MATTHEW 5:6
"Blessed Hunger-Pangs"
(This message begins with an opening video "The Fast" from Highway Video’s Classics collection. www.highwayvideo.com)
Being hungry is never pleasant. In fact, hunger can inspire bizarre behavior in us as humans. When we’re hungry, we sometimes do foolish things, sometimes we get irritable, or worse, feel sorry for ourselves, like the guy who was fasting in that video.
I finally figured out why fashion models always look so intimidating when they’re walking down the runways...they’re hungry! They only weigh like 28 lbs, so they can’t be eating! So they march around looking so mean because they’re so hungry! Someday it would be fun to sneak in and throw a slice of pizza on the runway! Man, that would be pandemonium! Like sharks at a feeding frenzy!
Hunger isn’t pleasant. We don’t look forward to when we can be hungry. We don’t reminisce about the wonderful times of being hungry we’ve had. Hunger is not something we normally desire.
Yet Jesus has something very interesting to say about hunger, and we’re going to look at it this morning.
We are studying the Gospel of Matthew. We are still on chapter 5, dealing with the sermon on the mount. We’re going verse by verse because frankly, this is important stuff. Jesus is describing those who are part of his Kingdom, and revealing the values that make up his Kingdom in the process.
He has been using contrasting ideas to express these things, by using a term over and over again...Makarios. It’s a word that the ancient Greeks used to describe the gods or the elite of society who were insulated from the hassles and cares of life on this planet.
But Jesus uses this word, which we translate as blessed...happy, content, satisfied, not to describe gods or the upper crust crowd, but rather the least expected to be satisfied of all, the poor in spirit; those who feel the pain of mourning; the meek. He does this to contrast the worlds idea of the way things are, to God’s view of life and it’s meaning.
So this morning, we come to verse 6 of chapter 5...and it reads:
6Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled.
Now, I have to tell you, I’ve heard and read a lot of sermons about this verse in my life as a Christian. And in all honesty, with very few exceptions, what I’ve heard about this has not always left me feeling all that great. I hope to take this in a different direction this morning. I really want to get a glimpse of what Jesus has in view when he’s saying this to his disciples that day, on that mountain.
Blessed or satisfied, content, fulfilled, are those who are hungry and thirsty for righteousness. Now Jesus was talking to people who understood what it meant to be hungry or thirsty. In that region, few were prosperous, and more than likely, at one time or another, those listeners that day had experienced the kind of hunger he’s talking about here. It’s a desperate kind of hunger. The word he uses for hunger is “peinao” (pee-nah’-oh), and it means to ardently crave food.
It’s the same with thirst. He uses a strong word to describe thirsting: “dipsao” (dip-sah’-oh), which means to painfully feel the need for water.
What these two metaphors are directing us toward is the concept of human desire.
The desire for food and water are the strongest appetites we have as human beings. Why is it so difficult for so many Americans to loose weight? Because that desire for food is powerful, and difficult to fight with. It’s like that guy struggling over fasting in that opening video. Hunger is powerful. It controls us, it so often determines our directions.
I read a lot of soldier’s accounts who fought in WW2, and some of those soldiers suffered the terrible conditions of the Battle of the Bulge, where supply lines had been cut, and those guys were days without food,in the cold. So often they recorded how they would spend their time in the foxhole talking about their favorite food, or sleep and DREAM about eating their favorite meal.
This is the kind of hunger Jesus is talking about when he says those who are hungry for righteousness are blessed. You know what’s interesting about hunger like that?
When I have gone a long time without eating, I never dream about eating Zucchini, or squash, or sweet potatoes; mainly because I hate that stuff! Now, if I’m really hungry and that stuff were put before me, I’d eat it right up. But in terms of how my craving is being expressed, when I’m hungry and I think of food, I think of the food I love.
I notice that the soldiers I mentioned talked about their “favorite” foods, when they would dream of satisfying their hunger.
I think it’s interesting that Jesus used the metaphor of hungering and thirsting, because not only are those powerful and intrinsic desires for humanity, but the satisfaction of those appetites is a very pleasant thing. Eating is fun! It’s pleasurable! We enjoy it(some of us enjoy it a LOT)!
And yet, it’s been my experience that much of the teaching I’ve had on this passage has not been very pleasant at all. While we may be on the same page when it comes to understanding the passion behind the words “hunger and thirst”, when it comes to what we hunger and thirst for, I believe things get misconstrued.
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve come to this passage and walked away with an uneasy, sickly, sense of condemnation, because so often it’s been presented like this:
“If you’re hungering and thirsting for righteousness, you are going to be memorizing Bible verses, praying at least an hour a day, reading and studying your Bible, and never missing a church meeting.” It comes across as though hungering and thirsting for righteousness is knowing what all your obligations are, and doing what you ought to do!
This is why I have walked away from this passage so many times with my head hanging down, because I felt I wasn’t ever going to get all those obligations sorted out! If I were honest with myself, I liked doing other stuff BESIDES memorizing scripture verses, and I felt condemned.
So, because we are supposed to be hungry for righteousness (if we’re good Christians) we are suddenly confronted with a plethora of obligations that we aren’t getting accomplished. Hungering and thirsting for righteousness becomes another way of expressing DUTY.
I have to tell you, this is totally contradictory to the imagery that Jesus is using here.
No one who’s normal, when he’s hungry, starts thinking about his obligation to eat. No one thinks “Man, I’m hungry, it’s really my duty to eat some food so that my body has fuel” or “I’m so hungry, and I know I’m obligated to eat, so I guess I better get to it...sigh”.
NO WAY. When I’m hungry, if I’ve been out surfing, and lunchtime is rolling around (and nothing makes you more hungry than surfing)I don’t start thinking, “I really OUGHT to be eating”. Not likely. I’m going over in my mind all the stuff I really like to eat...Don’s BBQ...or cajun boiled shrimp, or baked oysters...and I’m getting excited because not only is my hunger a driving desire, the satisfaction of that hunger represents something pleasurable to me, not an obligation!
Do we really think that Jesus, in this sermon on the mount, has gone from telling us of our broken state; revealing that we’re poor in spirit, aching and mourning, and humbled in meekness before him,
only to then beat us up by pointing out our religious obligations?
It’s like he turns from being a caring Savior to being a drill instructor with one sentence…. “LISTEN UP moron...if you are hungering and thirsting for righteousness then you WILL learn to love sitting in a hard pew instead of enjoying baseball games...you will LOVE old stale and archaic hymns, and you will learn to cherish and memorize the KJV of the BIBLE, MAGGOT!!!
Do we really think that’s what Jesus was saying? And yet, that’s what we project on Him when we equate hungering and thirsting for righteousness with stuff we should be doing. That completely misses the depth of what He’s saying.
Isn’t it interesting that Jesus didn’t say “blessed are those who work up a hunger and thirst for righteousness”? I really think we get confused here, because we start assessing our lives and the things that we enjoy and come away thinking, “man...I really don’t seem to have a hunger for righteousness”…
And that’s the BIG MISTAKE. Because no matter who we are, we DO hunger and thirst!
Bruce Springstein said it..
”Everybody’s got a hungry heart”….
Everyone is hungry, every human on earth is thirsty, we just didn’t know for what. Since the fall of mankind in the Garden, when God was ripped from our hearts, every human being born was born hungry! Craving that which is missing. But the fall blinded us, the fall ruined our senses,we didn’t know what we were hungry for! We spent our lives trying to fill that emptiness with something.
So we go off looking for something that will satisfy our hunger. This search goes in two main directions: one carnal, and one religious.
The first path taken to try and satisfy the hunger is that of the CARNAL SUBSTITUTE. For so many in this world, this is where they live. Trying to satisfy that hunger by chasing after the stuff that gratifies their flesh.
That’s the root that feeds all the sinful behavior we know and have experienced, trying to soothe those hunger pangs, trying to slake our thirst! And it’s not just gross sins of overindulgence like sexual promiscuity or drug abuse or drunkenness, its also those attitudinal things we try to gratify ourselves with, like self-pity and negativity. Those attitudes and behaviors we fall into that provide some sickly gratification, but don’t really satisfy that hunger.
It’s like giving alcohol to a thirsty man, it only dehydrates him more. It’s like feeding sawdust to a starving man,it fills his stomach, but provides nothing to sustain him.
Eugene Peterson paraphrases Isaiah 55 in the Message like this:
1"Hey there! All who are thirsty,
come to the water!
Are you penniless?
Come anyway--buy and eat!
Come, buy your drinks, buy wine and milk.
Buy without money--everything’s free!
2Why do you spend your money on junk food,
your hard-earned cash on cotton candy?
Listen to me, listen well: Eat only the best,
fill yourself with only the finest.
3Pay attention, come close now,
listen carefully to my life-giving, life-nourishing words.
I’m making a lasting covenant commitment with you,
the same that I made with David: sure, solid, enduring love.
God knows that we’re hungry, that’s what he’s speaking to there! We spend our time and resources of our lives trying to satisfy that hunger, but on stuff that isn’t real food. That’s the carnal substitute.
But the other direction is just as bad, maybe worse, and that is trying to satisfy our hunger with SELF RIGHTEOUSNESS.
The Israelites Jesus was preaching this to only knew the example of the Pharisees when it came to righteousness, and theirs was a righteousness they assumed was established by their works. They assumed that the hunger they felt could be satiated by doing more, and feeling good about all they had done to be “Godly”. Of course, so many fall into this trap, feeling that desire, that aching hunger and thirst, and trying to satisfy it by being the best “rule-keepers” they can be. But that never satisfies either. The hunger remains, but now with an aftertaste of condemnation, because no one can ever keep the rules well enough.
So, if we’re hungry, and what we want is something that satisfies that desire in a way that we enjoy,then what IS it? What does Jesus mean when he says hunger and thirst for righteousness?
In Romans, we learned that the Gospel is all about how the world has gone wrong from sin, but there is a righteousness...a right-ness in relationship with God that comes from heaven to us. This righteousness isn’t about doing stuff. This righteousness is about being right with God, it’s about relationship! Being restored to community with God, being restored to our true identity!
Seen from this perspective then, hungering and thirsting for righteousness isn’t about doing more religious duties...hungering and thirsting after righteousness is TO HUNGER FOR RELATIONSHIP WITH GOD.
It’s about desiring that wholeness that comes from recognizing His love for us, that sense of completeness that comes from realizing we are part of something so much bigger than just ourselves, or our circumstances.
Hungering/thirsting is inherent...we must learn to see what we are truly hungry for...we’re hungry for God. We’ve looked at this passage too many times with the thought going through our head “if only you were hungry for God like you are for other things”...and we feel so condemned by that we shrink away from him...but that’s not what this passage is trying to speak to us!
This is Jesus saying “I know your hungry...but you haven’t realized what will bring you the most enjoyment yet, you don’t realize what your really craving….it’s ME!”
When we begin to understand and recognize who we are from a perspective that is bigger than ourselves, from a perspective of belonging to a heavenly Father that loves us this much…and viewing all aspects of the life we’re placed in from that vantage point of His loving plan, we find that satisfaction of our aching desire. “I’m NOT just bumbling through a miserable life...I MEAN SOMETHING TO GOD”!!!
Now...will there be more Bible reading, more prayer? Yes...but as a means of communicating with the One we love, a response of love to our Hero...not a religious duty. Will we turn from those counterfeit substitutes for real food? Yes...but out of the satisfaction and pleasure of having our REAL desires met, not as a compliance with a set of rules.
Let me just leave you with an illustration of what I believe this means.
Elizabeth Smart was just re-united with her family last week, after being abducted from her home and held captive for 9 months. It’s a great bit of good news...what a wonderful relief for everyone involved.
When I think of Elizabeth, taken from her home by traitorous invaders, forced to live as someone else, in some other home, I think that she must have been longing to get back to her family. It must have been a hunger for her.
I don’t believe that she was thinking “Man, I need to get home so I can do my chores, and clean my room”...I doubt that. She was hungry for HOME...it’s where she belonged! It’s where her love is. That’s what Jesus is talking about here...hungering for righteousness is our longing for home.
Turning this around...do you think that Elizabeth’s parents were thinking during that 9 months, “boy, I wish Eliz were here to get her chores done, and clean her room and get good grades so we look good.”? No way! They ached to have their daughter back because she was theirs, they LOVE her.
This is the heart of God! God doesn’t want us to come to him because he needs some stuff done! HE LOVES US! WE BELONG TO HIM!!! That was never more clearly demonstrated than when Jesus had his hands nailed to that beam, and his feet twisted up and spiked to that tree...dragging his open back across that wood to breathe and with a gurgling gasp say “Father it’s finished, into your hands I commend my spirit”…. “I did it, I rescued your beloved...I’ve brought them home.”
Hungering and thirsting for righteousness is knowing that deep desire to be rescued into right relationship with God...and to find ourselves there.
Don’t let these words of Jesus’ condemn us. Let them inspire us to recognize what we really crave to realize that there’s pleasure in satisfying that need.
Let’s see that we’re hungry for our home, in a right relationship with God.
