Beatitudes: Like God are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness...
Beatitudes: Like God are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness...
...for they will be satisfied.
I have often heard this Beatitude described as some sense of, “Blessed are those who desire justice…” From there, things descend into the Western mindset of courtrooms and punishment. Then, we get into the highly negative focus of justice as the infliction of punishment.
Later in Matthew, Jesus says that righteousness is associated positively with whom we feed, give drink to, and clothe. In other words, Jesus does not hinge righteousness on the exercising of condemnation and punishment.
Rather, to desire righteousness is to desire for others - particularly those in need - to experience the charity of God.
When we come to the Beatitudes, we need to rescue the idea of righteousness from the negative of something foreign to us and associated fearfully with the righteous “anger” of God.
This Beatitude is perfected as we tame our power to clutch ever harder onto what we have while continually grasping for more. We give up our power to hold and take, becoming meek, which then allows us to desire others to receive what they need.
Further, as it is perfected in us, we even become the means by which our desire for others is fulfilled. We desire for the charity of God to be experienced, and we release our possessions to meet others’ needs…
Needs that we can meet because we are meek (Beatitude 3):
Needs that we see because we are in tune with mourning the pain of the world (Beatitude 2):
Needs that we are not too far from as we have given up any high place we may claim and have become poor in spirit (Beatitude 1):
In our hunger and thirst for righteousness, we are developed into instruments of God’s righteousness for those in need, and we participate as the means by which God meets our longing.
We fulfill the exact charity into the world that we have come to long for.
We who desire righteousness will be satisfied as we are drawn to participate in its work.
When we become like God to long for and deliver righteousness to those in need, we then become like God in mercy…