One of the lasting consequences of being a missionary for 22 years (yes, I started veeeeeeeery young) is a wonderful and weird connection with the global events. We had people from all over the world as co-workers and disciples and leaders, we had great times of intercessory prayer for the nations of the world, we celebrated special dates for the nations represented in our staff and student, and we received many news from all over the world through the missionary networks. It was at times overwhelming, to be honest, but I am very grateful for the deep sense of global village that created in us and in our children- an understanding that events that are happening somewhere else will have serious ramifications for our lives, for better or worse, in various degrees of impact and with more or less personal connections.
When I was praying about the sermon for this week, my eyes keep jumping to the 4th beatitude. Firstly because I have shared a sermon about being meek not long ago (I’m sure you have it memorised by now…), but also because there seems to be an urgent need to understand and embrace the beatitude. The 4th beatitude completes a sort of line in the sermon about how God find us; God finds us poor in spirit (lacking, failing, loosing, undeserving, those who don’t understand religion), mourning (wrestling with the question about the end, suffering, in pain, facing mortality), meek (feeling like we are loosing out, abandoned, choosing a way of life that takes us away from power struggles, the average, the looked over) and hungry and thirsty for righteousness.
What is hunger? Have you ever been truly hungry? Not the hunger of being late for a meal or for skipping a meal, but the kind of hunger of not knowing when the next meal will come? What is thirst? Have you ever been in a situation that it doesn’t matter how much money or resources or knowledge you have, there are no sources of water around you? What is righteousness? And can I achieve it through my own effort? Is it based on my values, my desires, my perspectives? Or is it another set of rules and laws to which I am slaved to? And why does Jesus connect the physical needs of food and water, so basic and yet so often neglected, to something as abstract as righteousness? One is physical, you feel it in your guts, it’s felt in your body… the other resides in the realm of ideas and concepts and principles and values. Yet, according to Jesus, we can become in need of righteousness so much that the only way to describe it is to compare it with something as basic and real and physical and essential as the food we eat, the water we drink… what we need to simply survive… because living a life without righteousness would be like dying? “Are you hungry and thirsty enough?” seems to be the invitation here!
What is God desire for our world, for human kind? Can it be described in a way that is simple and truth? Because we all want different things and we all see the world from different perspectives, but at the end of the day we are all human and we all share the same craving, the same need… the desire for what is described in the Bible as SHALOM! How would you describe Shalom? We can say that it is everything on its right place, everything happening according to God’s perfect will. Lack of lacking. When we look from this perspective, we can say that righteousness is us in proper relationship with God, with ourselves, with others and with the creation around us. It us our lives being lived according to God’s heart.
It’s a longing that comes from our inside that wishes our inside life would be different. It is hunger and thirst at a personal level: my inner temptation, my own failures, and my lack of integrity despite all my best efforts causing me to starve for Shalom. Have you ever been on those days that it is hard to look at the mirror? When you sin is exposed and your brokenness comes to light. What are the things in your inside life that causes you to desire for something else? What are the struggles that clearly show you that you are hungry for a different life?
Or it can be a relational hunger and thirst: when we see people not relating to one another out of love and honour but out of selfishness and hurt. A hunger and thirst for a different way to see humans relating to one another. It may happen in the line of a supermarket or by watching the 6pm news… it may happen in a family dinner or at a presidential debate. It may happen in the secret of our rooms or exposed at Parliament. But there it is… human being using words and memories and looks and ideas to hurt other human beings. We fight for places, for promotions, for love, for acceptance, for money, for power… no matter the cost. We want to be found right, so we fight and most times, regardless of the results, everyone loses. We hunger for a world in which we will put people first- before religious or political or ideological ideas. We hunger for a world in which the greater good won’t see the need to crumble the little person- a world in which we will see each other through God’s eyes.
It’s a longing for the bigger issues of our world to be sorted out. A longing desire for another system, for a system that works. You can call it a systemic hunger and thirst. What are the things in the world that steal your peace; that make you hungry and thirsty? An end to war… an end to the refugee crisis… a society where we will get the values in the right priority… a world in which we won’t justify or explain or tolerate poverty and need. Aren’t you tired of having to justify things that happen around you when deep inside you know that they are simply wrong? Don’t you hunger and thirst for a world in which we won’t become the worst version of ourselves in order to live at peace, to be able to dream about a better future?
What does Jesus say about those who experience that sort of craving? That they are blessed (that God is with them) when they go through the desire, the ache, the absence, the longing, the hunger and thirst: it is in the midst of it that God will manifest his presence, and by feeling this way you may also know that God is on your side! We are blessed in the midst of our craving for Shalom, because we are craving for the world that we were created to live in. You longer for that which is God’s dream for each one of us!
Remember this is not new law, those are not commands, is not nice teaching, is not blaming anyone, is not sharing information: it’s a powerful announcement for people that knew exactly what it meant to go hungry and thirst, both physically and spiritually. The original audience could be feeling hungry and thirsty at the very moment that Jesus was talking to them… they could have been starving for righteousness and that hunger was made clear every time they saw a Roman soldier or a temple Priest. They were the cause of their lack of resources… they were the reasons of feeling constantly guilty and never enough.
How have people understand this passage??? Can we miss the point??? One of my greatest joys is to research and study scripture. I learn so much from other perspectives and views, even when I don’t agree with them. But when you explore the perspectives about this beatitude, I need to confess that I felt sick to my stomach, angry and frustrated. Listen to this:
“Hungering and thirsting for righteousness means that we intentionally devote every aspect of our lives and every molecule of our being to embrace, adopt and ultimately become morally upright, without guilt or sin, upright, honest, straight forward, open, virtuous and honourable.”
Is that what Jesus is saying?
“Not only we have to strive for these qualities, but to be like Christ, to become righteousness; in other words, righteousness is a life style in complete conformity to the will of God; it is the life style that Christ both find pleasing and approves of.”
Are you already tired??? What are the consequences of this school of interpretation??
“This is the most demanding beatitude. From all the beatitudes, this is the hardest one to achieve.”
Is that the Gospel? Remember the scene: Romans are in control, Jewish are loosing the land, there is unemployment, the local economy has been disrupted by a foreign power which in theory were bringing peace and progress and their culture, the fabric of their existence was being disrupted. Their religion was under the control of a corrupted party that was using their faith in order to gain power and influence and resources to continue to be in power! People were already being told to work harder, to believe harder, to complain less, to accept their position, and maybe, just maybe, they could have enough to eat and a chance of heaven…
Does it mean that we shouldn’t try? Does it mean that we should give up? No. But we must recognize first that we need help because the satisfaction of our hunger and thirst is beyond our possibilities, beyond our efforts. In that context, Jesus is declaring that God is with all of us who wish the world was different from what it is. People who haven’t it all together. He is not talking just about the future, just about the “end of the world” or in the world to come. Hunger and thirst need an immediate answer as well as a long term solution. God doesn’t bless at the satisfaction of the hunger or thirst, but He is with us during the lack of satisfaction, the longing, the aching, the craving, because we are feeling something that comes from his own heart and that is his very own desire for us. Sometimes we feel like we should simply be grateful and that the desire for a different world is illegitimate. That’s a lie!
Because you were created to experience a relationship with God. You were created to be in relationship with other human beings. You were created to live in harmony with creation. You are simply craving for that which was always supposed to be yours. So when you crave for a world based on God’s righteousness, your heart is beating at the heartbeat of God.
There is the dimension of the righteousness in God’s kingdom: things will be different. But there is also the dimension of the immediate answer that God trust the Church (his body) will strive to answer to. So we live in the tension of living a life style that makes manifested the righteousness of God, knowing that the perfect expression of that life won’t happen now.
The exuberant counter cultural declaration of Jesus is that he will meet us and bless us in the tension of finding the answers, not if we find them. Jesus bless us when we don’t have it all together and walks the journey of fighting for answers with us. Religion says that God blesses those who make it, the ones that conquer it through their effort. The Gospel shouts that God blesses us in the midst of our lacking, our craving, our desire, our hunger and thirst. God meet us in our frustration, in our anger, in our pain. And he understands us, because he has been there: hungry, thirsty, crying, angry, frustrated, rejected… and yet always loving.
What do you do when you have a Habakkuk day??? Habakkuk chapter 1 is an awkward passage– because it says that some days we don’t understand the world, sometimes we are overwhelmed with questions and doubts, some days the world just doesn’t make sense. And yet it calls for us not to give up, but continue to trust in God and to live his way! What does “victorious Christianity” say? It says that if you are not experiencing happiness you are wrong- there’s got to be something wrong in your life! Why is it wrong? Because it denies our inner human feelings, and our human experiences, it denies who we are and what we feel in order to keep up an image that is not real. The Gospel has room for questions, for doubts and despair. It’s OK to be human, to have anger, to have pain over the world. The gospel opens up spaces for lament and for revolt. Jesus picks the image of hunger and thirst, because it’s a physical reaction that sooner or later will prove to be undeniable.
How has God satisfied your hunger and your thirst? He prepares the table. He provides the bread. He provides the water. He provides the forgiveness, the acceptance, the mercy and the grace and the love- he satisfies. And then he invites us to share what we have found, knowing that it will never run out. It is not about deciding if the cup us half-filled or half empty but to understand that we may be in the worst season of our lives and still our cup overflows! How can you be an instrument of God to bring his Shalom to our reality? How can you respond to the heartbeat of God? How can you engage with the needs of the world without falling in despair by the immensity of its needs? May I suggest a few answers?
Look at yourself through God’s eyes. See yourself though the perspective of his love. Then look at the world around you the same way- each person, each situation, each challenge. And then let God’s life, God’s grace, God’s love be the response through your life.
And then do it all over again. But you may find other answers, you may find other ways… that’s why the sermon is not the end of the conversation but the beginning of a new one. I look forward to see what comes out of this conversation! Grace and peace to all of you!