Being Hungry for Righteousness or Being Hungry

In both the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7) and the Lukan Sermon on the Plain (Luke 6), Jesus proclaims the Beatitudes. These are statements that are of the form "Blessed are ___ for they/you shall ___." In Matthew, Jesus says, "Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled." So what does it mean to hunger and thirst for righteousness?

First, we have to ask what all these words mean. For instance, what is righteousness? Whatever it is, it is the thing that one ought to hunger and thirst for and that which one is filled with. It is the analogue of food. Hunger is the body's signal that indicates when our body needs fuel or sustenance but doesn't have it yet. It is a signal of lack of and desire for a very specific thing.

In John 4:34, Jesus says, "my food is to do the will of him who sent me and to complete his work." Is this the righteousness that we should hunger and thirst for? If it is, then hungering and thirsting for righteousness is earnestly desiring to do the will of God and completing his work. But we note that hunger and thirst are responses and involuntary. Perhaps, then, to hunger and thirst for righteousness is to recognize that our soul's desperate desire to do God's will and complete his work.

Then we turn to Luke 6:21 "Blessed are you who hunger now." A very different beatitude. There's nothing spiritualized about this one. The blessedness is associated with lack of nourishment in the present age--a condition of not having the nourishment one needs. So, how are hunger and thirsting for righteousness and just hungering and thirsting the same or equivalent? Jesus invokes blessedness upon both. It is obvious to see how beatitude comes to those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. But why does beatitude automatically accrue to those who are hungry for food?

Food is the answer to an involuntary response to bodily need/deficit. Righteousness is the answer to an involuntary response to a spiritual lack. In both cases, there is a lack that triggers a need that can only be fulfilled by someone external to us. Satisfying this need, in either case, brings life. In both cases, one recognizes our inadequacy in the presence of what sustains us, recognizing that all good gifts ultimately come from God. So whether we hunger and thirst for righteousness or simply hunger and thirst, we exalt God.

In John 4:15, the Samaritan woman asks for the water that will satisfy her thirst and keep her from returning to the well. But what Jesus had offered was not just water but an eternal spring of life-giving water. To understand what Jesus had offered, she had to be thirsty and want to solve permanently her physical thirst, and only then could she appreciate the eternal life and the message of worshipping God in Spirit and in truth. So maybe to hunger and thirst after righteousness, we do have to experience actual physical hunger and learn from that.

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