Let Your Light Shine - A different kind of righteousness

Let Your Light Shine - Salt, Light, and a Deeper Righteousness  - Matthew 5:13–20

In our passage today, Jesus says these words: ‘I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.’ What could he have meant by those words? 

I mentioned before that my Mom grew up in the Salvation Army in the 1950s and early 1960s. The Salvation Army did/and does immense good, especially among the poor and marginalised, but like many churches of that era, it also held a very narrow understanding of what it meant to be righteous.

Righteousness was defined largely in terms of rule-keeping and visible respectability. Smoking and drinking were forbidden, and to be fair there are real benefits from living a clean life-style. But so were dancing and going to the cinema. Faithfulness and holiness were measured by avoiding certain behaviours. And while this produced a strong sense of moral seriousness, it also reduced righteousness to something external, measurable, and socially approved.

Over the last few weeks, we’ve been reflecting on how Matthew presents Jesus not as a break from Israel’s story, but as the one who brings that story to its true fulfilment. Matthew wants us to see continuity rather than contradiction with Jesus standing firmly within Israel’s Scriptures, hopes, and vocation, even as he radically re-interprets and refocuses them.

And one of the key areas in which Jesus brings clarity to the Jewish religious tradition and story of Israel is with regard to the word ‘righteousness’ and what it means to be righteous. 

In Matthew, variations of the word righteousness, righteous and unrighteous occur at least 23 times.  In doing so Matthew uses the language of righteousness more than any other Gospel writer, and he does so at decisive moments in the story. This is not accidental. Matthew is deliberately reshaping what righteousness means, moving it away from highly personalised rule-based respectability and moving it towards the combined Christ-like qualities of  being just and merciful,  fair and compassionate and having inner integrity,

Early on in Matthew’s Gospel, before Jesus has spoken a word, we’re given a quiet but profound redefinition of righteousness.

Joseph, Matthew’s Gospel tells us, is a righteous/just man. And when he discovers that Mary is pregnant, he faces a dilemma. According to the law, righteousness could mean protecting his own honour, exposing Mary, and ending the relationship publicly. That would have been the outwardly correct, socially acceptable response. He chooses a slightly modified version of that, planning to dismiss Mary quietly, but she would have still been left wide open to public scrutiny and condemnation with no-one to protect her.  It is only when prompted by an angelic messenger in a dream that Joseph chooses to walk a path of deeper integrity and deeper righteousness – a righteousness of the heart - when he chooses faithfully and compassionately to open himself to public scandal by taking Mary has his wife. 

And so early on Matthew is already making his point: righteousness is not simply about legal correctness, following the letter of the law or public appearance. It is about inner integrity expressed through compassion – a transformed heart. Joseph’s righteousness looks merciful, faithful and compassionate rather than simply looking respectable.

This sets the trajectory for the whole Gospel.

When Jesus appears, Matthew is careful to present him not as abolishing Israel’s law and prophets, but as fulfilling them.  That’s why, in today’s reading, Jesus says: “Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come, not to abolish, but to fulfil.”

Fulfilment does not mean reinforcement of the law in its most rigid form. It means revealing its true intent, its deepest purpose.

As we have seen in recent weeks, Matthew repeatedly frames Jesus as the fulfilment of Isaiah’s Servant of God, the one called to embody Israel’s vocation: to live for God’s justice, to bear suffering faithfully, and to be a light to the nations.

Jesus is not replacing Israel; he is re-forming Israel around himself, creating a renewed servant community shaped by the heart of God rather than mere rule based observance and outward righteousness, he is is reshaping his followers, from the inside out, so that they make a real difference in the world.

That’s why Jesus immediately tells his disciples:  “You are the salt of the earth… You are the light of the world.”  Salt does not work by remaining pure in a container. It works by being mixed into the dough or mixed into food. Light does not protect itself from darkness; it shines into the darkness.

This echoes Isaiah’s servant imagery  “I have given you as a light to the nations”. The servant’s task is not separation but transformation. Not withdrawal, but faithful presence. Jesus is forming a servant people who do not escape the world, but who embed themselves within it, transforming it from the inside out as salt and light.  

And then comes the line that would have stunned Jesus’ listeners:

“Unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” (And Jesus is not talking about getting into heaven by and by when you die… he is talking about becoming citizens of heaven in the here and now… living the way of heaven, the way of God already in this world.)  The scribes and Pharisees were deeply serious about the law. If righteousness meant stricter rule-keeping, they would have been unbeatable.

But Matthew’s Gospel steadily exposes the limits of rule-keeping. Later, in Matthew 23,  Jesus criticises the Pharisees for appearing righteous outwardly while being inwardly disconnected from mercy, justice, and faithfulness. Matthew 23:28 “…you appear righteous to others, but inside you are full of hypocrisy…” like pots that have been cleaned on the outside, but on the inside they are still dirty.  Their righteousness has become performative, defensive, and self-protective.

The problem is not their commitment, it is the thinness of their vision. Their righteousness is skin deep - about outward show.  And this is a trap that Christians fall into even today.  

A sobering and very close-to-home example of this is the recent case of Colin Howell, the Northern Ireland dentist who for years maintained the appearance of righteousness as a respected member and even a preacher within a Baptist church. Outwardly, he embodied everything that looked like religious respectability. Yet beneath that surface, Howell and his accomplice plotted and carried out the murders of their spouses, and he later confessed to sexually assaulting patients while they were under anaesthetic. This is an extreme and deeply disturbing case, but it exposes something Matthew’s Gospel repeatedly warns against: the terrifying human capacity to sustain an outward righteousness while the inner reality remains profoundly untransformed. Jesus’ critique of righteousness that is only skin-deep is not only directed to the Pharisees of his day, but equally applicable to us as Christians today.   (And before we get too self-righteous, we should remember that according to our Christian faith, despite everything, Colin Howell is also a beloved child of God and his journey towards wholeness and redemption began on the day when he made the decision to come clean and confess even if he may still have a long, long journey of growth, and honesty  ahead of him… as indeed we all do.)

Importantly, the Greek word Matthew uses, dikaiosynē, means both righteousness and justice. It speaks of right and just relationship, not mere compliance. It names a life lived from the inside out in just, fair, honest and compassionate relationship with others, as well as a life aligned with God’s restorative and reconciling purposes for the world.

This deeper meaning becomes crystal clear nearer the end of the Gospel in Matthew 25. In the parable of the sheep and the goats, the righteous are those who feed the hungry, welcome the stranger, cloth the naked, and visit the imprisoned. And strikingly, they are surprised to be called righteous. The are completely unconscious of the fact that they are doing good – as Jesus says earlier in Matthew’s Gospel, their right hand is not aware of what their left hand is doing – unselfconscious goodness and generosity.  Their righteousness flows from their inner being. They were not trying to be righteous. They were simply living with open hearts allowing uncalculated love to spontaneously flow through them towards others and especially those in need.

And then, near the end of Matthew’s Gospel, in Matthew’s Passion narrative, Pilate’s wife warns him: “Have nothing to do with that righteous man.”

Here righteousness is fully focused in Jesus himself. Righteousness looks like faithful love under pressure. Like truth without violence. Like compassion that refuses to save itself at the expense of others. Righteousness, in Matthew’s Gospel, is ultimately Christ-shaped.

And so when Matthew’s Jesus calls his disciples to be salt and light, and to live a righteousness that goes beyond rule-keeping, he is inviting them, and us, into Israel’s true servant vocation, now revealed in him.  This is not a call to moral laxity, nor to anxious perfectionism. It is a call to lives of depth, integrity, compassion, and courage - lives that reflect the character of God and the Way of Heaven in the world.

Not righteousness as avoidance. Not righteousness as appearance. But righteousness as open heartedness, just and compassionate relationship, and faithful presence.

And as Jesus promises, when that kind of light shines, it does not draw attention to itself, and yet like a light on a hill, it cannot be hidden -  it points beyond itself, giving glory to God, and so Jesus says: don’t hold back, let your light shine among people that it may give glory to God in heaven. 

May we be given grace to live into that deeper righteousness – to let our lights shine in the world - for the sake of the world God so loves.