March-April 1999

Should We Just Try Harder?

by Steve Brown

While I'm writing to you, I've set aside some work I've been doing for a new chapel sermon series at the seminary where I teach. It is a series on righteousness. Almost all of my teaching comes from questions I ask. I study the Bible to find answers for me, and then I share what I've discovered with others. I started thinking about this series after reading Matthew 5:20 where Jesus said, "For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven."

When I read that verse, I had a scary thought: The Pharisees and teachers of the law were far more righteous than I am. They really were "good" people. If one defines "righteousness" in terms of obeying rules, being very religious, doing all the right things and being quite proper, I'm not even close to them. (I know a lot of you, and you guys have a long way to go, too.)

More Righteous

If, in order to enter the kingdom of heaven, I have to be more righteous than the Pharisees and teachers of the law, what am I going to do? I've already tried to live by the rules, to do the right thing and to be more religious. It was really hard work. That hard work led me to ask a lot of people how to do it better. Almost all the advice I received was the equivalent of "just try harder." They didn't put it that way, of course, but that's what they meant. They talked about "the crucified life," about "the power of servanthood," about "learning to enjoy God," about "sanctification being a work of the Holy Spirit," about "moving on to perfection" and about the "joys of holiness." Problem was, it was almost always based on me, my work, my obedience and my purity.

I tried... I really tried. Sometimes I even achieved a modicum of success. I wasn't as good as the scribes and Pharisees, but, if I kept at it, I might make it. After all, I was a pastor, wrote books and tried to be a servant. I was big on holding people (including myself) accountable, on church discipline, on the cost of discipleship and on reminding people about the dangers of "cheap grace."

That's when reality hit! God let me see myself (he still does) without all of the denial, the lies and the games. Do you know what I saw? I saw an arrogant Pharisee who, in his effort to do it right, had become a pain to myself and everyone else. Not only that, I was able to see my sin, my failure, my disobedience and my religiosity in all of its starkness. It scared me to death.

Repentance

I started repenting in sack cloth and ashes. How could I have been so blind?

That was when I heard God laugh.

It's quite irritating when one is being very serious and religious, and God laughs not an angry, derisive, condescending laugh -- but a joyous, free, accepting laugh.

"It's about time!" he said.

"I'm so sorry. I'm going to do a lot better. You just watch. I'm going to read the Bible a lot more, and pray more, and be good, and you will be so pleased with my obedience."

"What makes you think you're going to do it now when you couldn't do it before?"

"Well...uh...you know... now that I know the error of my ways, I'll try harder and stuff."

"What if I told you that I define righteousness differently than the way the Pharisees and teachers of the law define it? What if I told you that you are already more righteous than they were because you have the righteousness of my Son? What if I told you to stop trying harder and just let me love you? What if I told you that I don't appreciate your trying harder? What if I told you that you already have an 'A' for life?"

"That would be fine. But you can't do that. You're God!

"So, now you are going to tell me how to be who I AM?"

"Of course not. It's just that... God is supposed to be..."

"Why don't you just let me define myself. After all, my thoughts aren't your thoughts, and there is nothing you can do to change it. I am, after all, immutable. What would you do if you knew that for a fact?"

"First, I would be glad. Then I would get some rest. Then I would tell everyone I knew what you're really like. Then I might laugh a little more, be less critical and quit trying to be everyone's mother. I would be kinder and gentler toward myself, too. But then... that wouldn't be very spiritual."

"Of course it wouldn't be spiritual! I'm really quite tired of spiritual people. That was the problem with the scribes and Pharisees. They were spiritual and knew it. The really righteous rarely know it. Others don't either. Doesn't matter. 'Righteousness' is another word for 'freedom' -- that comes from being accepted and joyfully living with that knowledge. It's dancing without always looking at your feet."

"Wow, that's a relief."

"I meant it that way."

God Loves You

I'm not exactly sure what I'm going to say in the sermon series on righteousness. I'm still working on it. But whatever I say, I've decided that I'm not going to tell people to try harder. I'm going to tell them about a God who loves them, and then I'm going to see what happens when they (and I) understand that fact. I suspect that righteousness comes from the "constraint" which finds its root in God's love (2 Corinthians 5:14). And because it is, after all, his love, that means if there is no righteousness, his love is the same.

Now... that would be a radical message! Probably make some folks angry.

C.S. Lewis once penned a humorous epitaph. It read:

Erected by her sorrowing brothers

In memory of Martha Clay

Here lies one who lived for others;

Now she has peace.

And so have they.

May God save us from the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees. And may God save me from my own righteousness when it isn't from him.

You too!

He told me to remind you. 

Professor Steve Brown says that being grateful is better than being manipulative. Thanks for your insights and teaching, Steve!

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