Preparing for Righteousness

I got into my car after a long day and absent-mindedly turned on the radio to my standard FM station, ready for some nice light pop music to accompany me home down Westport Road. When I heard the familiar strains of “White Christmas” come floating over the airwaves, I groaned inwardly. “You’ve got to be kidding me. Already?! It’s barely Thanksgiving!” I sighed.

“I’m dreaming of a white Christmas, just like the ones I used to know… Waves will crash and people faint, as the planets in the heavens start to glow …”

          “What!?” I thought, frantically tapping on the newfangled media screen on my dashboard.

          “Have yourself a merry little Christmas … the Son of Man draws near. From now on our troubles will grow worse each year,” I heard, as I hit the screen harder.

          “O figgy tree, o figgy tree, how full are all your branches. The reign of God will soon be here, with signs and portents, far and near …”

          Let me tell you—I was so distracted that I nearly ran off the road!

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          I know, these songs didn’t really come over the radio like that, but the mixed messages that we do hear during Advent are enough to boggle our minds. The media pours out syrupy-sweet nostalgia by the bucketful; the advertising industry cultivates our longing for immediate happiness; and the church urges us to wait patiently for something huge that we don’t quite understand. As we plop into our cars after a long day at the office, it makes sense that we feel confusion over what exactly we are waiting and preparing for this season. Are we preparing for warm and snuggly family time or for earthquakes and tribulation? Are we preparing for feasts and gifts or for chances to walk the way of the Cross? Are we preparing to remember the sweet baby in the manger or to welcome the Son of Man coming in the clouds? If we are being asked to prepare for all of this at once, it seems that we have been given a difficult task indeed.

          Before we run off the Advent road, trying to manage an impossible task, I would like to point to a common thread that runs through all of these seemingly conflicting messages. That thread is righteousness, as it is found in our reading from Jeremiah. I believe that, in all aspects of the season, we are to prepare for God’s righteousness. Now “righteousness” has gotten a bad rap in our minds these days, either as a meaningless “theology word,” or as a form of pious self-righteousness, associated with the kind of perfection-seeking and intolerant Christian who thinks that she is better than everyone else. I’m not so sure that any of us would rejoice if our friends described us as a “righteous” man or woman. We would much rather be called “loving” or “good” or “honest.”

Righteousness for Jeremiah, though, and throughout the Hebrew scriptures, does not have these unpleasantly pious connotations. Righteousness means “rightness;” it is the state of being in right relationship, in right order. For example, a friend of mine told me a story that he had heard about an American pastor traveling in Israel who experienced car trouble. An Israeli soldier stopped by the side of the road to help the stranded tourist, and after the soldier finished putting things right under the hood of the car, the American heard a familiar Hebrew word pop out of the soldier’s mouth: “Tsedek,” he said. All is in right working order again, all the parts of the engine are working together to do what they should. Because of the frequency of the word “tsedekah” in the Bible, every seminarian who has ever taken Hebrew class knows that it means righteousness. But to hear it in a real-life situation on the side of a road in Israel, referring to the workings of a car engine, helps to free the word of its churchy connotations.

The prophet Jeremiah, then, speaking to his suffering and exiled nation, reassures them that one day soon, God will once again put everything right for God’s people. The broken parts will someday fit together as they were meant to. One day soon, God’s people will live in a world where justice and right order reign, and that right order will come from right relationship with God. As my friend puts it: when the Lord is our righteousness, every part of creation—the natural world and the human world—will work together for the good of the whole, choreographed by a God who redeems and makes all things new.

Isn’t that what we are all longing for, as we get into our cars after a long day, or as we read the tragedy in the newspapers, or as we pray for our loved ones ….?

--We do long for a white Christmas … where the right weather for the season reflects right relationship within our families and within our circle of friends.

--We do long for a happy Christmas … where God will put right all of the brokenness that weighs so heavily upon our shoulders.

--We do long for a fig tree Christmas, where rightness reigns in the natural world and God’s blessing shines clearly upon the land.

--We do long for a just Christmas, where rulers promote right relationship in society, and everyone shares fairly in God’s blessings.

--We do long for a love-filled Christmas, where right relationship with God comes wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger.

--We do long for a hopeful Christmas, where we dream of time itself flowing like a stream into the rightness of a whole cosmos visibly structured by God’s eternal Word.

The thing about God’s righteousness is that it is built into creation and can therefore be found everywhere, if we are alert to it—even hidden within those annoying secular songs on the radio. It’s OK to leave the radio on, just don’t let it lull you to sleep. Rightness requires all of the parts to come together—God’s handiwork, together with yours.