Refining Righteousness

Working through the Sermon on the Mount (up to this point, just the Beatitudes) has been a great thing for me. Often times, the greatest problem long-time Christians have in reading the Bible (again) is to keep looking at it from the same perspective we always have. In a way, that's only natural. We all see life from a particular perspective; either the perspective we were taught when we were being raised or the perspective we chose to take when we started rebelling against the perspective we were taught when we were being raised.

Regardless, we often get stuck looking only through the lens of what we already know, rather than seeking to go back to a passage with new eyes--a clean sheet of paper, so to speak.

I mentioned at the beginning of this study that my lens was always the lens of a semi-fundamentalist upbringing that defined sin as the outward acts like smoking, drinking, dancing, going to movies, playing cards and failing to read your Bible. Often times, spiritual growth comes when we, holding loosely to those ideas, we become open to looking at the Bible from a different perspective.

If you only look at one side of a coin, you'll describe the coin as a round, flat piece of metal that has the picture of some guy's head on it. That's it. Some people never explore the coin from a different perspective and thus fail to see that there's another side to it.

Some people will object, "but if we don't "hold firm" to what we believe, we run the risk of believing anything and become wishy-washy Christians." Is this criticism valid? Only if we don't continue to go back to Scripture and allow its message to shape us. I actually think it's more dangerous to hold too tightly to our particular interpretation of scripture and not continue to re-examine scripture, re-evaluating our lives in light of it. We actually make our pet doctrine or interpretation of Scripture to be the authority rather than Scripture itself.

I have to admit, all of this is a set-up. It's a set-up for you to open yourself up to a new understanding of "righteousness." Defining "righteous" by referring to the rules of religion places you squarely in opposition to the teaching of Jesus Himself on this topic.

We all know the Pharisees and the religious leaders were Jesus' "enemies" (if you could call them that). What was it about the Pharisees that upset Jesus? It was not that they made rules-not entirely anyway. It wasn't that they followed rules. It was that they focused on the rules and made them the measure of the spiritual life. They majored on minors.

For instance, in Matthew 23 Jesus' goes off on the Pharisees. They are hypocrites, they make religion a burden with all their rules, they do everything to be seen by people, they love the place of honor, etc. They look beautiful on the outside following all the rules, but are full of filth on the inside.

Take the example of verses 16-22. One practice of the Pharisees was that of "corban," or an oath to the temple. Corban was a way of recognizing the gifts God gave by committing a certain amount of money back to the Temple. This, in itself isn't a bad thing. However, when it gets out of focus that's where the problem starts. For the Pharisees, their oath to the Temple was so binding that if they had some money they committed to the Temple, but afterward found out their own parents were starving, they wouldn't even help them.Jesus says, "Corban is great. Tithe is fine. Just don't forget about the important things." There are just some things that are more important than the rules.

Back in Matthew 5, after the Beatitudes, but still in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says, "Unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the Kingdom of Heaven." Most people who heard this, who didn't really get it yet would have certainly been thinking it was an impossible task. How could anyone surpass the righteousness of the Pharisees and teachers of the law? The Kingdom of Heaven is completely out of reach for the average person stuggling along.

But remember, we're looking at the Beatitudes here which proclaim "good news" for those whom religion has left behind. So while this may have seemed like a daunting task to people hearing it for the first time, later in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus explains what He means by "righteousness," and it's not really what the people were expecting.

While we'll look more in-depth at how Jesus describes righteousness later on, suffice it to say it has less to do with rules and more to do with "love"-pure, relational, self-sacrificial love. Righteousness is to be in right standing with God and neighbors. When people long for it, or as Jesus says, "hunger and thirst for righteousness" they will be filled.

Whereas, all the people's efforts to obey all the rules and laws left people isolated and prone to judgement and separation when other people didn't live up their standards, Jesus' redefinition of "righteousness" gave freedom and led to reconcilliation. Instead of being responsible only to care for ourselves and make sure we're following all the rules, we're free to forget about ourselves and care for others.

What does it mean to be filled with righteousness? Listen to Paul's words in 1 Corinthians 13:12. As we grow in love, here's what happens. "Now we know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known." Does that sound like right relationship to you? Does to me.