The Fullness of Hunger

"Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled." Matthew 5:6

Nutritionists have dramatized the importance of diet by telling us that we are what we eat. The thinking goes, if we eat too many doughnuts and cream puffs, we essentially become walking pastries. And the argument is pretty sound, at least as far as it goes. However, in the realm of the mind and the spirit, "we are what we eat" becomes even more penetrating. If we feed on violence, excitement, erotica, and materialism, we eventually will personify them. We do "become what we eat."

Consider the case of Elvis Presley, "The King of Rock and Roll" ... long live the the king! It is pretty easy to conclude that he never really understood this. His life was a pitiful pursuit of materialism and sensuality. In his heyday, he earned between $5-$6 million a year [and that was back when $1 million was a lot of money]. It is estimated that he grossed $100 million in his first two years of super-stardom. He had three jets, two Cadillacs, a Rolls Royce, a Lincoln Continental, Buick and Chrysler station wagons, a Jeep, a dune buggy, a converted bus and three motorcycles.

His favorite car was his 1960 Cadillac limousine. The top was covered with a pearl-white Naugahyde. The body was sprayed with forty coats of a specially-prepared paint that included crushed diamonds and fish scales. Nearly all the metal trim was plated with 18 kt. gold. Inside the car there were two gold-flake telephones, a gold vanity case containing a gold electric razor and gold hair clippers, an electric shoe buffer, a gold-plated television, a record player, an amplifier, air conditioning and a refrigerator that was capable of making ice in two minutes. He had everything.

But beyond that, his sensuality was legendary. Those friends and family most familiar with his state in the last months of his life tragically reveal that Elvis had very much become the victim of his appetites. He had become what he had eaten -- in the saddest and profoundest senses. His life provides a dramatic example of what not to do as we consider Jesus' teaching in this fourth Beatitude, because in it He sets forth the appetite and menu that bring spiritual well-being: "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled." In this splendidly paradoxical sentence Jesus tells us what we ought to eat and how we must eat if we are to have spiritual health and ultimate satisfaction. Spiritual health comes from hunger.

So what does this "hunger and thirst for righteousness" mean? Some have supposed that this is objective righteousness described in Romans that God reckons to the believer's account, sometimes called imputed righteousness -- "righteousness from God" [Romans 1:17; 3:21, 22; Philippians 3:9]. And while this righteousness is foundational to our salvation, it is not what Jesus was referring to here. Others have confined the meaning to social righteousness, the righteous treatment of the poor and oppressed. This may be part of the meaning because in the preceding context [Matthew 4:12-17] Isaiah 9:1, 2 is quoted and this refers to the social justice that will result from the coming Messiah's reign.

However, according to R. Kent Hughes, the root meaning here is determined by the seven occurrences of "righteousness" in the Sermon on the Mount that indicate it means a subjective righteousness, an inner righteousness that works itself out in our living in conformity to God's will -- righteous living. Thus, those who "hunger and thirst for righteousness" long to live righteously, and for righteousness to prevail in the world. It is a passionate desire, which begins in our own lives, that all things should be lived in line with God's will. This desire to live in compliance with God's will is expansive. It includes an increasing sense of our need for God -- a desire to be like Him. To hunger and thirst for righteousness means longing after the practical righteousness that the Beatitudes represent both personally and in the world. We who hunger and thirst want the character of the kingdom. We pant after the fruit of the Spirit. We want God's will and all it entails.

This Beatitude is a call to pursue conformity to God's will stated in the most extreme of terms. The intensity of this call is difficult for us to comprehend because if we are thirsty today, all we need to do is turn on the faucet for cold, refreshing water; or if we are hungry, we just open the refrigerator. However, to the ancient Israelite the expression was terribly alive because he was never far from the possibility of dehydration or starvation. This is not a comfortable picture. Jesus is far from recommending a polite and refined desire for spiritual nourishment, but rather a starvation for righteousness, a desperate hungering to be conformed to God's will.

Moreover, this Beatitude is further intensified by the fact that this hungering is continual. "Blessed are those who are hungering and thirsting for righteousness." King David, at his best, was like this. He walked with God as few men have. He penned some of our favorite Psalms about his lofty spiritual experiences. And at the same time he wrote of his continual thirst and hunger: "O God, you are my God, earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you, my body longs for you, in a dry and weary land where there is no water" [Psalm 63:1]. This is the way it is for us as healthy believers. We never have enough of God and His righteousness. We are always hungry.

The language of this Beatitude does not make sense to our modern ears. Indeed, it is too strong for many Christians today. It rules out sleek, self-satisfied, halfhearted religion. In fact, hungering and thirsting for righteousness is the only approach that Jesus in this Beatitude accepts. Yet for many of us, Jesus' pronouncement uncovers buried, almost forgotten glimmers of our past spiritual lives, when we first came to Christ and had this perpetual hunger and thirst. However, time may have blunted many of our desires. Many of us have let "the realities of life" take over and that unquenchable hunger and thirst has ceased. Too many of us have become content with lives of lesser and more limited devotion. If this is us, then we must heed the call and be restored to what we were meant to be in Him. We must never be spiritually satisfied. We must pray that with each passing decade of life we continue to find ourselves more thirsty for a life pleasing to God.

Why? Because Jesus pronounces those who are spiritually famished to be "blessed" or approved. The reason being that it is only those who truly hunger and thirst that know Christ. And that is why this is such a penetrating warning to modern "Christians." Concern for righteous living is on the decline in the evangelical church. Many of us watch more murders and adulteries on television in a single week than our grandparents read about in their entire lifetimes -- and with virtually no twinge of conscience. Our casual viewing is almost a tacit approval of evil. So if we have no deep inner longing for righteousness, we had better initiate a careful analysis of our individual souls. And as such, Christ's words are a gracious test. And if we do discover a hunger and thirst for righteousness there, if the Lord has given us a holy discontent with our lives, then we can be assured that we have His smile.

Lastly, this Beatitude is, of course, another attention-grabbing paradox. It suggests that those who continually hunger are satisfied. Yet, how can we be hungry and satisfied at the same time? Or how can we be satisfied and experience hunger? Satisfied but never satisfied? Full yet empty? Content but discontent? An example might be seen in a plate of hot brownies and milk. Eat one or two and we are completely satisfied -- for maybe 30 minutes [if even that] -- and then we begin to hunger for more! And we eat again with same effect. This sublime cycle can often continue until the entire plateful is consumed. This paradox also describes a spiritual cycle. The more we conform to God's will, the more fulfilled and content we become. But that, in turn, spawns a greater discontent because we see better just how far short we fall from His perfect example. Our hunger increases and intensifies in the very act of being satisfied.

Paul lived in the blessing of this paradox. He wrote to Timothy, "I know whom I have believed" [2 Timothy 1:12]. Yet to the Philippians, in my life-verse, he expressed a profound longing for Christ -- "to know Christ and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, becoming like Him in His death" [Philippians 3:10]. Paul knew Christ more intimately perhaps than anyone who had ever lived, yet this intimacy and satisfaction made him long for even more.

This is perhaps why the image of a divine feast is used more than once by Jesus to illustrate the satisfactions of the kingdom. On one occasion Jesus told His disciples, "And I confer on you a kingdom, just as my Father conferred one on me, so that you may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom" [Luke 22:29-30]. Or consider the words of Isaiah: "Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost. Why spend money on what is not bread, and your labor on what does not satisfy? Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good, and your soul will delight in the richest of fare" [Isaiah 55:1, 2]. Or finally consider again Jesus' own words: "But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well" [Matthew 6:33]. We must remember that Jesus has provided us with both the menu and the appetite. The main course is righteousness -- conformity to His will; and the method is desperation. The result will be profound satisfaction, both now and forever. Hear again Jesus' words to the adulterous woman at the well: "If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked Him and He would have given you living water" [John 4:10]. He who has ears, let him hear.