In our series looking at the heart of the matter, so far we have looked at having a heart of peace, based on Jesus’ post resurrection greeting of Peace be with you, and the heart of love, with the example of the travelers on the road to Emmaus offering hospitality to the stranger, who turns out to be the risen Christ. And we looked at a heart of generosity, with the early church sharing things in common so that those who were in need would be provided for, and the heart of comfort, where God comforts us like a mother comforts her child, and we are to do the same, and today we turn to a heart of righteousness.
Now righteousness is almost exclusively a church word. Besides
for Crush in the movie Finding Nemo and 80’s surfer dudes who wanted you to know
about righteous waves, it’s not really a word that gets used in normal
conversation. We do talk about people being self-righteous, which is thinking
themselves morally superior over others, but that doesn’t really match what
righteousness is about. And it turns out that we don’t really even talk all
that much about righteousness in church, even though it’s an incredibly
important theme in scripture, both in the Hebrew Bible and in the New
Testament. The word righteous, or righteousness, appears in the Bible 630
times, and to give you a comparison, love appears 872 times, so it’s there a
lot. And those are the times in which the Greek and Hebrew words are translated
as righteous, rather than something else. So, at the cross, after Jesus dies,
the Roman Centurion, played by John Wayne in the Greatest Story Ever Told, says
“surely this man was innocent.” The Greek word translated as innocent, could
also be translated, and perhaps might be better translated, as righteous. That
is someone who followed the law, or did the right thing, someone who lived a
righteous life.
Now there is a difference between how this word is understood between a Jewish and a Christian perspective. In the Hebrew scriptures, Noah is the first one to be described as being righteous, and he is mentioned in the passage from 1 Peter in reference to baptism, and we’re going to start a new worship series looking at the stories in Genesis, and we can discuss whether Noah was righteous or not, especially compared to others, like Abraham, who are also considered righteous before God. In Proverbs we are told that “gray hair is the crown of glory; it is gained in a righteous life.” And so, everyone who is trying to hide your grey hair, in doing so you are hiding your righteousness. But, in the Hebrew scriptures, righteousness is something that is earned by the actions that we, or others, undertake. It’s about how we live our lives, but, in particular, it’s about upholding your end of a covenantal agreement or a relationship.
When you enter into a covenant with someone else you agree to do certain things, and if you do those parts of the contract, then you are behaving righteously. That is why God is said to be righteous, or always righteous, because God is always faithful to God’s side of the covenantal agreements that are made, or that we make with God. The vows we make to God in baptism are a covenantal agreement. So the actions that we do that uphold the covenant, or the law in Judaism, are considered righteous, and those that “corrupt or violate” the covenant are unrighteous. And so we can think about what Peter is saying in his letter that Jesus died for the righteous and the unrighteous alike, and we can begin to get a sense, again from a Jewish perspective, or what that means. And so in this sense of righteousness, it’s about more than just ethics or morality, but about relationship. When we are living in right relationship with God and with one another, then we are living in righteousness.
So let me give an example. A few years ago, ironically enough it was a week in which I was actually talking about righteousness, Linda had a job interview and she and the person interviewing with were splitting the distance and meeting at a Starbucks in the Uptown area. As she was pulling into the parking lot, and I do have permission to tell this story by the way, she saw a parking space, and while there was a car a little closer to it, she was able to get their quicker and took the spot. She said that even as she was doing it she thought, I really hope the other person is not the one I’m supposed to be meeting. And, sure enough, he was, although she didn’t know that until after the interview when she saw him get into his car, and she wasn’t sure if he ever saw what car she was driving. Of course, when she told me that story, after I was done laughing, I said “may everything you do glorify God,” and Linda’s response was “glorify God, I didn’t even glorify myself.” She then asked me if she should apologize to the man for taking his place, and then I, in an a most-unrighteous moment, asked her if he knew she was the one to take his place. Linda said she didn’t think so, and so I told her not to bring it up then, unless he did. He didn’t, and she was offered the job. But, if we think about righteousness as being in right relationship with God and with others, then it turns out that its really, really hard to live lives of righteousness, because we’re alive.
Now normally righteousness is not something that we claim for ourselves, as that is often a sign of self-righteousness, and so being righteous has a humility that comes with it. Besides for the Righteous Brothers, the apostle Paul is one of the few people to claim himself righteous, but he also had a different understanding of righteousness than what we have just been talking about. Paul says that righteousness is not something we earn, but instead it is something which is given to us by God. Paul says that Abraham is not righteous because of his actions, but his righteousness is reckoned or imputed to him because of his faith. And, as Paul says, this is because we are saved by faith alone, not by our actions. And that’s because, he says, that if we are saved by our actions, or by our righteousness, then it’s something that we could brag about, and take credit for. But it is Christ who saves, as he suffered on the cross for both the righteous and the unrighteous, and so therefore our righteousness or unrighteousness is not about our ultimate salvation.
Except, of course, that we also know that they are. The letter of 1 Peter is about doing what is right and suffering because of it, and so when we talked about that letter a few months ago, I said that the question to ask is if you were charged with being a Christian, would there be enough evidence to convict you? As James says, faith without works is dead, which even Paul ultimately agrees with because he gives us the fruit of the Spirit, the things that will be manifest in our lives if we are living by the Spirit through faith. Paul says in his letter to the early church in Galatia, that “we eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness.” And Peter says we are to always be ready to make a defense of our hope. Although what Jesus and Peter say is that we are to really be seeking it out, this is an active faith. Jesus says, if you love me you will keep my commandments, and what are they? To love one another. Doing it, not just thinking about it, or hoping it will happen. Similarly, Peter says that we are to do what is right. That is not just not doing what is wrong, but intentionally seeking out and doing the good, being righteous, not because of what it will gain us, because Peter says doing the right thing may bring suffering, but we do it because of Christ and what Christ has done for us.
Many of you have already heard me say this, but John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist movement said that the only appropriate response to accepted Christ’s saving actions on our behalf, is to act on that in the world. To seek be do the right thing, or as Wesley said to first do no harm, second to do good and third to attend upon all the ordinances of God, which is 18th century language for doing the spiritual disciplines we talked about when we talked about generosity, daily Bible reading, prayer, learning, worship, and the other things that deepen our faith and bring us not just into closer connection with God but with each other. It is about upholding our end of the covenant that we made with God and with each other when we took our baptismal vows, which is a covenant, or as Peter says, an appeal to God for good conscience. The reason we don’t rebaptize in the Methodist church is because we know that God is always faithful to God’s side of the covenant, it is we who go astray, and so we seek to gain God’s righteousness not because of what we do, so that we cannot brag about it, but because we are changed by Christ’s saving actions and we seek to be transformed by the renewing of our minds so that we may discern what is the will of God, what is good, acceptable and perfect, to learn to love all, because we love Christ and Christ’s love abides in us.
Rev. Zan Holmes says that as Christians we are to live cross centered lives, to live in right relationship with God and right relationship with each other, and that’s what righteousness is about. It’s not about what we believe or don’t believe, but about how we live. The prayer on the baptismal remembrance tags that we gave out in January as we renewed our baptismal vows, at the end says “I pray that I might live this day as your child and honor you in all that I do.” I think that is the hardest prayer I pray every day, that I will honor God in all that I do, but that’s what it called for us because Jesus says the path that is wide and easy is the path of destruction, but the path that leads to eternal life, to life and life abundant, is narrow and hard, and that’s why fewer people choose it. So we might ask ourselves, how are we choosing to do what is right this day? How are we living into the righteousness that God has given for us? Are our actions showing gentleness and forgiveness, love and kindness, patience and self-control, are we offering joy and peace, are we being faithful? For that is what is called for us in our good conduct in Christ. So may we choose faithfulness and righteousness this day and every day. I pray that it will be so my brothers and sisters. Amen.
Now there is a difference between how this word is understood between a Jewish and a Christian perspective. In the Hebrew scriptures, Noah is the first one to be described as being righteous, and he is mentioned in the passage from 1 Peter in reference to baptism, and we’re going to start a new worship series looking at the stories in Genesis, and we can discuss whether Noah was righteous or not, especially compared to others, like Abraham, who are also considered righteous before God. In Proverbs we are told that “gray hair is the crown of glory; it is gained in a righteous life.” And so, everyone who is trying to hide your grey hair, in doing so you are hiding your righteousness. But, in the Hebrew scriptures, righteousness is something that is earned by the actions that we, or others, undertake. It’s about how we live our lives, but, in particular, it’s about upholding your end of a covenantal agreement or a relationship.
When you enter into a covenant with someone else you agree to do certain things, and if you do those parts of the contract, then you are behaving righteously. That is why God is said to be righteous, or always righteous, because God is always faithful to God’s side of the covenantal agreements that are made, or that we make with God. The vows we make to God in baptism are a covenantal agreement. So the actions that we do that uphold the covenant, or the law in Judaism, are considered righteous, and those that “corrupt or violate” the covenant are unrighteous. And so we can think about what Peter is saying in his letter that Jesus died for the righteous and the unrighteous alike, and we can begin to get a sense, again from a Jewish perspective, or what that means. And so in this sense of righteousness, it’s about more than just ethics or morality, but about relationship. When we are living in right relationship with God and with one another, then we are living in righteousness.
So let me give an example. A few years ago, ironically enough it was a week in which I was actually talking about righteousness, Linda had a job interview and she and the person interviewing with were splitting the distance and meeting at a Starbucks in the Uptown area. As she was pulling into the parking lot, and I do have permission to tell this story by the way, she saw a parking space, and while there was a car a little closer to it, she was able to get their quicker and took the spot. She said that even as she was doing it she thought, I really hope the other person is not the one I’m supposed to be meeting. And, sure enough, he was, although she didn’t know that until after the interview when she saw him get into his car, and she wasn’t sure if he ever saw what car she was driving. Of course, when she told me that story, after I was done laughing, I said “may everything you do glorify God,” and Linda’s response was “glorify God, I didn’t even glorify myself.” She then asked me if she should apologize to the man for taking his place, and then I, in an a most-unrighteous moment, asked her if he knew she was the one to take his place. Linda said she didn’t think so, and so I told her not to bring it up then, unless he did. He didn’t, and she was offered the job. But, if we think about righteousness as being in right relationship with God and with others, then it turns out that its really, really hard to live lives of righteousness, because we’re alive.
Now normally righteousness is not something that we claim for ourselves, as that is often a sign of self-righteousness, and so being righteous has a humility that comes with it. Besides for the Righteous Brothers, the apostle Paul is one of the few people to claim himself righteous, but he also had a different understanding of righteousness than what we have just been talking about. Paul says that righteousness is not something we earn, but instead it is something which is given to us by God. Paul says that Abraham is not righteous because of his actions, but his righteousness is reckoned or imputed to him because of his faith. And, as Paul says, this is because we are saved by faith alone, not by our actions. And that’s because, he says, that if we are saved by our actions, or by our righteousness, then it’s something that we could brag about, and take credit for. But it is Christ who saves, as he suffered on the cross for both the righteous and the unrighteous, and so therefore our righteousness or unrighteousness is not about our ultimate salvation.
Except, of course, that we also know that they are. The letter of 1 Peter is about doing what is right and suffering because of it, and so when we talked about that letter a few months ago, I said that the question to ask is if you were charged with being a Christian, would there be enough evidence to convict you? As James says, faith without works is dead, which even Paul ultimately agrees with because he gives us the fruit of the Spirit, the things that will be manifest in our lives if we are living by the Spirit through faith. Paul says in his letter to the early church in Galatia, that “we eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness.” And Peter says we are to always be ready to make a defense of our hope. Although what Jesus and Peter say is that we are to really be seeking it out, this is an active faith. Jesus says, if you love me you will keep my commandments, and what are they? To love one another. Doing it, not just thinking about it, or hoping it will happen. Similarly, Peter says that we are to do what is right. That is not just not doing what is wrong, but intentionally seeking out and doing the good, being righteous, not because of what it will gain us, because Peter says doing the right thing may bring suffering, but we do it because of Christ and what Christ has done for us.
Many of you have already heard me say this, but John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist movement said that the only appropriate response to accepted Christ’s saving actions on our behalf, is to act on that in the world. To seek be do the right thing, or as Wesley said to first do no harm, second to do good and third to attend upon all the ordinances of God, which is 18th century language for doing the spiritual disciplines we talked about when we talked about generosity, daily Bible reading, prayer, learning, worship, and the other things that deepen our faith and bring us not just into closer connection with God but with each other. It is about upholding our end of the covenant that we made with God and with each other when we took our baptismal vows, which is a covenant, or as Peter says, an appeal to God for good conscience. The reason we don’t rebaptize in the Methodist church is because we know that God is always faithful to God’s side of the covenant, it is we who go astray, and so we seek to gain God’s righteousness not because of what we do, so that we cannot brag about it, but because we are changed by Christ’s saving actions and we seek to be transformed by the renewing of our minds so that we may discern what is the will of God, what is good, acceptable and perfect, to learn to love all, because we love Christ and Christ’s love abides in us.
Rev. Zan Holmes says that as Christians we are to live cross centered lives, to live in right relationship with God and right relationship with each other, and that’s what righteousness is about. It’s not about what we believe or don’t believe, but about how we live. The prayer on the baptismal remembrance tags that we gave out in January as we renewed our baptismal vows, at the end says “I pray that I might live this day as your child and honor you in all that I do.” I think that is the hardest prayer I pray every day, that I will honor God in all that I do, but that’s what it called for us because Jesus says the path that is wide and easy is the path of destruction, but the path that leads to eternal life, to life and life abundant, is narrow and hard, and that’s why fewer people choose it. So we might ask ourselves, how are we choosing to do what is right this day? How are we living into the righteousness that God has given for us? Are our actions showing gentleness and forgiveness, love and kindness, patience and self-control, are we offering joy and peace, are we being faithful? For that is what is called for us in our good conduct in Christ. So may we choose faithfulness and righteousness this day and every day. I pray that it will be so my brothers and sisters. Amen.
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