Sermon on the Mount--Hunger and Thirst for Righteousness Matthew 5:6 "God blesses those who hunger and thirst for justice (righteousness), for they will be satisfied." Hunger is a funny thing in our culture. While we can imagine what it must be like for someone to be hungry, we are not hungry very often. More likely than not, our main goal is to deny hunger--to say "no" to carbs and fatty foods so we can lose weight. One famous depiction of the future in the comic book world is in the Judge Dredd comics where it becomes illegal to be overweight! We wish! We wish a judge on a futuristic motorcycle wearing a bullet proof helmet would burst through the door and demand that we put down that danish or slap the breakfast burrito out of your hand. While we may not fully understand the realities of being hungry, there are some elements of the idea of hunger and thirst that I believe we can get our minds around: We need food. We know we must eat and drink to stay alive. We structure our schedules around regular meals because we know we must eat often to stay healthy. We also know that once we eat a meal, another will soon be necessary--eating is part of living. The place in this passage where we become confused is in the area of righteousness. In most English dictionaries, righteous is defined in terms of doing the right thing--being morally justified, right. Our understanding of righteousness seems to usually come down to being based on how we behave. We make ourselves righteous (or unrighteous) by our behavior. In biblical terms, however, it turns out the concept of righteousness is less about behavior and more about relationship. Relational Righteousness. In the Old Testament, God bestows righteousness on his people through his saving acts. He saves Israel from Egypt in Exodus, not because they are behaving and warrant saving, but because God is bestowing his righteousness upon them. When God calls Abram, he declares him to be righteous. When they first met, Abram didn't know who God was, he hadn't done anything to make himself righteous, God declared him righteous and their relationship produced the subsequent behavior we see in Abraham. God's saving acts of righteousness and his declarations of righteousness on us produce the kind of behaviors we tend to associate with righteousness. Our human response to relational righteousness is compassionate acts on behalf of the people around us. The broken. The unrighteous. Every relationship you find yourself in, from your BFF to the guy walking past you on the sidewalk, makes a claim on conduct. When we enter into these relationships, we are agreeing to a code of conduct. I assume the guy walking toward me on the sidewalk will pick a side and let me pass on the other side--most likely each of us to our right. If I ignore the code of conduct it throws off the whole system. People think I am being rude and there is suddenly a traffic jam on the sidewalk. Jesus tells us we must be righteous and he proclaims makarios blessedness on us when we pursue righteousness as though it was our very sustenance. He is inviting us into a relational righteousness wherein God declares us to be righteous by his acts and therefore the claim of conduct on us is that we reciprocate by extending the same righteousness to those around us. Too often, in church circles, we force people to get their act together before they enter the door. We want proof of righteousness before we are willing to enter into community with each other. Jesus seems to be looking for a community of people, however, who will systematically declare righteousness on each other with the full expectation that this will produce the kind of behavioral righteousness we expect from citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven. Jesus wants us to chase after this kind of relational righteousness in a way that reflects the consistency and repeated efforts we put into eating food and drinking water to stay alive. The result? God will satisfy our hunger and thirst. Our righteous behavior may not conjure up the good karma we hope it will, but we aren't looking to karma to satisfy our hunger. We depend on God to continue bestowing on us his righteousness as our source for our own righteous living.

The Beatitudes--Matthew 5:1-12, Luke 6:17-25 I think the Sermon on the Mount (or the Sermon on the Plain, if you read Luke) is a great place to start when looking into what Jesus taught. Not just what Jesus taught about, but what his underlying or overarching message actually was. Apparently, Matthew and Luke put together a collection of the things Jesus talked about often. Both of them start with the Beatitudes--a poetically arranged sequence of blessings and woes carefully arranged around the central idea of disciples who are persecuted for Jesus’ sake. Matthew builds up to the persecution idea with a list of 9 conditions or situations that are “blessed”. Things like “blessed are they who mourn, for they will be comforted” and “God blesses those who are poor and realize their need for him, for the Kingdom of Heaven is theirs (NLV Matthew 5).” These states of blessing work their way up to the idea that Jesus’ followers are “blessed” when they are mocked, lied about, and persecuted because they follow him. Jesus points out that a great reward awaits them in heaven. Luke makes more of a persecution sandwich in his beatitudes. He frames his presentation of the blessings associated with persecution with a list of 3 blessings and 3 woes. Disciples of Jesus can expect to be blessed when they are poor, hungry, and mourning (Luke 6). Conversely, on the other end of the spectrum are the “woes” that can be expected by people who are rich, fat and prosperous, and laughing now. Jesus says that those who are indulging in those things now will be stripped of them in the future. The big mistake we often make with the Beatitudes is in thinking that these things listed by the authors should “be our attitudes” in life. I’ve heard (and even taught) often in my years in church circles that I should want to mourn and be poor. I should be hungry and persecuted. Some of us have been taught that the beatitudes are a list of causes and effects. If we want to get a blessing from God, we should not buy food or make money. We should be as sad as possible because people who laugh a lot are going to get shut up by God. Both Matthew and Luke present Jesus’ beatitudes in a creative and poetic way. They each paint a picture with Jesus’ words that is not meant so much as a list of cause and effect, but more to give us a picture in our minds of the perspective and potential experience of the disciple of Christ as we navigate the inevitable roller coaster of life. These are not lists of promises and warnings. We are meant to grasp the intangible and unquantifiable reality of the sense of peace and well-being that the Christian has access to--a sense of supreme happiness that transcends circumstance. In my own attempts to come to terms with the beatitudes as well as my observations of others walking along the same Way, I have see two dominant responses. Some of us lean toward the fulfillment end of the spectrum. We reason, “if God wants to bless those who are poor, I must fulfill that desire of his and be as poor as possible so as to experience his blessings.” Others seem to come at the equation from the opposite end. The thinking there is that God expects us to be happy in all situations. Luke even says to jump for joy! This appeals to many people who are more inclined to denial. Everyone in the room might be mourning the death of someone they’ve loved all their lives and this person will be saying something along the lines of, “well, obviously God was lonely and needed one more friend up there with him, so he brought so-and-so home to be with him”. Aside from the theological problems with a statement like that, it does nothing to bring comfort and, generally, people see it for what it is--a detachment from reality. Denial. I believe some understanding of the language of the beatitudes helps clear up the misunderstandings and misinterpretations. The Greek work we see translated as “blessed” in both these passages is the word, makarios. Makarios is a word that describes a state of supreme happiness. It is a declaration of good fortune outside of present circumstances. It is used in the New Testament to describe the reward given to faithful servants who serve their absent masters regardless of when they will return. Makarios is the word used to describe our hope looking forward to the day when God’s glory will be revealed in Titus, chapter 2. When Mary finds out she is the virgin mother-to-be of the Son of God, she goes to visit her relative, Elizabeth. Elizabeth declares, “You are blessed (makarios) because you believed that the Lord would do what he said” (Luke 1:45). I’ve read a couple Jack Reacher novels. They are present day hero books written by Lee Childs. The main character is a former military police officer who travels the country getting in and out of trouble with horrible villains and nasty criminals. The thing I enjoy about the novels is the character, Jack Reacher. Lee Childs says that he created this character to be unstoppable. Jack Reacher is not an emotionally fragile man who’s had his heart broken by life’s cruel fate. He doesn’t struggle with the decision to use his powers for good and not evil and he is not constantly trying to escape his dark past. Instead, Childs wrote a character that is six foot five and weighs about 220 lbs. At one point, Jack Reacher is described as a condom stuffed with walnuts! This guy is huge and strong. He walks around and saves people and the bad guys don’t want to mess with him. He is unafraid because he is usually the biggest guy in the room and he always wins in the end. Now, for some people this would ruin the whole thing. Many of you want to see a hero who struggles...someone who is vulnerable. Someone who loses all day long and then wins the fight in the last round, defying the odds. While I can fully appreciate the suspense and intensity of the underdog story, sometimes, I want to read a book where I know the main character can handle himself and is going to win in the end. I find I can relax a little with the story. I know, no matter how evil the villain is, no matter what kind of predicament the other characters find themselves in, Jack Reacher is going to show up, kick some ass and do the right thing--and he’s not going to have to go to therapy to deal with what he’s done in the name of justice. I read a Jack Reacher novel with a certain level of makarios. I look at the villain in the story with a sort of fascination. I don’t mind if he’s a real bad guy. The badder he is, the worse he’s going to get it in the end. I can fully appreciate the danger and intrigue of each story because I know Reacher isn’t going to back down or fall apart. There is still conflict. There is action and suspense and danger, but it is filtered in my mind through the general promise of what/who will ultimately prevail. In essence, I believe this is the makarios that Jesus refers to in the beatitudes. Jesus paints us a picture of what our view of the world should be as Christians in light of who he is--who God is. Those who are hungry for food, and those who are hungry and thirsty for justice can experience makarios. They don’t need to be in denial and pretend they are not hungry. They don’t need to seek out hunger. They can, however, endure and even thrive in the midst of that circumstance in the knowledge that Jesus will prevail despite how things look now. We can know that, while we are sad now, we will ultimately be comforted by God himself. We may be lied about, falsely accused of evil things, and persecuted for Jesus’ sake, and even in such horrible circumstances, we can experience a level of confidence and expectation in Jesus’ capacity to win in the end. When we embrace the makarios of looking to Jesus outside of our circumstance, we develop an ability to look at our lives with an eternal perspective while still experiencing the realities of what we are going through. We mourn. We cry and grieve and question why things happen and get angry and feel alone. We have no need to deny the weight and gravity of the situation. However, all along, we rely on an understanding of God that sees beyond the present circumstance. We know that Jesus may not change this situation. We know that God did not choose to stop this from happening. We believe, however, that what God does have planned is ultimately worth our trouble, worth moving toward. The endurance does not earn us the blessing. The blessing is the realization that Jesus is with us. We have access to him even when things are bad and, ultimately, things will not always be this way. I hate water fights. I think it is stupid to be dry and clothed and have someone dump water on you or throw a water balloon at you. I try not to be a party to the water fight (on either side). Occasionally, however, I have enjoyed a good water fight. On a hot day, when everyone is in the river or hanging out at the pool, a water fight can be a lot of fun. There is no question in anyone’s mind as to whether they are going to get wet or not. We are dressed for it, looking forward to it. Under those conditions, it makes sense to me to splash and dump water on each other. In fact, I think if you are sitting by the pool at all, you have made a non-verbal commitment to the water fight. I suppose this is similar to the life-view of the Christian. We have come to the pool assuming there will be an epic battle. We are free to enjoy the surprise water attack because we knew that it was probably going to happen when we put on our bathing suit and went to the pool. Jesus tells us that Christians will be poor. Christians will mourn. Christians will long for justice, seek mercy and peace. They will choose to be humble and be humiliated. There will be times when Christians will be victimized and persecuted--not a question of if, but when. Jesus’ promise to us is that we can choose to approach life expecting these things, yet feel somewhat equipped to deal with them because Jesus is ultimately in charge. The pool is for getting wet. Life is meant to be lived and experienced. We are makarios-blessed because we know we have a stake in God’s Kingdom which transcends the limitations of the tangible circumstances of our daily lives. There is great freedom in this understanding and realization for the individual. There is greater healing and comfort to be offered to the world by a community of Christians who learn to leverage their makarios for the benefit of others.