Pentecost 3: The Righteousness Game

Zechariah 9:9-12
Psalm 145:8-15
Romans 7:15-25a
Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30

“I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate….For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do”. (Romans 7:14, 19) As we read through this passage we encounter a confused and confusing thought process revealing an internal struggle within Paul which it is clear he himself cannot entirely comprehend. Indeed, he says as much: “I do not understand my own actions.” (Romans 7:15) Certainly things had changed for him with his conversion, but he does not yet completely know how to behave – what to do – in this new life. Old habits die hard, and as he writes we find him still caught up in a vicious and destructive cycle of trying to be good, trying to be righteous which has become for him a nightmare of subjective failure and worthlessness. He has even pitted his body against his mind – “I see in my members another law at work with the law of my mind” – and as such has set himself up for a no-win situation. He is still playing the game of righteousness which when internalised always resolves itself in feelings of shame, uselessness and worthlessness. For many this internalisation ends in suicide; the feelings become unbearable, as “winning” – whatever that may mean – becomes increasingly unattainable, impossible.

But there are other ways to play the game, whose rewards seem far more satisfying, that is the feelings attendant on being right, being superior; when, instead of placing ourselves in a no-win situation, we place others. Isn’t that really what Jesus is pointing out in the Gospel? “John came neither eating nor drinking and they say, ‘He has a demon’: the Son of Man came eating and drinking and they say, ‘Look, a glutton and a drunkard.’ ” (Matthew 11:18-19a) The political and religious authorities, the cultural and social elite, all felt threatened by John and by Jesus; after all the two laid bare some pretty nasty truths about power and social control. Both John and Jesus took those groups down a notch or two, and for this neither were liked, and so their opponents played the righteousness game calling the one demon-possessed, the other a loose liver; and now they could look down their noses at them, and thus had a plausible rationale for ignoring their insight and accusations altogether. It may seem that they are winners in the righteousness game, but the externalisation of the game – like its internalisation – has its own vicious cycle, a cycle of demoralising one-upmanship. The name-calling moves to accusations which in turn become threats, and threats violence; and, like its internalised counterpart, the externalised version of the righteousness game ends in death. Both John and Jesus eventually are executed as the cycle comes to its gruesome apex.

In a sense the root of the game is always a feeling of unworthiness, a feeling of worthlessness and the attempt to achieve worthiness through our own efforts. At one extreme, internalisation, we cripple and demoralise ourselves; at the other, externalisation, we demonise and victimise others. At the one extreme feelings of unworthiness paralyse us into believing “I am not worthy enough. I must accomplish more, achieve more, attain worthiness by doing more, discern my worthiness according to others’ opinions of me.” At the other extreme, feelings of unworthiness resolve themselves in “I am more worthy than others. I have done all the right things, I live so much better than others, I do so much more than others, I think the right things and know the right people”. In both extremes what is created and perpetuated are, as I mentioned, vicious cycles of more and more action, more and more doing, more and more guilt, more and more victimising; escalating activity, escalating self-reproach, escalating victimisation, and eventual escalating violence, violence to ourselves and to others; until we can find ourselves saying with St Paul “[Wretch] that I am! Who will save me from this body of death?” (Romans 7:24) Who will save me from this unending game of self-loathing and self-righteousness? “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!” (Romans 7:25)

The Good News of God in Jesus Christ is that there is an alternative to this cycle of demoralisation and victimisation. We do not have to break our spirits and those of others to prove our worth. We can stop trying to win a mug’s game, simply by ceasing to play it. Ultimately, I cannot be right in any real and objective way, and so I must stop trying to achieve rightness by more and more activity. Ultimately, worthiness is not something I can achieve by my own efforts, certainly not by looking down on others, because worthiness is already inherent in my creation, and in the creation of every one. It is – to borrow a timely word – inalienable. My worthiness is not about me – your worthiness is not about you – it is about God, and thus it is about love; and it is only when we really allow ourselves to be loved, and to be loved well, that we can ever stop playing the righteousness game, whether it resolves itself for us in distorted inferiority or exaggerated superiority. When we know that we are loved, then and only then can we stop; stop the game, stop the need to prove our righteousness through agonising and soul-destroying activity or obsessive introspection, stop the one-upmanship, the looking down our noses at others, the victimising of the different. We can even stop with the need to be right. When we can accept our worthiness through love then we can rest. “Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest”. And what can be a heavier burden than this un-ending cycle of righteousness? Still, laying that burden down and opening ourselves to love can perhaps be the heaviest work of all; and in comparison the vicious games of self-accusation or victimising superiority are easier to play, because whether we realise it or not in playing them we can continue to entertain the illusion that our worth can be achieved through something we can do. Ah, but to lay down that burden, to lay down the game, and to say “I don’t want to be – I don’t care about being – right or worthy or good anymore, I just want to love and be loved.” To say that and to live that is perhaps one of the most difficult changes to make. It will feel like a yoke placed up on our backs as we begin to walk into this new way of being. Jesus knows this because it is the same yoke which he bore himself, and he says to you right here and now “take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” (Matthew 11:28-29)

Let’s be honest, we all play the righteousness game, whether by self-deprecation or self-importance – sometimes both by turn. I am beginning to learn it is a mug’s game whose end is always violence and death in one way or another. But its antidote is love, the love of God and of others; not some narrow, romanticised version of love but real love that welcomes, accepts, redeems, transforms, and allows us to grow into the reality of our inherent worth. The antidote of the righteousness game, as Jesus suggests, is in gentleness and humility: gentleness to ourselves and humility in the face of others. The psalmist tells us the “the LORD is gracious and full of compassion, slow to anger and of great kindness; [that] the LORD is loving to everyone and his compassion is over all his works.” (Psalm 145:8-9) It is not anything we do but this attitude and love God has towards us that makes us acceptable and worthy. We can stop; stop with the game, and in God’s acceptance find rest for our souls and bodies. We can stop with the cycle of righteousness and in God’s acceptance lay down the burden of having to be right or good or better, and simply live the life of a beloved child of God – loved, redeemed and worthy – the only life God has ever wanted for you, and the only life in which you will find real meaning and joy.