Matt 5:6

As naturally as apple trees bear apples, righteous people do the right thing. Indeed, citizens in the Kingdom of God, justified (made right) by the grace of God through Jesus, will seek out wrongs to make right.

English translations typically translate the Greek and Hebrew nouns dikaiosune and tsedeqah with “righteousness” and related adjectives with “righteous.” Unfortunately, centuries of usage in the contexts of piety and spirituality have given these terms the patina of interiority and other-worldliness. One hears them as references to purely “religious” or “spiritual” conditions. In fact, in many cases, they carry the additional nuance of often arrogant superiority, i.e. of a “holier-than-thou” attitude. Consequently, readers of texts like the beatitude found in Matt 5:6 often take Jesus’ message as encouragement to seek private spiritual attainment quite apart from any circumstance in the real world.

Public Behavior, not Private Piety

A range of texts from both Testaments confirm that the biblical concept of “rightness” involves behaviors and actions manifest in the real world.  Acts 10:35 speaks of one who “does what is right.” Similarly, Psa 5:8 uses the term to speak generically of “a straight path.” In Lev 19:15, “right(eous)ness” constitutes the opposite of false judgment. Deuteronomy 24:13 describes the return of the poor person’s cloak given as collateral in a loan before sunset as “right(eous).”  Other “right(eous)” actions according to the Bible include those that benefit the weak such as orphans and the destitute (Psa 82:3; cf. Prov 31:9; Ecc 5:8; Isa 11:4), those which are the opposite of guile and deceit (Acts 13:10; cf. Rom 3:5), bearing true witness (Prov 12:17), treating laborers fairly (Jer 22:13), and employing fair business practices in the market-place (Ezek 45:10)  – none of which represent primarily private spirituality. In fact, Paul equates “right” acts with works of the law (Rom 4:6, 9; 6:13, 18; 9:31; 10:5). Furthermore, later Jewish Aramaic and post-biblical Hebrew employ the abstract feminine noun to denote “almsgiving” (so already in Matt 6:1).

Jesus used the term throughout the so-called “Sermon on the Mount” in a manner that underscores the public nature of the kind of “rightness” he had in mind:  one can be persecuted for it (Matt 5:10), in the context of the fulfillment of the Torah, Jesus calls for the practice of “right(eous)ness” that exceeds that of the Pharisees (Matt 5:20).

Relationships, not Rules

The historical literature of the Hebrew Bible gives other examples of “right” (or wrong) behaviors that demonstrate that biblical “right(eous)ness” involves faithfulness expressed toward a relationship-partner.  The ideal relationship between kings and their subjects, for example, depends upon reciprocal faithfulness and loyalty.  The king’s highest task is to create and maintain “proper order” (2 Sam 8:15; cf. Deut 33:21, etc.) in which mutual good can flourish. The king responsible for determining who is tsadiq in legal proceedings (2 Sam 23:3). He is to execute “justice and right(eous)ness” (1 Kgs 10:9; 2 Chr 9:8l cf. Ps 72:1-3; Isa 32:1; 45:13). Other texts indicate that such mutuality extends to the relationship between servant and master (Gen 30:33) and between members of the covenant community (Gen 38:26).

Back to the Beatitudes

In contrast to contemporary understandings of religion as a matter of private spirituality, Jesus congratulates those who mourn over unrightness so profoundly that their need of it can be compared to starvation.  Indeed, they are single-minded, determined to make things right even if they suffer persecution for it. The pursuit of rightness takes first place in their lives (6:33). As the continuation of the Sermon on the Mount makes clear, not only is this righteousness manifest in behaviors, it manifests itself aggressively, acting against anything contrary to God’s will, anything foreign to the kingdom of God: hatred (5:22), dishonesty (5:37), miserliness (5:42). It goes well beyond maintaining mutuality in relationship to sacrificial giving, loving one’s enemies (5:44) and forgiving debts (6:12, 14-15).

Contemporary disciples of Christ who starve for the rightness that characterizes the Kingdom of God have ample opportunity to contribute to rightness where there is wrong.  Poverty, hatred, pain, discrimination, child abuse, hunger, violence…