RIGHTEOUS
Luke 5:30-35
30 The Pharisees and their scribes were complaining to his disciples, saying, “Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?” 31 Jesus answered, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick; 32 I have come to call not the righteous but sinners to repentance.”
Sin is so easy to see in others.
I still haven’t read The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion, even though a trusted colleague has highly recommended it several times now. I do intend to read it soon. Maybe you’ll read it too and we can have some good conversation about it. In the meantime, I’ve read the Introduction, available here: https://righteousmind.com/.
Author Jonathan Haidt writes, I could have titled this book “The Moral Mind” to convey the sense that the human mind is designed to “do” morality, just as it’s designed to do language, sexuality, music, and many other things described in popular books reporting the latest scientific findings. But I chose the title “The Righteous Mind” to convey the sense that human nature is not just intrinsically moral, it’s also intrinsically moralistic, critical, and judgmental.
It seems we’re excellent at self-righteousness (feeling morally superior to others) and not so great at actual righteousness (acting in accordance with God’s wishes).
I think the hymn writer Frederick W. Faber (1814-1863) got it right: For the love of God is broader than the measures of our mind; and the heart of the Eternal is most wonderfully kind. But we make this love too narrow by false limits of our own; and we magnify its strictness with a zeal God will not own (There’s a Wideness in God’s Mercy, ELW #587).
Thank God Jesus came to hang out with sinners, to eat and drink with us, to call us to repentance, to love us into life.
Thank God Jesus came to save us from ourselves.
When the goodness and loving-kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of any works of righteousness that we had done, but according to his mercy, through the water of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit. This Spirit he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that, having been justified by his grace, we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life (Titus 3:4-7).
Amen.