by David Bates
Jeremiah 33:14-16
Saint Petersburg, Petrograd, Leningrad, and back to Saint Petersburg -- the twentieth century became used to name changes for cities (not to mention name changes of former colonial nations). The LORD through Jeremiah's pen promises a name change. Jerusalem will be named "The LORD is our righteousness." "The LORD" is a title. Yet the word in Hebrew is a name: "Yahweh." In Alexandria, Egypt the tradition of translating the name "Yahweh" with the title "The LORD" goes back to at least the third-century BC.
In verses 14-16 NRSV the word "righteous" occurs once and "righteousness" twice, and the two words are related closely to the same root. This is one of the few times that the Bible has very close synonyms, so we'll lump together these two "righteousness" words and consider what it could mean to name a city (literally) "Yahweh, our righteousness."
In the Hebrew Testament, "righteousness" means what is "right" or "normal" or "just." In the plural it can mean "triumphs/victories, saving acts/deeds," which Yahweh performs. Since Yahweh is righteous, Yahweh does righteousness. Jeremiah states in 9:24, "I am the LORD; I act with steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth, for in these things I delight, says the LORD."
Another perspective from which to view "righteousness" in the Hebrew Bible is as "right relationships," seen in Yahweh's relationships with creation and humanity. Yahweh "does/performs" righteous deeds, therefore Yahweh's people must also -- loving God and neighbor.
The lectionary text points out how the king, considered often as God's "son" (2 Samuel 7:14; Psalm 2:7), is particularly responsible for spreading, enforcing, and generating Yahweh's righteousness "from the top down" (or, "from the center out"). The parallel to today's passage (Jeremiah 23:5-6) names the king himself (and not Jerusalem) "The LORD is our righteousness."
Because Yahweh's righteousness is generous, it is generative of genuine human life in this world -- not beyond. Most Hebrews for most of the Old Testament didn't even consider, let alone believe in, life after death. Generous, loyal, beneficial, and reciprocal relationships have to do with this world. Righteousness in human relationships generates the blessings God intends for humans now. For those today who'd like to snatch God's blessings and dash away from everything and everyone, instead, God's righteousness plants us squarely in a community and places the ethical restraints and motivations of righteousness upon us. The city (where we have to get along with our neighbors) is named "The LORD is our righteousness." Righteous acts benefit the entire community, especially the poor, needy, and powerless. The prophets raged against Israel and Judah for not caring for the poor and helpless.
Two strange and disorienting stories help us see righteousness in the Hebrew Testament. In Genesis 30:33 Jacob makes an agreement with Laban. "So my honesty (Hebrew: "righteousness") will answer for me later, when you come to look into my wages with you. Every one that is not speckled and spotted among the goats and black among the lambs, if found with me, shall be counted stolen." The color of the animals will demonstrate in a manner beyond the usual that Jacob has been absolutely honest.
In Genesis 38:26 Judah hasn't performed his duty. He hasn't given his son Shelah to marry his dead son's wife and impregnate her. Judah's daughter-in-law tricks Judah himself into impregnating her. When Judah sees the proof of what he's done (and of what he'd refused to do) he states, "She is more in the right (Hebrew: "righteous") than I, since I did not give her to my son Shelah."
These Genesis passages use "righteous/righteousness" to portray not just right (in the sense of "normal" or "adequate") relationships, but to describe a person who does more than is required or who performs difficult and surprising deeds beyond what is expected. God's righteousness exceeds what people expect; God's righteousness will build a righteous city/society in our midst.
Oskar and Emilie Schindler helped save at least 1,200 Jews from the Nazis in WWII. Schindler's famous list was made up of Jews who worked in his enamelware and ammunition factories in modern-day Poland and the Czech Republic. Those who worked in Schindler's factories thus were relatively safe from execution by the Nazis. In Jerusalem (the city Jeremiah said will be named "Our LORD is righteousness") the Yad Vashem memorial to the victims of the Holocaust honors the Schindlers as "Righteous Among the Nations" for their saving hundreds of Jewish lives.
Righteousness in the Hebrew Bible often indicates (or is a "promise" as NRSV translates v. 14) God's coming reign. As we contemplate Advent, Jeremiah speaks of the future's safe and beneficial days. Lest we become lulled by having traveled through Advent before, God's righteous actions, when they occur in our lives, are surprising. They are as startling as the righteous deeds performed by the Schindlers, considering that Oskar was a member of the Nazi party. God's righteous deeds are great enough to change names and change lives and they are often performed in the face of great evil.
I offer parousia here for the preacher to read/hear in the original, not for the congregation to hear. I strongly advise preachers not to quote Hebrew and Greek (or any other foreign) words in a sermon. It accomplishes nothing, although it can show off, make up for inferiority or mask poor preparation. I could give more reasons and more examples, but for now I'll suggest you merely say, "In the original this means…"
Nowadays when a head of state visits, a horde of people precede the arrival -- security and public relations people, followed by the small army of clipboard carrying advisors and support people who themselves surrounded by the newspersons' entourage clutching their electronic gadgets.
In the ancient Greek world parousia was used for the helpful "visitation" of a god. Notice: 1 Thessalonians prepares believers for Jesus' final (and "positive," for believers) "visitation."
Starting in the fourth century BC parousia gained a semi-technical meaning of the king's or emperor's "visit." For those who knew the ramifications of such a visit, parousia also connoted increased taxes and added levies to pay for this "honor." When an emperor visited, the practice grew of restarting the calendar, beginning the count of years anew from the "advent" of the ruler (as Christians did later with BC/AD). Coins were often minted to commemorate the event. Pomp and ceremony (and extreme expense) surrounded the whole wingding. Sometimes the ruler handed out favors during the visit, but, the visit still dragged the municipality's budget into the red.
When Jesus descends from heaven and the dead rise, then, Paul writes, "We who are alive, who are left, will be caught up in the clouds together with them to meet the Lord in the air…" (1 Thessalonians 4:17). This "meeting" Jesus in the air is parallel to the pomp and magnificence of the official welcome for a royal or imperial "visit." We Christians in delegation will greet our ruler, Jesus, as citizens had greeted visiting rulers for centuries. We see a foretaste of that royal greeting in Jesus' earthly ministry in John 12:12-15. Note that the "great crowd… went out to meet him." This scene, reported nightly on the TV news, is something like Paul refers to in 1 Thessalonians. He speaks of the "coming" (parousia) of our Lord Jesus. When Paul uses the same word for his companions, the NRSV translates it "presence, coming" or "arrival." When parousia refers to Jesus, the NRSV translates it "coming." This noun basically represents two meanings: 1) "presence," as Paul's bodily "presence" is weak (2 Corinthians 10:10), or 2) "coming" as the first stage in being present: "arrival, coming, visit, advent."
R. E. Pritchard has put together a charming collection: Shakespeare's England: Life in Elizabethan and Jacobean Times. In it he gives a hint of why kings and emperors "visited" their realm. The "court" of England's Queen or King was as many as 1,500 persons and the court travelled with the monarch. In the spring the court was usually in "Royal Progress": visiting important towns and the estates of the rich and influential. Pritchard describes the visits as "enormous enterprises, involving huge expense for the hosts to entertain and provide for the monarch and the royal household. They helped to keep the monarch in touch with (some of) the people, while reducing the cost of maintaining the residential palaces, desperately in need of cleansing."
Because we Americans don't have a monarchy, we can, instead, describe the people who seem to turn their attention to us not for our benefit, but for their own. I've had this experience with some salespeople.
Resistance instinctively rises in new church members when they realize that older members aren't so much pleased because more people are joining them in Christ's ministry, but because more people can now help pay the church bills. Who else seems to serve us, while really serving themselves?
The most important: We can rail against insincere religious and secular people and enjoy a self-righteous fit of "renouncing"; however, how do we prepare ourselves for meeting Jesus face-to-face in his final "arrival?"