What Is Righteousness?

“What is Righteousness?”

Matthew 1:18-25

What is the first image that pops into your head when you hear the word “righteous?”

Do you think of some fire and brimstone preacher with a red face who points a finger at sinners and declares them guilty in the eyes of an angry god?

Or do you think of angels, harps and clouds?

Perhaps you think of righteous indignation—anger in the face of injustice.

***Put up on the Screen the Picture of the Church Lady***

Maybe the first image to pop into your head is someone who comes off as self-righteous—thinking they are better than others when it comes to morals and character—someone like “The Church Lady” from Saturday night live.

Or perhaps you think of a good and virtuous person—someone like Mother Teresa or Saint Francis.

We don’t tend to use the word “righteous” much these days.

At least, I don’t hear it in everyday conversations, do you?

In any event, Matthew describes Joseph as a “righteous man.”

What does Matthew mean by this?

Originally, the Hebrew word for a righteous person would mean that Joseph was ethical and chose the right path.

But by the time of Jesus the religious system was such that a righteous person was known for their uncompromising strict obedience to Torah, the Law of Moses as it was interpreted by the leading sect at that time—the Pharisees.

And the Pharisees were what we would call today: Fundamentalists or Literalists.

Jesus called them, “Whitewashed Tombs that look clean on the outside but on the inside are filled with dead man’s bones.”

He said they were hypocrites and were leading people away from God’s Kingdom rather than toward it.

And ultimately, they were the ones who would force Pilate to have Jesus arrested and killed for....according to them, “Breaking God’s Laws.”

So, speaking from the perspective of the religious system of Joseph’s day--righteous would mean that Joseph didn’t eat unclean food.

It would mean that Joseph didn’t mix with the wrong kinds of people, which—when we are honest about this—would have naturally caused him to look down on others, judging them and so forth.

It would also mean that Joseph wouldn’t have kept his carpentry shop open on the Sabbath, nor would he have helped a neighbor fix their fence on the Sabbath.

No one would have invited Joseph over to have ham sandwiches with tax collectors and prostitutes, or if they had, he would have said: “No!”

Most every Jewish person of Joseph’s day who took their religion seriously wanted to be righteous or at least seen by others as righteous.

Being thought of as righteous meant you were admired and looked up to.

You were respected.

You were SOMEBODY.

And that was Joseph…

…or was it?

One thing is for sure.

If Joseph was, indeed, righteous he was turning the 1st Century Religious System’s understanding of righteousness on its head and taking us back to the original.

When Mary found out she was pregnant she must have told Joseph that she had become pregnant through the Holy Spirit.

It doesn’t appear that Joseph believed her.

Would you?

Of course, Joseph thought Mary had been unfaithful to him, and of course this broke his heart…

…and since he was just a human being it must have also made him feel utterly betrayed, humiliated and angry.

He very easily, in his anger and in following the letter of the Law could have had Mary put to death.

This would have saved his reputation.

But instead, Joseph, did not want Mary publicly disgraced nor killed.

So, he planned, instead, to end the marriage quietly.

And, in doing this, instead of making Mary look bad—Joseph is the one who was about to lose his good reputation.

At first, people would just think Mary and Joseph had a falling out.

But as soon as people started to notice that Mary was pregnant, they would come to believe that before their actual wedding ceremony Joseph and Mary had been intimate and then Joseph dumped her.

Joseph would take the blame.

He would look like the bad guy.

Mary’s dignity would be intact and no one would be put to death.

This implies that the real meaning of righteousness in God’s eyes is to be merciful, forgiving, loving—and to believe that these things TRUMP the literal words written in Torah or the Hebrew Bible—our Old Testament since Leviticus 20:10 clearly and literally says that Mary, for committing adultery should or must be put to death.

Joseph, the person who is called “a righteous man” in our passage for this morning wasn’t a biblical literalist and neither was Jesus.

For example, when the Pharisees criticized Jesus for making friends with and eating with tax collectors, prostitutes and “sinners”—which would have been anyone who broke one of the 661 Laws in the Old Testament Jesus explained Himself to them in this way: “Go and learn what this means, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’”