Hello my friends,

As I have mentioned the last few weeks, I am resending a few of my most read newsletters last week and this week as I finish up my manuscript and celebrate my birthday with my family. The newsletter I am sending you today was originally sent out on June 18, 2023 and it deals with the meaning of righteousness. A word that can be found all throughout the Bible and is said in Christian circles today, but can be difficult to define and understand. When we do though, we find it has profound relevance for our time today. So I hope today's newsletter is both inspiring and encouraging to you.

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I hope you had a wonderful week. I was really touched by all your responses to my last newsletter and how so many of you shared your own experiences of mourning. Thank you for your vulnerability and willingness to share those with me. We all grow stronger by sharing our stories. It is a true source of comfort.

If you happened to miss last week's, you can read it here: Blessed Are Those Who Mourn ​

I'm still working through the beatitudes and wrestling with what they might mean for us today. One that has been especially ambiguous to me is "blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled." -Matthew 5:6

I don't know about you, but the word "righteousness" has meant different things to me at different points of my life. After doing some further study, I'd like to think with you today on what Jesus might actually mean by this beatitude and how the term "righteousness" is a much more expansive category than I imagined before.

But before we get into that, here are some resources on this topic to consider.

POTENTIAL RESOURCES

-The Bible project has a beautiful and profound video on the Biblical theme of righteousness and justice. It's just under 6 minutes long, but I found the illustrations and descriptions are really moving. You can watch that here.​

-When I was in seminary, I was part of a group project in a class on Christian Ethics that had such a deep impact on me. We presented on "conflict minerals," like tin, tungsten, tantalum, and gold, all of which are essential in the production of electronics, from cell phones to car parts. The mining of these minerals has fueled the deadliest conflict in The Congo of Africa since WW2 and literally making windows and orphans on a consistent basis. With we Western Christians using electronics more than many others in the world, especially in our churches, this creates a deep ethical dilemma. How do we "act justly" in this global market? The podcast Throughline produced a recent episode on this very topic called "The Ghost in Your Phone." ​

-With student loan forgiveness entering the political conversation once again, it creates a similar situation. How do we Christians respond justly on this issue? Again, Throughline has a great episode to help us be more historically aware of the current context we are in with student loans. The episode is called: Student Loans: The Fund-Eating Dragon​

-Lastly, I would like to again recommend the book "Subversive Witness: Scripture's Call to Leverage Privilege," by Dominique DuBois Gilliard. In this wonderful book, Gilliard asks us to grapple with privilege, indifference, and systemic sin in new ways by using in-depth biblical examples to reveal the complex nature of privilege and Christians' responsibility in stewarding it well. I highly recommend reading it through.

Okay, onto today's content.

What does "righteousness" even mean?

The word righteousness is a word that can not only carry a lot of baggage for people, but depending on one’s theological perspective, it can mean different things to different people.

Growing up in fundamentalist evangelical circles, the word righteousness meant something closer to “piety” to me. I thought it meant an outward, tangible reverence to God. Whether it was through passionate singing, speaking in tongues, prayer, fasting, or other spiritual practices, I saw those who did so with passion and fervency as the most “righteous” of people.

I of course wanted to be like them and grow in that myself. I wanted to be righteous in the eyes of God, so I started practicing that kind of “righteousness” and put a lot of pressure on myself to measure up.

Those of you who grew up religious, how have you defined righteousness in the past? How did that influence you?

How we define this word is really important because it shapes how we read it in scripture and what we think God is asking of us.

What does Jesus mean when he says, “blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled” in Matthew 5:6?

It is interesting when we look at the Greek word used for “righteousness” here, dikaiosuné. It is most basically defined as “right action.”

More deeply than that though, it is connected to the theme of God’s divine justice and right actions all throughout the Hebrew Bible.

It is not only important to know God’s justice but to carry it out. Justice and right action.

As a faithful Jewish Rabbi, Jesus is evoking this age old theme of justice and right action in this beatitude and calling it “blessed.”

Yet, here again, if we define righteousness as “justice” and “right action,” those are still pretty ambiguous words.

People can define these things in many different ways.

So, we have to look at this Biblical theme in the Hebrew Bible a bit more in order to get a concrete sense of what Jesus is pointing to here as “blessed.”

When we do, we find that Jesus is pointing to a way of being in the world that is connected to the mission of God since the very beginning of time.

In the Hebrew Bible, what we often call the Old Testament, we see a similar deep connection between justice and right action.

The Hebrew word for justice is מִשְׁפָט (mishpat).

The Hebrew word for righteousness is צֶדֶק (tsedeq)

Theses two words will often be seen as partnered up together in Hebrew biblical texts. Let’s look at a few prime examples.

"Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves,

for the rights of all who are destitute.

Speak up and judge fairly;

defend the rights of the poor and needy.” -Proverbs 31:8-9

“This is what the Lord says: Do what is just and right. Rescue from the hand of the oppressor the one who has been robbed. Do no wrong or violence to the foreigner, the fatherless or the widow, and do not shed innocent blood in this place.” -Jeremiah 22:3

“He upholds the cause of the oppressed

and gives food to the hungry.

The Lord sets prisoners free,

the Lord gives sight to the blind,

the Lord lifts up those who are bowed down,

the Lord loves the righteous.

The Lord watches over the foreigner

and sustains the fatherless and the widow,

but he frustrates the ways of the wicked” -Psalm 146: 7-9

One of my favorite passages that shows this is Isaiah 10:1-2: “Woe to those (Hebrew for unrighteous) who make unjust laws, to those who issue oppressive decrees, to deprive the poor of their rights and withhold justice (mishpat) from the oppressed of my people, making widows their prey and robbing the orphan.”

Powerful, right?

So, even with these few examples, we start to get a clearer sense of what righteousness means, especially from God’s perspective!

It is about the ethical standards in our relationships with others. Yet, it even extends beyond personal relationships to collective relationships. How we as a collective people make laws and shape our society in relationship with the most vulnerable.

As I said before, it is a theme that begins all the way back “in the beginning.”

In Genesis 1, we see humanity is created in the image of God. All of humanity. Hence the poetic use of the Hebrew word for humanity, which is אָדָם: “Adam.”

Whenever we read “Adam” it is not just an individual, it is collective humanity as well.

How this connects to justice and righteousness is that with humanity being created in the image of God, humanity is supposed to not only reflect God’s image in the world, including God’s sense of justice, but they are supposed to see God’s image in everyone else as well!

All of humanity is created in God’s image and are all equally deserving of love, including justice and righteousness.

Imagine a world where every human being treated every human being as if they were divine. Every. Single. Person.

So, God’s vision for humanity was not only that they would reflect God’s image in the world, but that they would treat one another as God’s image bearers. Equally, fairly, and justly.

Yet, what does humanity do in the garden? They choose to define right and wrong in ways that benefited themselves at the expense of others This grows like a weed throughout the Biblical narrative. From a personal level, to a communal level, and all the way up to the level of civilizations. Especially towards the most vulnerable.

People not only do not treat one another as God’s image barres, but they arranged entire systems that abuse and oppress others for their own gain. Especially the poor and the powerless.

We see this clearly in Egypt, where Israel was the oppressed, the poor, the powerless. God liberated them from that bondage. Delivered them to the promised land, where God hoped they would be a “light to the world.” God gave them an entire new way of being, calling them to prioritize the poor, the marginalized, and oppressed and treat them justly like the God bearers they are.

Yet, in many ways, Israel became just like Egypt. Oppressing the poor, the weak, the window, and the orphan. Which is why God sent prophet after prophet to call this widespread injustice out and declare the need for repentance.

This injustice was so widespread, so systemic that while there were certainly those in power who willfully and purposefully perpetuated this injustice for their own gain, there were those who were not aware, yet still benefited from the systems of injustice all the same. Much like today.

Not everyone is Pharaoh, but there were many who benefited from the ways Pharaoh oppressed others. This is the way of worldly empires.

All through the scriptures, God is calling for justice and righteousness, calling for the intentions of creation in Genesis to be practiced towards each other, rather than the curses of “the fall.” On both a personal level and communal level.

Then we see God becoming human. Jesus. Who embodied this sense of justice and right action in the world.

What did his first public sermon in his hometown sound like?

Repeating the prophet Isaiah, he said, “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor (i.e. year of jubilee: debt relief).” -Luke 4:18-19

Then he went throughout his entire ministry doing those exact things. Confronting injustice and wrong actions, especially on behalf of the “least of these,” and carrying out justice and righteousness in their place.

This behavior from Jesus resulted in the ways of the empire turning against him, because of how disruptive he was to their systems of greed and oppression, and he was unjustly executed.

Yet even at the depths of death, which is the greatest injustice against all living things, God brought right action and justice to all the world through Christ, raising him from the dead.

Proclaiming to all the cosmos that death will not have the last word, life will. Injustice will not have the last word, justice will. Wrong actions will not have the last word, righteousness will.

Those who follow Jesus were then sent by him to embody this same theme of justice and right action into all the world. Boldly making the problems of others their own problems and advocating for them on their behalf, just like Jesus did for them. Even if it cost them everything.

Confronting individual practices and even entire systemic practices that perpetuate injustice while seeking to carry out justice and right action themselves.

It is this sense of “righteousness” that Jesus is saying is a blessed thing to hunger and thirst for.

I find it very interesting that Christ’s parallel sermon in Luke 6:21 only says, “Blessed are you who hunger now, for you will be satisfied.”

In adding righteousness to what is hungered and thirsted for, it adds such a poetic and profound dimension.

When right action and justice is faithfully hungered and thirsted for, the actual hungry and the actual thirsty will be satisfied!

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.

As you can imagine, this dramatically reshaped my understanding of righteousness. How it is much more about embodying God’s vision for the world ourselves, ensuring that every human is treated like the God bearers they are and opposing practices and systems that do the opposite.

This is why I will never understand how a Christian can call social justice “unbiblical.” It is literally a central part of what God has been asking for from humanity from the beginning. It is to see the problems of the poor, the marginalized, the sick, the vulnerable, and the oppressed and advocate for them as if they were our own problems. Our own family.

This theme of justice and righteousness has caused me to think about things like the products I buy and see if my actions are producing justice or injustice in the world.

This theme of justice and righteousness has caused me to think about the unjust systems around me and how I might be participating with them or benefiting from them.

This theme of justice and righteousness has caused me to think of how justice can be brought for past injustices that still shape our entire country on a deep level.

What is so compelling about this beatitude is when you really get at the heart of people’s politics, we can all agree that we are all hungry and thirsty for justice and right actions.

The difference is how we define justice and righteousness. Is it just for me, is it just individual, or is it for others too, especially the most vulnerable?

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled.

Now I want to hear from you. How do you feel about this dynamic of righteousness described here? Do you feel like it has been helpful? Do you have different thoughts? What areas of justice do you "hunger and thirst" for? Send me a message and tell me about them.

PREVIOUS NEWSLETTERS

​"Faith Over Fear"​​​​

​How Pentecost in Acts 2:1-21 Defines "Church."​​

​The Gospel Comforts the Disturbed and Disturbs the Comfortable​

​Symbolic Christianity vs Substantive Christianity​​
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