Monday, August 1, 2011

Augenschein Righteousness

[20] For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.
[21] "You have heard that it was said to those of old, 'You shall not murder; and whoever murders will be liable to judgment.' [22] But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council; and whoever says, 'You fool!' will be liable to the hell of fire. [23] So if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, [24] leave your gift there before the altar and go. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift. [25] Come to terms quickly with your accuser while you are going with him to court, lest your accuser hand you over to the judge, and the judge to the guard, and you be put in prison. [26] Truly, I say to you, you will never get out until you have paid the last penny. Matthew 5:20-26 (ESV)


For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.
The Righteousness of Scribes and Pharisees, Your righteousness must exceed that. It’s a strange statement. Jesus normally is berating the scribes and Pharisees for hypocrisy and other things, but here he all but assumes they are righteous. The truth is they had a modicum of righteousness, and they excelled at it. It was a human, civil righteousness, the kind of righteousness that makes one righteous in the eyes of one’s neighbor but not in the eyes of God. It is the kind of righteousness many confuse with righteousness before God, the kind achieved by human endeavor. And there is a kind of righteousness that can be achieved by human endeavor, the kind that makes a person think of another as being a good person, when Jesus says there is only one who is good, and means that only God is good. There is only one righteous and that is God. The righteousness God requires is much more than human endeavor can accomplish. It is a lot more than the augenschein that we are used to considering as righteousness, and yet it is this righteousness that we need should we want to enter into the kingdom of heaven.
Most take this as an invitation to out Pharisee the Pharisees, to beat them at their own hypocritical game. The Pharisees tithed mint and dill, I’ll tithe my potatoes too! You know this game, it is a silly one. It’s one where people try to excel at the law. It normally ends up being a game where one begins to ignore God’s law, and replace it with his own ideas of right and wrong. This is an effective game, for the devil. It is quite good at deceiving neighbors and possibly even whole cultures, but it is not good at making anyone righteous or deceiving God. And thankfully, it only deceives your neighbors for a season or two, well normally.
We are familiar with this game, it is a game that stifles life and culture. It is a game that ends up forbidding coffee, and turning a blind eye to fornication. It is a game that occupies itself with making it hard to find a drink and lets the financial industry rob the poor blind as it allows for usury. All in an attempt to uphold an appearance, an augenschein of righteousness. But then the laws don’t seem to help, most often they seem to just exacerbate the problems. Something is wrong when teenagers find it easier to buy Marijuana, oxycotin, meth, or heroin than they do a six pack or cigarettes. But I’m sure the underlying problem can be solved by another law…
See that is the law’s lie, it holds out hope that another law can solve that problem, and then another law, and another law, and finally you have something like the fence the Pharisees built with 600 some laws meant to keep you from breaking the Ten Commandments, and yet it never worked. It could not produce righteousness. The Pharisees became nothing but whitewashed tombs, sepulchers painted white. Not only did they fail to enjoy life, they failed to accomplish that which they set out to do.
And this is the upshot of so many of these games. They take the joy out of life, and God meant for life to be enjoyed, it’s a gift, and then they fail to produce that which they promised, righteousness. If one could be righteous at all, one would have exceeded the righteousness of Pharisees. There is no righteousness where the law is concerned. It just entangles you in a web of deceit.
But there is another way, not of law but of Gospel, Christ’s way. Jesus knows how to make us more righteous than the Pharisees, he declares us righteous by fiat of his own death and resurrection into which we have been joined through baptism, where we were buried with him into his death, that just as he was risen by the power of God we too might walk in the newness of life. Yes the newness of life, life that has been declared righteous despite its sin, life that has been restored despite the death that it deserves. Life given once again, and again, and again in the forgiveness of sins, as often as it is needed, a righteousness given. For it is the righteousness of Christ, the righteousness he gives in baptism, the righteousness he gives in the new testament he sealed with his blood, the righteousness he gives in the forgiveness of sins that exceeds that of the Pharisees. And it is this righteousness that breathes fresh breath of joy into life, even joy amidst happiness, joy amidst a pain, joy amidst accomplishment, joy amidst sorrow. And this righteousness, it doesn’t go unnoticed. It becomes contagious as friends and neighbors notice you don’t care to keep up appearances, that you have no time for augenschein righteousness, but live life in love for others. See because when you are righteous, you don’t have to pretend to be righteous, and you know your righteousness is not a matter of law, much less man made law, but a matter of Christ, and the forgiveness of sins.

4 comments:

Larry said...

Bror,

In relation to this: I’ve been reading, more for fun, a book that’s been out for a while “Drinking With Calvin and Luther” by Jim West. Yes it is by a reformed guy but worth the reading about the subject. It basically goes through the freedom of it from Luther through even the Puritans, etc… A lot of nice anecdotes and stories worth a chuckle or two.

However, after he details “how it was”, even during the Puritan’s time what began to occur to me as an American Christian in the year 2011+ was just how foreign it was to me. The air they breathed was rather free from this idea of abstaining from “God’s good gifts” and it occurred to me that we today both secular and the church in the largest since more closely resembles Medieval at best or Islam at worse on this and other pressing issues. Our society is MORE pressed with “laws” about “how to behave and be” than any I can conceive, both secular and pseudo Christian. You’d have to read the book before you realize, “hey this sounds utterly foreign to me”.

E.g. one of the early governors under the Puritans was dealing with some drunkenness in the township so he created some early abstaining promoting like laws. The pastor, which had weight back then under Puritans, wrote him and harshly warned him in an almost Luther moment about making behavior controlling laws and denying God’s good creatures to folks, that it would indeed provoke God (in a negative way).

You would NEVER get that by in large from modern pastors, especially outside of the Lutheran church.

Have you ever noticed that even now when pastors begin to rediscover the freedom of the Gospel around cigerettes or booze or other that they ALWAYS have to throw a hidden legal caveat back in the mix! Something like after a long discussion about this freedom, “….now that doesn’t mean you can go and get drunk…”. While all would agree with that it can be left unstated being obvious, but the secret Pharisee JUST CAN’T RESIST. It’s kind of like the fearful “but” put in when too much 200 proof Gospel is preached, they JUST CAN’T RESIST when all is said and done. Such exhibit that they REALLY don’t believe the Gospel nor its freedom. One can always “finger” the Pharisee in the group during such discussions, they’ll throw in the “but…” or “legal restraint they hallucinate that helps” or “change subject quickly” lest too much freedom be discussed. They are always the wet blanket “mom”/lawyer of the group.

Larry said...

“It is a game that occupies itself with making it hard to find a drink and lets the financial industry rob the poor blind as it allows for usury.”

I just caught that one.

Oh MAN, you are singing my song here. Your probably the ONLY other person I’ve heard have the nuts to say that!

BRAVO! And AMEN!

Larry said...

“It is a game that occupies itself with making it hard to find a drink and lets the financial industry rob the poor blind as it allows for usury.”

I just caught this one.

Oh MAN, you are singing my song here. Your probably the ONLY other person I’ve heard have the nuts to say that!

BRAVO! And AMEN!

Scottydog said...

Just a foot note here, because this is a common error. The Pharisees did not make 600+ laws to keep from breaking the 10 Commandments. There are 618 laws in the Torah. All 618 are God given. They are summarized in spirit in the 10 Commandments, just as the 10 Commandments are summarized in: Love God with all your heart strength, soul and might, and your neighbor as yourself. The Pharisees made far more than 600 laws, they made thousands of them. The Talmud is a compilation of these laws designed to keep from breaking the 618 law of Moses.

Your point is completely valid, of course, but leave it to a lawyer to pick nits.

By the way, a lot of the disputes between Jesus and the Pharisees can be brought into context by looking at the laws that are today found in the Talmud. For example, there was dispute between the Rabbis about what to do if your donkey falls into a pit on the sabbath. Some say it's illegal to pull him out, but okay to put pillows in the pit to make the poor beast comfortable. The majority position, however is that it is legal to pull the donkey out on the Sabbath. This is the context behind Jesus statement in Matthew 12:9-14. The Pharisees knew he was right, but he used this to show how they violated God's law to keep their own add-ons to the laws of Moses.

A bit of trivia for the day.