The Promise Of Righteousness

Ecumenical Service, March 14, 2007

I knew when I accepted this “Promise of Righteousness” gig that I was in for a hard time. Righteousness? Who wants it?! That nobody cares much for righteousness was confirmed for me first thing this morning. “Maggie,” I asked, “do you have that little ritual we use for blessing prayer shawls?”

“Groan,” she replied.

“What’s the matter?”

“I don’t like it!”

“What’s the matter with it? I got it right out of the Book of Occasional Services.”

“It doesn’t say anything.”

“Oh,” I said, and I looked at the ritual she handed me. The versicle and response were, “He has clothed me with garments of salvation; he has covered me with the robe of righteousness.”

“Righteousness” didn’t say anything for Maggie. It didn’t speak to her. And I really believe she’s typical of the great majority of us here tonight -- even the clergy. Righteousness is one of those church words that is seldom if ever used Monday through Saturday. In fact, I think we studiously avoid the word, because it conjures up images of prudes and holier-than-thou types.

Really, the only “righteous” persons I ever liked in my whole lifetime were The Righteous Brothers, and of course, they were more about good music than good behavior. (“And time goes by…”) As for all the other “righteous” persons I’ve known -- well, they were just the sort of people I never aspired to emulate. They made righteousness seem irrelevant and not fun -- a down-right turnoff. Of course, you realize I’m talking about the self-righteous, but still, they give righteousness a bad name.

Those who give righteousness a better name still don’t make it an appealing word for us. I’m thinking now of monks and nuns and others we suppose don’t deal with the real world -- like Simeon in tonight’s Gospel, who spends all his time in the Temple. In this regard, we consider righteousness to be a vocation -- something to which another might be called, but not I.

So you see, I really do have my work cut out for me if I’m to make this beatitude attractive – this one that says, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness…” Righteousness appeals about as much as John the Baptist’s locusts.

Let’s start easy. Let’s start with a definition of what the Bible means by righteousness. It’s really very simple. Righteousness is what pleases God. It’s that simple. Righteousness is what pleases God.

But what pleases God? In the beatitude, righteousness translates the Greek word, dikaiosynē. (Take that, Owen!) It means “right conduct.” God is pleased by right conduct, so that here, at least, Jesus is saying something like, “Blessed are those who long to behave rightly.” So the next question might be, “What defines ‘right conduct.’”

For the Jew, of course, right conduct was defined by the Law (with a capital L) – by the Ten Commandments and lots of others added over the years to what Moses brought down from the mountain. You want to know what pleases God – that is, how to behave and thereby be righteous? Study the Torah – the first five books of the Old Testament. Pay special attention, maybe, to Leviticus, which – though it prescribes a lot of good things – would also tell you not to hunger for crab or lobster.

Some of the Jews in Jesus’ time bent themselves into pretzels trying to deal with the Torah – the Law of Moses. The Sadducees tried to stick to the written tradition, and were pretty righteous when it came to maintaining the prescribed rituals in the Temple. The Pharisees did not thump their bibles quite that much, but allowed that circumstances change a little from time to time… And so they honored not only the written, but also the oral tradition. There was leeway for interpretation, and Jesus used to get hacked off because they were always interpreting in such a way as to make themselves righteous, but by their own standards. When Jesus said, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness,” rest assured he was not honoring the Pharisees.

But isn’t that just it? To any degree that we might be concerned to be righteous and thereby pleasing to God, we bend the rules. And the wiser among us realize that, and the humbler admit it: by my own efforts, I simply cannot be good enough when it comes to what might be the divine edicts and not just my take on them. In fact, I can’t even please my wife, whose commandments are few: “Look good, be prepared, and show up on time.” (That “look good” part is especially difficult for me; I almost always forget to trim the hair in my ears!) So, when it comes to this kind of righteousness, St. Paul speaks for me when he says, “Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?” (Rom 7:24)  Or, in other words, “Sorry, Lord. I just can’t cut it, even though I want to please you. And might I add: frankly there are some times I don’t want to please you, and I sort of regret this, too. But that just seems to be the way it is, and if I’m to please you, I need help!”

 Are you still with me? Good, but probably this next part should be preached by a Lutheran. It has to do with righteousness from the viewpoint of St. Paul, which was swallowed lock, stock, and barrel by Martin Luther. To sum up Paul and Martin’s view of righteousness, it is not by our right conduct that we please God, but simply by our acceptance that “God accepts the unacceptable.”

“God accepts the unacceptable.” Paul Tillich, the late, great liberal theologian said it. As a proud Episcopalian, I’m sorry to have to quote yet another Lutheran, but the truth cannot be more simply stated. (Rom 7:24)  Can you accept that? It’s the Gospel truth! Of course, the hard part is admitting that you – even you, are unacceptable. But walk on the edge – risk!

This is one of the neatest things about the Christian Faith – it grants us the freedom to walk on the edge. “Free at last! Free at last! Thank God, I’m free at last!” We don’t have to live by Jim Crow. We don’t have to live by Jerry Falwell or Jimmy Swaggart or Pat Robertson. We don’t have to live by the dictates of any “moral majority.”

Why? Because we’ve been baptized! Because we’ve been made the brother of Jesus Christ, of whom God said, “You are my beloved son, with whom I am well pleased.” I’m pleased with you unconditionally. Just as you are, without one plea, and you haven’t done one darn thing to earn it.

Blessed are they that hunger and thirst for righteousness? “Well, let me tell you,” God says, “don’t confuse me with your parents, who might have been anal retentive about what pleased them – who might have set strict conditions on their love for you. Rather, remember what your elder brother Iranaeus said: ‘The glory of God is a human being fully alive.’”

Let’s repeat that. Say after me, “The glory of God is a human being fully alive.” What pleases God is not right conduct, but you and me, even as we stray like lost sheep. We are righteous because God says so, and by no other way: God stuffs us with righteousness. To impress my Greek-geek friend over there, yet another Lutheran, the word is logidzamai. God “words” us righteous. God imputes righteousness to us. Let me count the ways God loves us! Oh, God help us… What a God we have who stuffs us with righteousness, which proves to be tasty after all. We are indeed filled. “I’m okay. You’re okay.”

I leave you with this, our righteousness in a poem based on the Prodigal Son – on all of us who cannot and even do not wish to please our God…

Flowers and tall-stalked grasses, and a bee,
And azure, blaze of the meridian...
The time will come, the Lord will ask his prodigal son:
"In your life on earth, were you happy?"

And I'll forget it all, only remembering those
Meadow paths among tall spears of grass,
And clasped against the knees of mercy I
Will not respond, choked off by tears of joy.

 Do you hunger and thirst for it? Will you accept it? God has filled you with the righteousness for which you do, after all, hunger and thirst.