Hungry for Blessedness?

In a teaser for his HBO political talk show Real Time, Bill Maher jokes the best of both parties are waiting for their nominees to die.

Saw a post on FB this week that said, “If it was a sin 100 years ago, it’s still a sin today.” Wondered why they said 100 years ago and not 2000 years ago.

Saw another post that said just because something offends you doesn’t mean you are right. What’s funny is each side thinks the other side is the only one with snowflakes. For example, the right says the left is riddled with snowflakes and it is. Some get so offended by everything few take them seriously about anything. But, just this week, the legislators of Florida, who are super majority right-wing, advanced a bill to ban social media for children under 16 “to protect their mental health.” Can you imagine the comments if this was being done in California or New York?

Jesus knew about times such as these because he lived in times like these. (Maybe everyone does.) And he knew many in his hearing desperately wanted things to be right. So after a delay of a few weeks, we return to the beatitudes.

Matthew 5:6 LEB

Blessed are the ones who hunger and thirst for righteousness, because they will be satisfied.

How do we unlock this beatitude?

Barclay calls us to begin where Jesus did, with the hungering and thirsting.

We live in a society where most of us don’t understand those terms as Jesus’ hearers did.

His was a world where if a working man could not work on Tuesday he might not eat on Wednesday.

His was a world where the hot wind might blow up a sandstorm where one’s own shelter was one’s cloak and where thirst was more than a minor inconvenience quickly solved with a quick trip to the fridge.

While my Greek professor said one shouldn’t do theology from vocabulary or grammar, Barclay insisted the grammar suggests one who desires the whole loaf or the whole pitcher.

In keeping with our larger study, what does Willard offer us?

On the one hand, he sees Jesus speaking to those tormented by their longing for a goodness they did not possess.

On the other, he sees those longing for redress for wrongs suffered because of the unrighteousness of others.

Then he says, “Yet the kingdom of the heavens has a chemistry that can transform even the past and make the terrible, irretrievable losses seem insignificant in the greatness of God: He restores our soul and fills us with the goodness of rightness."

We will take this last up later, but, first, another perspective on this beatitude.

In this, we interpret righteousness as justice.

Jesus is thus addressing those who are oppressed and identify with the oppressed and long for things to be set right.

Normally the joy that comes from this longing coming to fruition is reserved for the eschaton.

2 Peter 3:13 LEB

But according to his promise, we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness resides.

What sense do we make of it in the now?

Barclay’s point is well-taken.

Regardless of how you take the rest, Jesus is speaking to those whose desire is the desperation of the starving and the parched.

Are we guilty of trying to order from the righteousness/justice menu ala carte when it is truly a casserole with everything touching everything else?

Is the satisfaction Jesus promised reserved for those who want the whole loaf and the whole pitcher, not $2.00 worth?

Willard’s point is well-taken as well, in part at least.

No doubt Jesus did and does speak to those frustrated by their lack of personal goodness and their lack of ability to achieve it by whatever means were and are at hand.

In this sense, Jesus himself through the agency of the Holy Spirit is our satisfaction.

And certainly Jesus cared and cares about those who are suffering because of the unrighteousness of others.

While I don’t profess to have an adequate answer here, I find Willard’s to be shallow and lacking compassion.

But suffering personal injustice is symptomatic of a more pervasive evil.

Unless God intervenes, all signs point to 2023 being the most evil year on a national, if not global, level any of us have ever seen.

I would never say there are not people, both within and without the kingdom, who want to see justice.

But, sadly, the desire for righteousness/justice seems to be greater outside the kingdom than inside of it.

Do we interpret the lack of satisfaction as a sign the promise is for the eschaton or a lack of the kind of hunger Barclay described?

I think we also have to confront the kind of justice we hunger for: Jesus justice or Republican/Democrat justice, conservative/liberal justice, New Right/Progressive justice? (No, none of these other are synonymous with Jesus justice.)

Perhaps the problem can be illustrated with a comment from a prominent Southern Baptist pastor. Being finally forced to admit the ethics of his political hero were far from those of the Jesus he preaches, he said he did not want a Christian in the White House, but the meanest SOB he could find. Doesn’t sound like he is too hungry and thirsty for righteousness/justice, does it? Evidence suggests he represents the rule, not the exception. Perhaps our hunger and thirst IS being satisfied and we need to hunger ad thirst for something different.