In her book, The Preaching Life, Barbara Brown Taylor, Rector of Grace Cavalry Episcopal Church, addresses the evil of human-based righteousness:

 

“When I turn my good into your duty and judge you for your failure to perform it according to my individual standards, then my wish for your well-being becomes darker and more dangerous. My altruism, selflessness turns into self-righteousness, which is no longer an annoying habit but can become a malicious pride that works evil in the human soul” 

 

Such evil can actually destroy the spirit of others around me as I condemn them in my mind or verbally. I place myself over God and judge you by my standards of what is godly. It may be difficult to hear that righteousness can become an evil, but read any gospel and you cannot miss the message. In Luke, the Gospel for our liturgical year, John the Baptist sets the stage as early as chapter three. "Do not begin to say to yourselves, `We have Abraham for our ancestor," he warns the crowds (3:8), reminding them that God alone is their origin and founder in faith. No other lineage can save their lives, not even Abraham's. The matter of our righteousness belongs to God alone.

 

Then in chapter 4, Jesus preaches his first sermon in his hometown synagogue, telling all those faithful Jews how God sometimes prefers foreigners to the chosen people (4:24-27). They force Jesus to the edge of the cliff where they mean to kill him because they know what is right, how dare he challenge their righteousness. The scene is a foreshadowing of one of the causes for crucifixion—zealous righteousness stemming from fear of the religious leaders who believed they knew God best.

 

In Luke’s Jesus sermon “on the plane” continues the challenge. "Do not judge, and you will not be judged; do not condemn and you will not be condemned" (6:37). Advising the crowd that they are as blind as those they seek to reform, Jesus suggests that they look at themselves before presuming to fix anyone else. And he calls a hypocrite a hypocrite when once again the righteous challenge him when it comes to picking grain and eating it on the Sabbath or when healing on the Sabbath. And often his disciples hear him but do not understand as in today’s gospel.

 

When a village of Samaritans refuse hospitality to Jesus and the disciples on their way to Jerusalem, because Samaritans are not welcomed by Jews-in Jerusalem or anywhere; Jesus’ apostles object and want to claim their God-given power:

 

"Lord, do you want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them?" (9:54) they are as self-righteous as those who led Jesus to the cliff.

 

Jesus cannot seem to make his point often enough. Self-righteousness kills, not only the spirit of those who are battered by it, but also kills off the spirit of those who batter with it as well. Think about what happens with cruel mocking humor and/or gossip and cruel mocking humor. We can be paralyzed by hatred, consumed by self-righteousness, and shrink without growing in the image of Christ.

 

There is also the extreme danger of learned behavior by youngsters, ever so influenced by what they hear and see in their parents and all family members. The self-righteous positioning can become a generational epidemic and leave entire families shackled to bigoted hatred—and sadly attracting like-mind members to expand the evil.

Sometimes self-righteousness works violently with gangs formed in hatred and bigotry as a defense against hatred and bigotry. Older members prey on youngsters convincing them that the path to power is to be like them and the assurance of group protection and might.

 

Jesus teaches humility, which means an unassuming or non-judgmental nature—open to all. Christ-like humility is the only cure for deadly pride, arrogance, and their relatives bigotry and hypocrisy—nice family that! Some think that humility means to shrink back in cowardice when confronted with the evils that can surround us. Jesus did not back down from standing up for the rights of those abused by systems of injustice, and worse—indifference. For his mission of teaching his good news that comes through an inclusive non-judgmental nature also included speaking out against injustice when confronting the evils around him.

 

Those same evils are around us and the only prevention is to recognize each other as relatives in the family of God, the faith family of Jesus Christ united by His Spirit is to live the lives we know he calls us to –striving each day to rise up in him. May we live his righteousness not our own.

Blessings, Fr. Gordon

 

¹ The Preaching Life, Barbara Brown Taylor January 28, 1993, Cowley Publications Cambridge MA