But, in accordance with his promise, we wait for new heavens and a new earth, where righteousness is at home.
2 Peter 3:11 NRSVACE
In the New Testament reading for today I was struck by the above verse.
It is a reminder that the world, as we experience it now, it not easily compatible with righteousness (uprightness, morally right action).
We only have to look at the day’s headlines to see how everyone – from powerful leaders to everyday folk – all struggle equally to live in a righteous way.
If we are honest, we see this unequal struggle deep within ourselves too.
St Paul summed this up powerfully, in his starkest of summations,
So I find it to be a law that when I want to do what is good, evil lies close at hand … Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?
Romans 7:21,24, NRSVACE
Contemporary self-improvement programmes would talk of ‘being the best version of ourselves’.
But St Paul recognises that this is beyond him. He needs rescuing, this is not a problem that can be resolved by will-power, or mental processes, or visualising a better way of being.
I think one of the key elements of authentic Christian faith is the development of what has been termed ‘a longing for home’.
The old gospel hymn summed it up with,
‘This world is not my home, I’m just a-passing through.’
Larry Norman updated it in the 70’s with ‘Only Visiting This Planet’.
Both of these express what Abraham and the other heroes of the faith are stated as doing,
‘They confessed that they were strangers and foreigners on the earth, for people who speak in this way make it clear that they are seeking a homeland.’
Hebrews 11:13b-14, NRSV
I believe that this is what St Paul is expressing, when he talks so honestly about his own struggle to be the person he wants to be but can’t ever seem to become. He is longing for a homeland he has never seen but where righteousness will not be unnatural but normal.
He is homesick for a place he has never known.
When we are horrified by how unrighteousness prevails in our world – both deep within ourselves and in our leaders, family, neighbours, work-colleagues etc. – when we are shocked by the malice, contempt, injustice, cruelty, selfishness and greed that we see, perhaps that painful experience is a good thing.
For it is a reminder that righteousness is not at home here.
Whilst we work for it, promote it, seek to embrace it and express it personally and communally – we know that we will only ever achieve partial and temporary success.
In this world righteousness is an unnatural state and only established and maintained with great effort.
But our longing for things to be better is a sign of God at work in us.
God is birthing in us a longing for our real homeland – a place where righteousness is at home.
We are becoming homesick for an unknown land.
FuelForPilgrims 