Being Righteous – 1 March 2013

Righteous is a word which may tend to set our teeth on edge, perhaps because we associate it with self-righteous – and righteousness with self-righteousness.  But Jesus says in the Beatitudes, Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness…

Well, the first thing to say is that it is nothing to do with the aberration common among both religious and non-religious people, which we label self-righteousness.  Self-righteousness is simply an unfortunate and unpleasant mistake.  No doubt any of us can be guilty of it at times.  Jesus could get very angry with the self-righteous of Israel, some of the scribes and pharisees and saducees.  They were, he said, in not exactly career-enhancing words, whited sepulchers and a brood of vipers.

In Hebrew and in the Aramaic which Jesus spoke, the word is tsaddiq, and it is not so much a word as a concept.  Justice and right relationships, just dealing and just decisions, are all part of it, but so are the obligations to care for the widow, the orphan and the stranger.  The word expresses the nature of God, and it expresses what God requires.  It also goes with a healthy appreciation of our own history and frailty – You were slaves in the land of Egypt…  But it is not some lofty ideal.  It is an obligation and a discipline.  And Jesus teaches his disciples:  Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness…  One modern translation puts it:  Happy are those who hunger and thirst to see right prevail.

In the silence and stillness of contemplative prayer, what is being dealt with and changed is our hearts, and our stillness is our consent to this.  The hunger and thirst of our hearts comes to be more about righteousness.  This does not mean our own moral performance, however much that might need to be spruced up.  It means our sharing of God’s righteousness, God’s indignation at injustice, God’s care for the widow, the orphan and the stranger.  Jesus proclaims beatitudes, and the meaning emerges if we look at the scriptures Jesus knew well, for instance in Deuteronomy -- Cursed be anyone who deprives the alien, the orphan, and the widow of justice.  All the people shall say, ‘Amen!’

We all hunger and thirst for something – indeed, what we actually hunger and thirst for defines us as persons.  Some people hunger and thirst for lifestyle, or for wealth, or for personal happiness – some for sport, or for fame – some people hunger and thirst for vengeance, retribution…  Other people hunger and thirst simply for sobriety – but not yet.  There are millions who hunger and thirst merely to be able to make a living and live with dignity.  All this is what Jesus meant when he said, Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.  What if, as Meister Eckhart taught, what we long for is actually what God longs for in us?  Think about it.  Eckhart actually said, The eye with which you see God is the eye with which God sees you.  God reciprocates our yearning, we reciprocate God’s yearning.  This is the process of righteousness, and of our hunger and thirsting.