Certainly one of the most quoted and beloved verses in the Bible is right in the heart of the Sermon on the Mount and probably is the key summary verse for Jesus’ famous teaching to his disciples, it reads: Matthew 6:33 “But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.” The “all these things” that Jesus mentions are the things like clothing, homes, and all of the normal objects of life for which we tend to strive in order to secure our lives and make ourselves happy. Jesus tells his disciples that if they will focus their attention on a life-long quest to seek God and His righteousness then all the other things in life will fall into place “naturally.” In fact, Jesus audaciously states that the “things” will be “added” or “given” to the Christ-follower. This, of course, is very radical stuff. It represents a 180 degree shift in values from a “thing-oriented” mentality to a God-oriented way of life. However, what is intriguing is the addition from Jesus of the words “and His righteousness.” Oops, in other words, there is more to seek than just a relationship with God. Hmm, what could “righteousness” be?

To understand this important word, which Jesus uses several times in the Sermon on the Mount, we need to do a little word study. I am going to make the case that we have a truncated understanding of this word do to our modern view of the court system. See, the word “righteousness” in the Greek has as its root word “Dike” which means just or justice but is also the ancient name of the goddess for justice, Dike. Probably in your city is a statue of Dike outside your county court complex. She is the gal with the blindfold, a sword in one hand and a balance scale in the other. Now when we think of justice we think of going to court and being declared innocent or guilty. If we are declared guilty then we know that punishment will follow. However, the ancient word Dike had another more proactive connotation. Dike is also the Greek root for “Ekdikesis” which is usually translated “vengeance.” It has the meaning of making a wrong into a right. This concept is what is usually missing in our understanding of Jesus’ word “righteousness.” The point is that righteousness is not just about our “right standing” before God where we are declared innocent because of Christ’s work on the cross. Biblical righteousness is also about what we do to make evil into good. This is why Jesus and Paul taught Christians that they were to “overcome evil with good.” So, when one pursues God’s righteousness one is pursuing by doing--doing things that transform evil into good.

Here is what I think Jesus is saying in Matthew 6:33: if we live our lives in such a way that we become fixated on our own good, we will loose our lives. However, if we push beyond our own good to seek God and do His will in the world, we will gain our lives and also receive the supreme good of existence—God. Now if I were to bring it all down to one word from the Sermon on the Mount that summarizes what it means to be a godly person of righteousness I would say it is…drum roll please… “bless.” Why? You ask. Well, because of the following statement by Jesus from the Mount:

Matthew 5: 44-45 But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you, 45 that you may be sons of your Father in heaven; for He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.

Amazingly, Jesus indicates that those who actually bless those who curse them are acting like the very sons of the Father. Why? The reason is because the Father loves and blesses even those who hate Him—that’s why. So, why not decide that for 2007 you will be a person of blessing? I don’t mean that you will be a person who receives blessings but, rather, a person that gives blessings. I am praying this for myself.

2 Corinthians 5: 18-19 Now all things are of God, who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation, 19 that is, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation.

This passage of Scripture from Paul is a wonderful meditation for the Christmas season. It tells us a very important truth about the Incarnation (the belief that the Son of God took on human flesh). At Christmas time we celebrate that the Christ child was born into our sinful world to live and die in order to save men. However, we should never forget the truth that unless Christ was fully divine as well as human his sacrifice on the cross for us would not be sufficient for our salvation. He had two natures subsisting in one person—a human nature and a divine nature. The question is, how did this work, literally, how did the two natures operate?

Let’s start by thinking about the Trinity. In the Blessed Trinity there is only one activity for the three persons (Father, Son and Holy Spirit) because there is only one nature. However, in Christ his human activity is called “theandric” or “divine-human” because the actions of His human nature proceeded in such a way that His divinity was operating through it. As Paul said in 2 Corinthians 5:19, “God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself.” Just as in normal humans, our physical capacities (i.e. running, talking, typing, etc) are instruments of our intellect; thus, in Christ His human nature was the instrument of His divine nature. For instance, when Jesus touched and healed a leper, the physical touch was truly a human touch. On the other hand, the fact that Jesus cleansed the leper was due to the power of His divine nature. Consequently, it is in this way that all the human actions and sufferings of Christ were effective for our salvation—it was by virtue of His divinity. God “reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ.”

The ultimate positive goal of mankind is to be united with God in heaven. John the Revelator says this about our union with God:

Revelation 21:3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, "Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God.

When we are with God we will have an unobstructed vision of Him so that we can behold His infinite nature and know all things that can be known by our human intellect. Paul says this in regard to knowing God:

1 Cor 13:12 Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

Then as far as our affections, our ultimate happiness in heaven will consist of a permanent repose of our wills in the goodness of God, Revelation 21:4 says, “He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away."

Given the fact that we will be united with God in heaven having attained an unobstructed vision of Him that is fully satisfying to our affections, it must be understood that whatever is the opposite of these things will be the ultimate wretchedness and, therefore, be what hell consists of. Man’s extreme unhappiness will, then, consist of the fact that his intellect is completely cut off from the light of God (this is called “outer darkness” [Matthew 22:13] by Jesus), and that his affections are adamantly turned against God’s goodness (this is called “gnashing of teeth” [Matthew 8:12] by Jesus). The picture that some people have in their minds of hell is that the people that suffer eternal punishment will have a change of heart and will, at that point, want to be united to God. According to the picture that Jesus gives us, this is wrong. Apparently, the people who suffer eternal loss will be steadfast in their refusal to worship and glorify God. In other words, they will achieve all that they have sought in and through their lives.

Getting to heaven or hell is much like walking down a road to reach a destination. One gets to a destination by taking a certain pathway as opposed to another; therefore, getting to a specific destination is the logical and actual outcome of taking one specific pathway as opposed to another. In other words, a person should not expect to get to the destination of eternal joy and delight by taking a road that is marked “rebellion and sin.” The fact is we end up where we are headed.

In 1998 an obscure British think tank dropped a bombshell on the Isles by publishing a small group of essays under the title “Faking It: The Sentimentalisation of Modern Society.” The book shot to the top of the best seller list in England and caused a brouhaha by daring to suggest that the mass hysteria generated by the over-the-top grieving at Princess Di’s death was not only uncharacteristic of proper British behavior, but it demonstrated a sea change in modern society. At issue was the elevation of sentimental feelings over all other things. One of the contributors to the book, philosopher Anthony O’Hear, defined sentimentality as “personified and canonized, the elevation of feelings above reason, reality and restraint.” The main point of the book was that even though modern Western societies think of themselves as the product of the Enlightenment guided by reason, reality and science; the evidence shouts that moderns have radically rejected this tradition and have embraced an irrational “feeling” culture.

The feelings, however, that the authors identified are not true, rather, they are false feelings; feelings “without commitment, feelings displayed for show.”

Two examples from the book illustrate these uncommitted feelings of sentimentality. Children have traditionally been understood to need strong parental and social guidance through discipline and correction in order to mold their tendencies toward evil behavior. Now the sentimentalist sees children as “innocents” and we offer them “opportunities to ‘fulfill’ themselves” while allowing them to indulge in play all the while we are never to be “judgmental.” Here, of course, “sentimentality runs away from reality, the reality of children’s nature.”

However, “Faking It” probably levels its most devastating critique of sentimentality by exposing the shallowness of modern religion. The modern sentimentalist must alter God into an image that we “feel” comfortable with. He is never to be judgmental or have a strong set of moral absolutes that would impinge on our comfortable consumer lifestyle. As “Faking It” powerfully states, “His job, we must remind Him, is to be supportive to us.” Religion becomes a “cozy feeling.”

None of this, though, is new. It is just that we have made the virtues of mercy and pity into vices. Over seven hundred years ago Thomas Aquinas wrote about all of this by quoting Augustine from the 4th century: “Hence Augustine says (De Civ. Dei ix, 5) that ‘this movement of the mind’ (viz. mercy) ‘obeys the reason, when mercy is vouchsafed in such a way that justice is safeguarded, whether we give to the needy or forgive the repentant.’ And since it is essential to human virtue that the movements of the soul should be regulated by reason, as was shown above (I-II, 59, A4, 5), it follows that mercy is a virtue.” Thomas’ thinking here is that mercy (which is “grief for another’s distress”) must be regulated and informed by reason otherwise it becomes an uncontrolled passion. Specifically, according to Augustine, mercy must be safeguarded by justice. In other words, we must use our minds to control our “feels” of sympathy so that we act justly and not become—using a modern psych term—co-dependent.

Later in the same essay, Thomas says this about pity: “…pity grieves, in so far as it esteems someone to suffer undeservedly, whereas nemesis rejoices, in so far as it esteems someone to suffer deservedly, and grieves, if things go well with the undeserving: ‘both of these are praiseworthy and come from the same disposition of character’ (Rhet. ii, 9).” Here is a shock; Thomas is asserting that there is a complementary aspect to human pity that is termed nemesis. Nemesis was the ancient Greek god of retribution and punishment and this word has come to mean that which brings about retribution or punishment. On the one hand, pity grieves for the person who suffers “undeservedly.” However, the same disposition of pity properly becomes nemesis and “rejoices” when someone suffers justly for their crimes and bad behavior. Thomas amazingly quotes Aristotle approvingly to say that it is “praiseworthy” to have both proper pity and just nemesis. Wow, if Britons were upset by the book “Faking It,” can you image what they would have done to Thomas?

Here is my point. We are so drunk on sappy sentimentality that most moderns can’t even imagine mercy and pity being virtues and not “feels.” Furthermore, our mercy and pity have become unhinged from both reason and justice and now are running wildly in our streets and in our churches. Our mercy and pity are more vices than virtues.

Digby Anderson’s essay, “The Sentimental Society” can be found here: http://www.junkscience.com/news2/sentimen.htm
The book, “Faking It: The Sentimentalisation of Modern Society” (Penguin Books, 1998), can be purchased here: www.socialaffairsunit.org.uk/pub/000026.php

If you haven’t read or heard about this yet, Arthur C. Brooks, Associate Professor of Public Administration at Syracuse University has published his findings and it blows out of the water the stereotype of the compassionate liberal and mean-spirited religious conservative. Actually, nothing could be further from the truth than this stereotype. Harvey Mansfield, professor of government at Harvard University, after reading Brooks’ findings noted, "His main finding is quite startling, that the people who talk the most about caring actually fork over the least.”

Brooks’ findings confirm that, as a group, those who regularly practice their religion are the most charitable people. This cuts across denominational lines. Those who are regularly practicing Protestants, Catholic and Jews all give charitably at a startlingly high level.

Things that do not matter in regard to charitable giving and volunteerism are household income or educational level. However, if you are a secularist that is an unmarried young male you are very, very unlikely to give to any charitable cause. In short, you are part of the stingiest demographic group in America.

To make things specific, the average annual giving for a religious person is $2,210, but the average for a secularist is $642. Additionally, religious people volunteer twice as often as secularists. Religious people make up 33 percent of the population but give 52 percent of the donations and 45 percent of the hours volunteered. On the other hand, secularists make up 26 percent of the population but contribute a measly 13 percent of the dollars and only 17 percent of the hours volunteered. Secularists, of course, make up the majority of the political liberals.

I suppose we shouldn’t be surprised by Brooks’ findings—they all make sense from a Christian perspective. However, if you are like me, you have heard the endless mantra by secularists, liberals and the media that conservative religious people are miserly and miserable cretins that are hardhearted and mean-spirited. This just isn’t true. In fact, a case could be made that the opposite is closer to the truth. But there is more. Brooks notes that not only does secularism foster selfishness; it has a general negative affect on the social compact.

Brooks ominously notes that as societies become more secular, as in Europe, they tend to not only become less charitable, they even become anti-charitable. This, he explains does not bode will for an increasingly secularized America. Tocqueville wrote that American voluntary associations with their avid charitable support provided a bridge between a dehumanizing individualism and a strong democratic population that undergirded American civic life. What fosters this strong community sentiment in America (identified by both Tocqueville and sociologist Robert Bellah) is the religious obligation one feels to God and their fellow man. Brooks succinctly states, “…secularism, in addition to stimulating enthusiasm for government as an alternative to civil society, may be antithetical to civil society’s key ingredient.”

You can find a summary of the findings here: http://www.policyreview.org/oct03/brooks_print.html