating theirs. Amen.