A Year-Long Journey Through the Sermon on the Mount: Week 8

Chapter 8 – Hungry and Thirsty

 

Righteousness is one of those words that feels like people don’t agree on its meaning. Scriptures often call for us to be righteous, that a righteous relationship with God is what we should be desiring and aiming for, that being righteousness means to live how God meant for us to live, things like that. So, I suppose that Matthew’s statement of “blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled” could be an accurate statement in all of its simplicity? However, if we are expected to live in righteousness, then should it say, “for they are filled”?

 

The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines righteous as:

            1) acting in accord with divine or moral law: free from guilt or sin

2)         a) morally right or justifiable

b) arising from an outraged sense of justice or morality

 

To live righteously is to live the way God intended – lovingly, kindly, and with peace and justice towards God’s creation. According to scripture, we should be longing for such righteousness in our lives.

 

This is the view William Barclay is taking, that in this beatitude, Jesus is asking the people if they “desire righteousness with that intensity of desire with which a starving person desires food, and the one parched with thirst desires water. (48)

 

Most of us will not experience such hunger and thirst that our body aches for a bite of food or a drop of water. It’s something unimaginable. Jesus wants our desire for justice and righteousness to be that strong. Jesus is telling us that our blessings will come as we fight for the vulnerable, stand by the weak, and work towards changing systems that harm, lessen, or oppress our fellow human beings.

 

Now, more than ever, we need to stand up against the bullies of the world – those who think that the world’s rules don’t apply to them; those who think that with the swipe of a pen, entire groups of people can be erased; those who think that deflecting will make people ignore what’s really happening.

 

In this single verse in Matthew, Jesus is calling us all to be hungry and thirsty for righteousness. Don’t ignore him. Choose love, peace, justice, and righteousness.