self-righteousness

“Are you going swimming this morning, my love?”

That’s when it began. This was the hinge moment this morning; when my wife asked if I was going to keep my routine and go swimming.

Now you have to understand, I try to swim two or three times a week. It’s not so much that I’m a swimmer, but that I’m a computer tech. Which means that I sit 95% of my time at work, and then go home and sit some more. I need to do something to keep physically active, and there’s no way this side of the resurrection I’m gonna be a runner or a biker or anything like that. So swimming it is. I mean, a man has to have his convictions.

What did I say to my wife when she asked sweetly if I was going to go swimming? I went on to complain about how my pregnant wife hadn’t washed my swimsuit recently and how that really affected me. I’d forgotten to set my swimsuit up to dry over the night, and now it was soggy, and cosmically gross. If you’ve never had the experience of putting on a wet swim suit, let me tell you: it’s gross. Really gross.

The old men at the gym break the swimsuit spinner with their speedos. I won’t leave you to dwell on how gross that factor is in itself, but for some odd reason in the universe, old men prefer speedos. Maybe I’ll understand that some day… I hope not. With the swimsuit spinner (which gets most of the water out of your suit) broken, my suit sits lethargically in water all day. And imagine all the germs that are now growing in my swimsuit that’s been sitting in water for the last 24 hours?! This, as my wife says, is a source of “great vexation”.

So, all this is going on in our conversation in explaining why I’m responding defensively to my wife. I’m sure you’re asking if it’s possible to get this far from a simple question about swimming. Oh yes my friends, it’s possible.

And then it happened, that special moment:

“You’re right. I agree.”

Boom. Abracadabra. That’s all I needed. She had been agreeing with me about the grossness of putting on a wet swimsuit all the time, but she said the magic words: You Jacod, father of all wisdom, are right. (Or something like that.)

“Why is that?” I wonder. I have this deep impulse to be declared right. I don’t merely want people to come along with me, I want them to say I’m right. I want to be justified in my own right, in my own opinion. It’s a form of self-righteousness I think. I don’t think I’m overreaching here to simply say that in this moment I’m treasuring my own vindication more than I am the vindication of Jesus. If I were to go to the root issue here, what am I attempting to do? Make Jacob look great.

I think little moments like these, even ones starting with soppy swimsuits, are in view when Paul says:

For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith. ~Philippians 3:8-9

The issue Paul is aiming at here is to destroy our own attempts to set up our own list of good deeds to conveniently check off as a means of making ourselves right before God. This, gentle people, is self-righteousness. Paul is saying here that he wants to lose that heart motivation and find contentment in the righteousness of Jesus Christ. He wants to show that Jesus is good enough without Paul (or Jacob) doing anything.

So what I did in the soppy swimsuit incident is turned that moment into an opportunity to defend myself and make me look great. Jacob, the all wise who knows exactly how his wife should take care of his laundry. Jacob, the all knowing who sees why she’s neglected his most basic needs. Jacob, the benevolent who’s eager to forgive when people see how great I am.

Paul’s words mean that to know Christ I must “suffer” the lose of this sort of perspective and count it as trash. Yep, I have to consider the motivation to defend myself and make me look great as trash. Trash that goes to a landfill, is covered over with moldy cardboard and bags of people’s dog poop, and never seen again. That’s how valuable my self-righteousness is. But I gain something far better: the righteousness of Christ that comes to me simply by leaning on Jesus.

This righteousness of Christ frees me from defending myself. From pandering to people to agree with me that I’m as right as I think I am. He frees me to simply receive and enjoy Him. To stop working and just receive. To have Jesus is far better than to have a self-justified Jacob. Jesus loves with a love to die unjustly for his friends; Jacob loves with a love that complains about soppy swimsuits. I’ll let you figure out who’s more desirable to have.

So did I go swimming?

Good grief no! A man has to have his convictions.