Possessing an appetite means you have a desire for something. You have developed a taste for something. On the one hand, your appetite could be weak so that even a small taste would be enough to satisfy you. In the long run, whether you actually get that taste or not may not really matter to you. On the other hand, your appetite could be strong. You have really worked up an appetite for something. Your appetite may be voracious. You crave something. You long for it. You absolutely need it. You may even believe you cannot live without it.
That is the sense underlying Jesus’ fourth Beatitude when he talked about those who “hunger and thirst for righteousness.” For these people, their entire body and soul ache to be satisfied or filled with what God says is the right way and the good way to live. In Jesus’ sermon, this Beatitude follows immediately after three other Beatitudes similar in tone and character. Each of these four blessings expresses being poor or being poverty-stricken. I appreciate how theologian and commentator Dale Bruner [Matthew A Commentary Volume 1: The Christbook. Revised and Expanded Edition, p.155. Wm B. Eerdmans Publishing, Grand Rapids, Mich.] gives structure to the 10 Beatitudes in Matthew’s Gospel. He divides them into three groups. Each Beatitude in each of the groups connects with the other Beatitudes in its group. Bruner calls the first group poor Beatitudes. That’s because each Beatitude is about people who are incomplete, deficient and lacking in some way. They are people who are in a condition of deep need. They are people to whom God extends his grace simply because they need his help.
Beatitude One: “Blessed are those who are poor in spirit” -- or spiritually poverty-stricken. Beatitude Two: “Blessed are those who mourn” -- or are broken-hearted.” These are people who are poor because they are without joy of heart. Beatitude Three: “Blessed are those who are humble.” These are people who are poor because they are without power in the eyes of the world and have no power to commend themselves to anyone around them. They are similar to those who are poverty-stricken in their spirit. And Beatitude Four: “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness” -- or those who have a deep and voracious appetite for what God desires in their lives and in the lives of others, for what is good and right. That appetite still needs to be satisfied in all our lives whether we recognize it or not.
In the weeks that follow, we will look at the fifth and seventh Beatitudes: “Blessed are those who are merciful” and “Blessed are those who are peacemakers.” They are in the second group of Beatitudes that Bruner calls the help Beatitudes because they focus on service and love. And then there is the third group that Bruner calls the hurt Beatitudes because they consist of two Beatitudes centred on persecution – on “those who are persecuted for righteousness” and on “those who are persecuted because they are devoted to Jesus.”
Human beings possess appetites for many things. Some things are good and some things are bad. Some appetites lead to harmful actions and addictions while others may be more annoying than anything else to others.
A father told the story about his eight-year-old daughter who left six green beans on her plate. She normally ate her vegetables so, usually, the father was not bothered by this kind of thing. However, on this particular night, he was irked for some reason and said to her, “Eat your green beans.”So what do we hunger for? In this Beatitude, Jesus is not necessarily comparing different hungers and thirsts. At least he doesn’t give any examples. But he says clearly that the blessed are those who keep hungering and keep thirsting for God, for righteousness – that is, for what God desires, for what is right according to God’s standard for their lives and for the lives of others. Jesus knew -- and so did his disciples and the other listeners -- that the picture of hungering and thirsting for God meant a deep longing for God. At some point, I can imagine Jesus unpacking the meaning of this blessing by quoting from the prophet Isaiah in Chapter 55:
She replied, “Dad, I'm full to the top.”
“You won't pop,” he responded.
“Yes, I will pop!” she said.
“Risk it!” he said. “It will be OK.”
“Dad, I could not eat another bite.”
Her father knew that night they were having her favourite dessert -- pumpkin pie squares. So he asked, “How would you like a double helping of pumpkin pie squares with two dollops of whipped cream on top?”
“That sounds great!” she responded as she pushed her plate back, ready for dessert.
“How can you have room for a double helping of pumpkin pie squares with two dollops of whipped cream and not have room for six measly green beans?” he asked.
She stood up tall in front of her chair and, pointing to her belly, said: “This is my vegetable stomach. This is my meat stomach. They are both full. Here is my dessert stomach. It is empty. I am ready for dessert!” [www.preachingtoday.com/illustrations]
“The LORD says,
‘Come, everyone who is thirsty -- here is water!Listen to how King David expressed his deep longing for God in Psalm 63, verse 1:
Come, you who have no money -- buy corn and eat!
Come! Buy wine and milk -- it will cost you nothing!
Why spend money on what does not satisfy?
Why spend your wages and still be hungry?
Listen to me and do what I say,
and you will enjoy the best food of all.
Listen now, my people, and
come to me; come to me, and you will have life!’”
It would cost the thirsty and hungry nothing only because God, in his amazing grace and love, paid the cost!
“You, God, are my God, earnestly I seek you;The meaning of this hungering and thirsting for God is to continually seek God with all our heart, to desire God above all else.
I thirst for you, my whole being longs for you,
in a dry and parched land where there is no water.”
Everyone who listens to Jesus and this blessing is challenged with such questions as: How hungry and thirsty am I for God? How hungry and thirsty am I to think, speak and do what is good and right in God’s sight? How hungry and thirsty am I for what God wants for me and for others, especially those living in unrighteousness ways and in unjust conditions? How much do I truly want the justice and will of God not only for myself but also for others? These are questions I frequently ask myself. And it is not so much a question of feeling (How do I feel?) as it is of behaviour (What do I intend to do?). I believe Jesus is challenging us to hunger and thirst to be a doer of God’s will. And we will discover more and more of what God’s will is through the teachings and commands of Jesus, focused here in his Sermon on the Mount. The content of his sermon in Matthew, chapters 5 through 7, is a summary of what God wants for us in our relationship with God, within ourselves and certainly in our relationships with others.
There is an intriguing yet encouraging irony in this Beatitude. Those who hunger and thirst for right conduct (another meaning for “righteousness”) are blessed, not because they are righteous but because they are continually craving the personal, moral and social righteousness that God wants for them and for others. That captivates me. Again, Dale Bruner says it so well [Matthew A Commentary Volume 1: The Christbook. p.168. Wm B. Eerdmans Publishing, Grand Rapids, Mich.]:
“God’s promise is given to people for whom righteousness ... and right conduct seem painfully missing, in themselves and in others ... ”Bruner then says:
“The meaning of ‘hungering and thirsting’ is this: these persons do not believe they can live until they find or see righteousness. They long for what is right, they crave justice, they cannot live without God’s justice prevailing; for them right relations in the world are not just a luxury or a mere hope but an absolute necessity if they are to live at all.”Thomas Merton was a writer and Trappist monk known for his depth of spirituality, his contemplative life and his passionate desire for peace and justice. In his little book Thoughts in Solitude [Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1999), p. 79], Merton wrote 15 lines that have become known as "The Merton Prayer.” As I pray this prayer, I hope you will sense his poverty of spirit and his bottomless appetite – his deep hunger and thirst -- to do God’s will and not his own:
“My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road, though I may know nothing about it. Therefore I will trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.”For me, Merton’s thirst is most evident in the line: “I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire” – the desire to please God. Are you starved for more of God? Are you hungry and thirsty for more goodness and righteousness in your own life and in the lives of others? Jesus says: “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for what God wants, God will satisfy them fully.”
When will God satisfy those who are hungry and thirsty to do what is just and right in God’s sight? When will God finally satisfy their longing for personal obedience and social justice? I say finally because the hard reality is that, while we can enjoy a taste of satisfaction now, full satisfaction will not happen in this life. We may seek to do our best to live God’s way and to help others but we often fail personally. As well, the evil forces in this world can thwart the justice we hope for and work for. But one day, God’s judgment will come and this will be good news for those who, in this life, have received little if any justice. For God has deep compassion for those whose lives are hard, who are spiritually broken, whose hopes are constantly dashed and whose lives are powerless. And many of these very people in our world today, who are oppressed or persecuted and long for justice, look beyond this life to God’s justice and the life to come. For then they will be finally and fully vindicated when they enter fully into God’s kingdom where they will “neither hunger nor thirst anymore,” as the Scripture says in John’s Revelation, the last book of the Bible. (I have read that verse in more than one funeral service, especially for those whose lives were difficult and poverty-stricken indeed.)
God’s judgment will also come with mercy and forgiveness and freedom and joy for those who hunger and thirst for God’s righteousness in themselves. They desire, like Thomas Merton, to please God in all they do but know they fall far short of God’s standard. But they are forgiven and, in the life to come, they will experience the righteousness they long for because of Jesus’ death on the cross for them.
I know some of you follow the game of baseball and are watching the World Series games these days. In his book The Sacred Way [Zondervan, 2005, p.31], author Tony Jones suggests that the Christian can learn something from the life of a baseball player. He writes:
“Becoming more adept at following Christ … is like being a baseball shortstop. A young player can watch videos, read books by the greatest shortstops of all time, and listen to coaches lecture on what makes a good shortstop; but what will make him a truly good shortstop is getting out on the field and practicing. The only way he'll really get a feel for the game is to field ground ball after ground ball, to figure out when to play the ball on a short hop, when a pull-hitter is at bat, and how far to cheat toward second base when the double play is on. The more practice he has, the better he'll be.I believe what Jesus is doing in all the Beatitudes is helping us get a feel for the life God promises to bless. When we listen to what Jesus says, we sense God’s loving heart, strong compassion and amazing grace for all people who are in deep need. And as followers of Jesus, we pray that our hearts will resonate with God’s compassion for others. We also get a good feel for what following Jesus means in the fourth Beatitude. Do we have an appetite to do God’s will? Do we hunger and thirst to obey Jesus’ commands? If so, let us pray our appetite is to love God with all our heart and mind and soul and strength and to love our neighbour as we care for ourselves.
“Getting a ‘feel for the game’ in following Jesus is much the same. You can listen to innumerable sermons and read countless books, but the true transformation happens only when you practice the disciplines that lie at the heart of the faith.”
May this be so for you and for me.
Rev. Chris Miller
October 24, 2010
OYM Oriole-York Mills United Church, Toronto
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