Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled...
One of the most highly anticipated movies of the summer is coming out in less than two weeks, and it’s one I happened to be very excited about. It’s the third in a trilogy of films based on a popular comic book series-- one of the most popular film adaptations of a comic book to come out in recent years. Some have even gone so far as to call it a modern cinematic classic. If you don’t already know which film I’m referring to, let me clue you in—it’s Batman.
Now many of you—like myself— may be eagerly awaiting the arrival of this film on the big screen. When you think about it though, it’s really kind of incredible that anyone would want to go see a movie-- let alone three movies-- about an eccentric billionaire who dresses up like a bat and flies around town fighting crime. It’s really pretty ridiculous when you think about it! But I think the reason it’s so popular is that underneath the costumes, the over-the-top villains, the crazy gadgets and the special effects; there is a timeless, classic story of a man who is hungry for justice. Someone who recognizes the injustices in the world around him and seeks to do something about it. Justice, fairness, and retribution. These are supposedly the kinds of values underlying the stories— not only of batman-- but really of all the classic comic book tales. And they are also values that have become deeply ingrained in American popular culture. We love to hear these stories of good triumphing over evil, of wrongs made right, of injustice being met with justice. People flock to the theaters to see these stories played out on the big screen. One might say we are hungry for it.
On the surface, one might think that seeing these values surface in our popular culture is a pretty positive thing. In fact some might even make the argument that it’s a reflection of our Judeo-Christian values. After all we find references to justice and righteousness scattered everywhere throughout both the old and new testaments— “Let justice roll down like waters,” the prophet Amos declares, “and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.” “What does the Lord require of you,” asks the prophet Micah, “but to do justice.” And of course we have the words of Christ himself— “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they will be filled.” Other translations of this text read “blessed are those who hunger and thirst after justice.” It’s the fourth of Jesus’ Beatitudes— his descriptive list of what it looks like to live a life blessed by God. And when placed before the backdrop of American pop-culture, it might seem as if we are actually doing pretty well at this particular beatitude. After all, do we not hunger for justice? Do we not stand up and cheer when the good guys triumph over evil and when justice and righteousness win the day?
Well perhaps…
But as is often the case with Jesus, there’s a little more to it than that. And in order to truly claim an understanding of this Beatitude and then be able to live it out as Christian disciples in the world, we have to dig a little deeper in order to understand the depth of what Jesus is really trying to tell us.
Now to our modern ears, to hunger and thirst after righteousness may simply sound like a call to live just and moral lives. To be upright citizens-- living according to the law and ensuring that when laws are broken, proper retribution is carried out. And it certainly is that. But it’s also more than that. Jesus was echoing the words of the Hebrew Prophets in this Beatitude, for whom justice and righteousness was not only about following the letter of the law, but also went beyond the law towards a far far deeper kind of justice. Not just punitive justice for those who do wrong, but restorative and transformative justice for all.
In chapter 58 of the book of Isaiah, for example, the prophet declares these words: “Is this not the fast I choose: to loosen the bonds of injustice and to let the oppressed go free? Is it not to share bread with the hungry and shelter those who are homeless? Then shall your light break forth like the dawn, and then shall your healing spring up, and the glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard.”
For Isaiah, and for all the prophets, the meaning of true justice and righteousness could be summed up in a single Hebrew word—Shalom. Most of us know this word as a kind of greeting meaning “peace be with you.” But beyond its function as a mere greeting, Shalom also refers to an important concept within Jewish theology. It means restoration of right relations between human beings, between humanity and creation, and between humanity and God. Shalom is about restoring the earth and all creation to its fundamental goodness, the goodness that is inherent in all things because creation was made— as Genesis tells us— to reflect the very image of God. In this fourth Beatitude, Jesus is talking about the kind of hunger for righteousness that goes far beyond a simple desire to see the unjust receive their due. It’s a hunger for shalom— a hunger for the restoration of the world as it should be, rather than the world as it is. It’s a hunger to see creation as it was meant to be— reflective of the very image of God. And so the blessing in this case-- “blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness”-- comes not merely with the execution of justice or the punishment for wrongdoing. Rather, the blessing comes in the seeking itself. It comes when we align our hearts with the heart of God to seek after true righteousness and shalom.
So what then? What does this actually look like for us in our communities? How do we live this beatitude out?
If to hunger and thirst for shalom means seeking to restore creation to reflect the image of God, and if God is particularly concerned with the poor and oppressed— which the Bible tells us that God is— then our communities must also be restored in a way that reflects that image and that concern. If seeking after shalom means seeking after God’s own heart, then our hunger for justice and righteousness must lead us towards a world in which all are fed. A world in which all have bread, in which all are cared for, in which all have dignity and respect. Because all of us are made in the image of God.
In most of the comic book movies, there may be thrilling adventures and satisfying endings in which the good guys triumph over evil and justice prevails. But perhaps it’s worth noting that rarely does that triumphant ending have anything to do with justice for the poor or the oppressed. I can’t really think of any comic book movies in which the hero’s concern for justice is to make sure all the hungry people in the world are fed. I suppose that wouldn’t really make for quite the same kind of summer blockbuster. But that’s the kind of justice and righteousness that Jesus is talking about. That is Shalom.
Here then lies the challenge for us-- because Jesus meant for these Beatitudes to be for all of us— not just the superheroes of the world. While we may not go out and change the world in as dramatic and impressive ways as they do in the movies, we can change our world— right here. We can be the superheroes of our own lives and the lives of others around us. We can be superheroes for Shalom. We can pay attention to that hunger that resides within each of us-- that hunger that says, I know this isn’t quite how it’s supposed to be— I know that we are meant for something more. We’ve all felt it that hunger. So go now, and seek the blessing that resides within it.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they will be filled. Amen and let it be so.
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