Becoming Complete through Indiscriminate Love

Have you ever noticed how the sun rises over a prison just as faithfully as it rises over a monastery? The same warm rays that wake a sleeping child also fall upon the face of a man who spent the night plotting harm. The sun has no opinion about who deserves its light. It simply pours itself out, golden and generous, on the cruel and the kind alike.

This indiscriminate sunrise is not an accident of meteorology. According to Jesus, it is a theological revelation. In the middle of the Sermon on the Mount, He directs our attention skyward and says something that ought to unsettle us:

“For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous.” (Matthew 5:45, NRSV)

This is one of the most quietly radical sentences ever spoken.

Jesus is telling us that the very existence of our enemies, the very fact that they continue to draw breath, is itself a divine sermon.

God is loving them into existence at this very moment. He is not waiting for them to become lovable. He is not pausing the sunrise until they repent. He is sustaining them, feeding them, warming them, even as they curse Him or ignore Him or harm His children. He loves them even in their unlovableness.

And then, a few verses later, Jesus issues a command: “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matthew 5:48).

 

An Unattainable Goal?

The word “perfect” here can paralyze us. We read it and immediately think of flawlessness, of moral spotlessness, of some impossible standard that crushes us beneath its weight.

But the Greek word Jesus uses is teleios, and it does not primarily mean “without flaw.” It means “complete,” “fulfilled,” “having reached its end or purpose.” It is the word you would use for a fruit that has ripened fully, for a plan that has come to fruition...

...for a person who has become everything they were created to be.

Teleios comes from telos, which means “end” or “goal.” So when Jesus commands us to be perfect, He is not demanding moral perfectionism that we cannot deliver in this life. He is calling us to our purpose. He is saying: Become what you were made to be. Become complete. Become whole.

And what is that wholeness? Look at the context. The verses immediately preceding this command describe a God who loves His enemies, who pours grace on the unjust, who does not measure His generosity by the merit of the recipient. Our telos, then, is to love like that. Our completion is found in becoming icons of a love that does not discriminate.

 

The Existence of Your Enemy Is a Sermon

Pause for a moment with this thought: that your enemy still breathes is proof that God is still loving him into existence.

We sometimes speak of God’s creative act as though it happened once, long ago, and now creation simply runs on its own momentum. But the Christian tradition has always insisted otherwise. God is not a watchmaker who wound up the universe and walked away. He is, at every instant, holding all things in being. Saint Paul puts it this way: “In him we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28).

This means that the man who slandered you yesterday is breathing today only because God is sustaining his lungs.

The woman who betrayed your trust is alive this morning only because God is pouring existence into her cells.

Every heartbeat of every cruel person on earth is, in a real sense, a gift from God to them.

He is not merely tolerating their existence.

He is actively, lovingly, willing them into being moment by moment.

If we truly grasped this, we could never again treat our enemies as obstacles to be removed from our lives.

We would see them as God sees them: as creatures He is still loving, still pursuing, still sustaining with infinite patience.

 

Letting Our Light Shine

Earlier in the same chapter, Jesus tells us:

“You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hid. No one after lighting a lamp puts it under the bushel basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.” (Matthew 5:14-16)

But just a few verses later, in chapter 6, Jesus warns us with equal seriousness:

“Beware of practicing your piety before others in order to be seen by them; for then you have no reward from your Father in heaven.” (Matthew 6:1)

Which is it? Should our works be visible or hidden? Should our light shine before others, or should our left hand not know what our right hand is doing?

The apparent contradiction dissolves when we understand what is being hidden and what is being revealed.

The one who does good in secret hides only himself. He does not hide the good itself.

The deed remains, the blessing arrives, the hungry are fed and the lonely are visited. What disappears is the human face that performed the kindness. And when no human face is visible to thank, the recipient is left with only two options: thank God, or chalk it up to chance.

This is why our hidden kindnesses must be persistent. A single anonymous gift might be dismissed as coincidence. But repeated, patient, faithful blessings, arriving again and again without explanation, eventually overwhelm the explanation of randomness.

The soul that receives such grace is finally driven to look upward.

This is how our light shines without our pride catching fire from it.

We let God receive the credit.

We become transparent, so that what is seen through us is not ourselves but the Father.

 

The Sun Does Not Discriminate

The deep challenge of Jesus’ teaching is that we are called to love in the manner of the One who set the luminaries in the heavens. The sun does not pause its shining to evaluate who deserves illumination. It does not withhold warmth from the cruel and dispense it to the kind.

It shines because shining is what the sun is. Its nature is to give itself.

This is the love we are commanded to imitate. Not a love that responds to merit. Not a love that calculates worthiness. Not even a love that flows naturally from our preferences and affections, which is, after all, the easy love that tax collectors and Gentiles also practice (Matthew 5:46-47).

Rather, a love that gives itself simply because giving is what love does.

This is terribly difficult, because most of our loving is transactional whether we admit it or not. We love those who love us back. We are generous to those who appreciate us. We forgive those who apologize. We bless those who bless us. None of this is evil, but none of it is yet teleios. None of it has yet reached the completion to which Christ calls us.

Saint John of the Cross writes that “where there is no love, put love, and you will draw out love” (Letters, 26). This is the Christian wager. We do not love our enemies because they deserve it. We love them because love is itself creative, because love poured into a loveless place can begin to draw out real love, so it can be seen, so that they, too can become complete. So that they can reach their telos.

 

The Quiet Work of Becoming Complete

There is something deeply restful about understanding teleios properly. We are not being commanded to achieve flawlessness in this life. We will remain feeble, we will stumble, we will fail to love as we ought.

But we are being invited into a process of becoming.

We are being told that there is a person God created us to be, and that person is shaped in the likeness of His own love.

To be made perfect is to be made complete. To be made complete is to be made whole. And to be made whole is to become, at last, the human being God envisioned when He first thought of you.

Not someone else. You.

The you that exists in the mind of God before all the wounds and compromises and self-protective walls. That you is still possible. That you is what grace is making.

And the path to that completion runs straight through the difficult ground of loving those who do not love us back.

 

Living This Today

How might we begin, in practical terms, to imitate this indiscriminate love?

First, let the existence of difficult people become a prayer prompt rather than a complaint. The next time someone who has wronged you crosses your mind, instead of rehearsing the grievance, pause and consider: God is loving this person into existence right now. He has not given up on them. Can I, even for a moment, join Him in willing their good?

Second, practice a small, hidden kindness this week for someone you do not particularly like. Not for someone you love and already wish to bless, but for someone toward whom your heart is cold. St. Thérèse of Lisieux tells a story in Story of a Soul, of a particular nun who irritated her in every way. She could not say why. It was something about this sister's mannerisms, the way she carried herself, just that rubbed Thérèse the wrong way. Most of us know people like that, and we try to avoid them as much as possible. Not Thérèse. She chose, rather, to go out of her way to spend more time with this sister, to do little acts of kindness for her, and determined to see whatever virtues this sister had that she hadn't noticed before. Eventually, we're told, that one day this sister asked Thérèse why she adored her so much? Can you do that for someone, even if you do not have an "enemy" per se, but find someone the least bit unappealing, for someone you'd prefer to avoid? Buy the coffee anonymously. Leave them an encouraging note unsigned. Pray for them by name without ever telling them. Hide yourself, but do not hide the kindness.

Third, examine your loving for transactional patterns. Where do you give expecting return? Where do you withhold because someone has not yet earned your warmth? These are the places where your love has not yet reached its telos. These are the growing edges where Christ is still at work in you.

Fourth, let go of the demand for instant transformation. Teleios is a journey, not a sudden arrival. The sun has been shining on the just and the unjust for a very long time. You have time, too. What matters is the direction of your becoming, not the speed.

And finally, make this prayer your own: God, make of me nothing but the man, the woman, You created me to be.

Not someone more impressive. Not someone more accomplished. Just the person who already exists in Your loving thought of me. Complete me. Bring me to my telos. Let my small light shine with Your great light, falling without discrimination on the just and the unjust, until at last I become an icon of the Love that made me.

The sun is rising right now over someone who does not deserve it. That is the gospel in a sunrise. Go and do likewise.