“I tell you, unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter the Kingdom of Heaven.” Those listening to Jesus must have been shocked at what he said, for three reasons.
First, the Pharisees and scribes were considered the arbiters of God and his law. No common person would consider questioning their authority in public. They had all the power and authority.
Secondly, the Pharisees were strict observers of the law, adhering to the oral laws and traditions. Scribes translated and taught the law of God. How could anyone be more righteous than they were? But was it righteousness or self-righteousness?
Finally, Jesus was opening up a path for the common person to access Heaven. With the heavy burden of the over six hundred laws Jews were expected to keep, Heaven was considered an impossibility for the ordinary man or woman, especially the tax collectors, prostitutes and sinners.
Living a life of virtue
The Lord Jesus is challenging His disciples and therefore all of us, that we must be truly genuine in doing good deeds, so that in everything we say and do, we will say them and do them with the intention to be righteous and truly good before God, and we will say them and do them to glorify God and not to satisfy our own selfish desires and intentions. In other words, living a life of virtue.
This is what the Lord meant when He pointed out the wickedness of the Pharisees and scribes, in their piousness and yet, an empty piousness and an empty faith. What Jesus was pointing out was the self-righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees. Self-righteousness in this biblical sense in this situation is related to legalism; that somehow we create within ourselves a righteousness that we believe will be acceptable to God.
Their external actions and works looked to be pious and good, but many did them, not because of the love they had for God, but rather because of the selfish desire for glory, for self-praise and self-glorification;
They had a hunger and greed for worldly fame and human appraisal, for the satisfaction of the body and the mind.
Therefore, although they may seem to be righteous, but through their perversion of faith and righteousness, they have in fact sinned against God.
The Pharisees often looked down on those whom they deemed to be unworthy of God’s love and mercy, such as the tax collectors and the prostitutes, whom they condemned as those who were wicked and hopeless, outside of God’s saving grace.
But as we know, these were the ones who often sought the Lord willingly and with sincere devotion and commitment. The tax collectors and the prostitutes turned towards the Lord, and they were forgiven, and their lives preserved, as we heard in the first reading.
Our culture today is full a self-righteous people, people who are smugly moralistic and intolerant of the opinions of others, thinking their opinion is the only opinion; those who always have the need to right; those who think they are superior to others; those who display moral superiority; those who are disinterested in seeking an unselfish or objective truth.
Jesus is speaking to us in the Gospel today
Does this describe any of our behaviors and attitudes at times? Do we find ourselves being opinionated at times? Do we have the need to be right at times? Do we listen to others with our own agenda? Do we seek to be noticed by what we say and do? Do we do things in order to get praise? Do we exclude others because they are different than us? If we have answered “yes’ to any of these questions, then Jesus is speaking to us in the Gospel today. We are like the scribes and Pharisees.
The Synodal process in which we have begun helps us to resist some of the pharisaic tendencies, allowing us to practice an openness to all people. But it is not just in a synodal process. In everyday life and circumstances, we are called to listen with openness, without an agenda, with great humility.
When we humble ourselves, when we listen to others in humility, then we leave behind prejudices and stereotypes – our own self-righteousness. And then our minds and hearts are free to love as Jesus loves, to accept others as Jesus accepted others.
Humility
Dialogue and openness to others leads us to newness. We must be willing to change our opinions based on what we have heard from others if necessary. This is humility – the antithesis to self-righteousness.
The season of Lent is time for us to look interiorly at our attitudes and dispositions, and perhaps even our own self-righteousness. We become righteous not because what we have done, but by submitting ourselves to the mercy and loving kindness of God. We cannot convert ourselves. Only the love and mercy of Jesus can change us. But we must be seeking to live in right relationship with the Lord and with one another. We must be reconciled to God and to one another, so that we can offer a pure gift at the altar.
And finally, true righteousness allows us to value and involve the unique role and vocation of each member of the Body of Christ – no one is excluded - for the renewal and building up of the whole Church which Jesus came to establish. Amen?