“Righteous”
Matthew 21:12-32[1]
Most of
us have opinions that we believe to be right. That’s a perfectly normal part of
being a living, thinking person. There are just some things that make sense to
us, and others that don’t make sense. When it comes to matters that are near
and dear to the heart, we can often tighten our grip on our opinions. We may
even blur the difference between “opinion” and “truth.” Granted, our opinions
can be more or less “informed,” but they are nevertheless opinions. Assuming
that our opinions are “true” can set us up for some unfortunate conflicts with
our fellow human beings. Especially when they also have opinions they believe
are “true.”
Again, so
far we’re just dealing with normal life. This has been going on as long as
there have been people. Things can get a bit dicey when we go from assuming our
opinions are “right” to assuming that they (and we who hold them) are
“righteous.” That adds another dimension to the problem. When we take that
step, not only are those who hold different opinions “wrong,” we may view them
as “enemies.” When we see ourselves as “righteous,” it’s not far from seeing
those who disagree with us as dangerous. And when we perceive people to be a
threat, it becomes easier to attack them.
I think
Jesus was addressing this problem in our Gospel lesson for today. It’s no
secret that Jesus had a tense relationship with the Jewish religious leaders.
In our lesson for today, he “got in their face” about their hypocrisy by driving
the merchants out of the temple. Now, we have to understand that the base of
power for the Jewish religious leaders was the temple and the synagogue. Part
of what that means is that by definition they got to define who was considered
“righteous” and who was branded a “sinner.” And of course, in that setup, they
were the ones who got to be “righteous,” and they were the ones who got to
target others as a “threat.”
So when
Jesus dared to criticize the religious leaders on their own turf, they
responded in a way that is perfectly predictable. They asked him, “By what
authority are you doing these things, and who gave you this authority?” (Matt.
21:23). This is predictable because they assumed they were the ones whom God
had given authority in religious matters, and that Jesus had no such authority.
But Jesus saw through their intentions, and so he asked a counter question. He
asked them where John got his authority to baptize. He knew they didn’t recognize
John’s baptism any more than they recognized his authority. And their response
is interesting and instructive.
The
“argument” that followed among them showed where their true concern was. They
weren’t concerned about the authority of Jesus’ ministry, any more than John’s.
They weren’t even concerned about what was true. Their sole concern was about
maintaining their power and prestige and about how they looked to the people!
So they kept their place firmly on the fence and simply answered, “We do not know.”
Now, these are men who were used to answering questions with definitive answers
that were to be taken as God’s truth. I would say they rarely, if ever, spoke
those words to anyone.
So Jesus
told a parable that exposes their hypocrisy. In the parable, a father asks a
son to go work in the vineyard and he refuses, but then changes his mind and
goes. The father asks his second son to go to work and he says yes, but then
doesn’t go. The clear implication is that it’s not always those who make a lot
of noise about being righteous who actually practice what they preach. In fact,
Jesus told the “righteous” religious leaders that the tax collectors and
prostitutes—those who were at the top of their list of “sinners”—were way ahead
of them when it came to actually doing God’s will!
For all
their presumption of being “righteous” and the pious play-acting that went
along with it, they had rejected what Jesus called “the way of righteousness”
(Matt. 21:32). What’s more, the people they scapegoated as being “sinners” were
actually the ones who believed John and Jesus and accepted the good news of the
Kingdom of God they came to preach. The very fact that the leaders considered
themselves “righteous” was simply a convenient way for them to keep up
appearances with their sham religion by diverting the attention to others. In
fact, their whole system of religion was an elaborate self-justification for
their self-designation as “righteous.”[2]
This
behavior was not the exclusive prerogative of the “righteous” people in Jesus’
day. People of faith throughout the ages have identified others as “sinners” simply
as a way of justifying themselves. We all can fall into the trap of deflecting
attention away from ourselves so we can keep up the appearance of being
“righteous” and avoid facing our own sins. But whenever we use our religion to
make ourselves look good at the expense of others, we’re not only hurting them,
we’re also hurting ourselves. The more tightly we draw the circle of who is
“righteous,” the more pressure we feel to live up to expectations that no one
can fulfill. Instead, Jesus offers us God’s full and free acceptance as a gift.
When that gift takes hold in our hearts, it no longer matters who is
“righteous,” because none of us are!
[1] ©
2020 Alan Brehm. A sermon delivered by Rev. Alan Brehm, Ph. D. on 9/27/2020 for
Hickman Presbyterian Church, Hickman, NE.
[2] Cf. Jürgen Moltmann, The Way of Jesus
Christ, 114: Jesus was “breaking through the vicious circle of their
discrimination in the system of values set up by the righteous.”
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