Sunday's gospel reading is Matthew 5:38-48.

   "Father," said the man who mistook me for a Catholic priest as I passed by St. Patrick's church one Sunday morning, "I'm on my way to work and I just ran out of gas here in front of the church . . . I knocked on the rectory door, but no one answered. . . I really need to get to work."

   He was conning me of course. I'd been around Newburgh long enough to know the gas con, the food con, or the classic my-family-member-is-sick (dying/died) con, and all the other tactics folks use to raise money. The gas con happened a lot out in front of St. Pat's so much so that I always had a spare dollar or two in my shirt pocket just in case.

"So, where ya work?"

"Washingtonville."

"Wow, that's a ride . . ."

"Yeah and I'm running late."

"I hear ya," I said. "You know it's really weird."

"What's that?"

"You're about the fifth or sixth person whose run out of gas here in front of the church this month. I don't know what it is about this place . . . maybe God just wanted us to meet . . . I'm glad we did. Here's a couple of bucks. It won't get you to Washingtonville but it will help."

"Thanks Father . . . thanks a lot," my friend offered as he headed down the street.

   I don't know how one feels when s/he lies to a priest or someone who looks like one. What I do know is that it's unkind to help someone steal their own dignity by calling them on their con. Besides, the loss of a couple of bucks here and there is the cost of doing business, the cost of connecting with a fellow human being who is also struggling to get their act together.

   We have given people money suspecting - maybe knowing - that they were heading off to buy some drugs or alcohol or cigarettes or some other thing that was not good for them, something they might be using to keep themselves down. A friend says he won't do that. He argues that he might give someone some money and they'd use it to buy some heroin and maybe overdose and wind up dead. "I'd feel terrible he said." I say nothing . . . I just listen, all the time waiting for him to ask if he could borrow money for gas for his car so I can say no, arguing that if I gave him the money and he gassed up his car, he might drive off, get into an accident and be badly hurt or worse . . . Just to make the point . . . and maybe feel self-righteous.

   It's our preconceived notions, our expectations of ourselves and those we encounter, and other "items" in our baggage that make Jesus' comment in verse 42 - "Give to everyone who begs from you, and do not refuse anyone who wants to borrow from you" - so challenging. It challenges us to suspend our judgments about others and their choices in life. It also challenges us to be free with our own resources and perhaps even sacrifice because another person has expressed need.

   "Give me a break Jesus!" I mutter to myself, "You can say that because you were broke yourself and didn't live in Newburgh. If I did that, I'd be broke by the end of the week! Then what would I do? I wouldn't be able to help anyone else."

   But, wait . . . Jesus isn't talking about the world in which his first followers were living. He wasn't talking about the world in which we live either. He was talking about the "Kingdom" world, a world in which there is plenty to go around, a world in which the snow falls equally on the rich and the poor, on the good and the evil, on our friends and on our enemies.

   In spite of what you might read in the King James and Revised Standard versions of verse 48, Jesus is not telling us to be "perfect." Although that is a legitimate translation of the Greek word telios," the term also means "complete . . . mature . . . fully formed."

   The Message version of verse 48 puts it this way - "In a word, what I'm saying is Grow up. You're kingdom subjects. Now live like it. Live out your God-created identity. Live generously and graciously toward others, the way God lives toward you."

   Perfection is way beyond us. Maturity in our faith is not. We can be mature - all grown up - and still stumble and fall. We can be mature and still say no to the person who begs or asks to borrow. And, we can still be mature and say or do inappropriate things. It is part of the human condition. But, the person mature in her/his faith is the person who can, by grace, get back up from the fall or the unturned cheek or the expression of something less than love to the one who has done him wrong.