Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, they will be satisfied.

SERMON TEXT: Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, they will be satisfied. Matt 5:6

In 1980, Bruce Springsteen came out with a hit song called “Hungry Heart”.  The chorus section is one I’m sure you will recognise: 

Everybody's got a hungry heart
Everybody's got a hungry heart
Lay down your money and you play your part
Everybody's got a hungry heart 

It is one of those songs that has become an all-time great, one that you are likely to hear on the radio on quite a regular basis.  What makes it so popular? It definitely has a catchy tune, but you need more than a catchy tune to give a song enduring value. 

The reason it is popular I believe is it that it also speaks of a fairly universal human experience: We all have hungry hearts.  What are you hungry for… what does your heart reach out for? What entices your heart?

I must confess that I’m one of those people who seldom knows the lyrics to a whole song… just the chorus will do… la la la la la la la Everybodies got a hungry heart….

And so I was interested this week to read the rest of the lyrics of the song:  It is about a man who has a wife and kids in the city of Baltimore. He leaves them behind on a road trip and he never goes back. He takes a wrong turn and falls in love with someone he meets in a bar. It doesn’t work out but instead everything they had ends up ripped apart and so he ends up back in Kingstown, alone with a hungry heart… perhaps one might imagine, more alone, empty and hungry than before. 

Everybody's got a hungry heart
Everybody's got a hungry heart
Lay down your money and you play your part
Everybody's got a hungry heart

Bruce Springsteen’s song suggests that not everything we hunger and thirst after necessarily leads to satisfaction.  Our hungry hearts can sometimes lead us astray. Sometimes our hungry hearts can leave us feeling even more broken and even more empty than before. 

The prophet Isaiah knew the truth of this: “Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy?

Our text from Matthew 5:6 today is also about a hungry heart and reads: “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, they will be satisfied.” 

In doing so it suggests that there is another way; another way of living and being in the world that does bring satisfaction. The word that the NIV version uses is righteousness. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness.  

The Greek word  dikaiosuné (dik-ah-yos-oo'-nay) comes from the word dikaios (dik'-ah-yos) which can mean to be upright, just/fair, equitable. It comes from the root word díkē, which means judicial approval or a verdict of approval.  Ultimately it means to be in right relationship with God, to be at-one with God, to live a life in harmony with the Divine Life. But what exactly does that mean? 

In Matthew’s Gospel, the word righteousness is in fact a disputed word. It means different things to different people. Part of the purpose of Matthew’s Gospel is to clarify the true meaning of the term righteousness, the true meaning of living at One with God of what it means to live a life in harmony with God. 

The first person to be referred to as righteous in Matthew's Gospel is Joseph, the future husband of Mary.  In Joseph’s case, his righteousness seems to hang in the balance.  Is it just like an outward pasted on righteousness that has more to do with social respectability, or is his righteousness something deeper? Is he going to quietly call things off with Mary so that he saves his own face and reputation, or will he remain faithful to her and stick with her despite the moral questions that will be thrown in their direction?  In Joseph’s case, his true righteousness is revealed in his willingness to stick by Mary, to be faithful to her and to love her, and in doing so to risk having society question his moral integrity in doing so.  True righteousness, living a life in harmony with God’s life, is about doing the right thing no matter the consequences. It is therefore not concerned with social respectability and what others may think of you. 

The second place we encounter the word righteousness is when Jesus comes to be baptised by John in the Jordan. John tells Jesus that it should be the other way around.  Jesus should be baptising him. But Jesus says, let it be so for now so that all righteousness can be fulfilled. In this context, true righteousness, being at one with God and living in harmony with God is about willing to put away pride. It is about being willing to humble oneself before another and not insist on one’s own importance. If Jesus had insisted on his own importance, he would never have let John baptise him. 

A little further on in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus suggests that the righteousness of his followers needs to surpass the righteousness of the Pharisees.  What could that mean? To first century Jews, the Pharisees were the most righteous people of all?  They kept all the minute details of the law? What could it mean that followers of Jesus need to exceed the righteousness of the Pharisees? Later on, in Matthew’s Gospel Jesus accuses them of self-righteousness instead of real and true righteousness. Their righteousness consists of public displays of righteousness. Dressing up and making great displays of their generosity and their prayers so that others might be impressed by them. Jesus accuses them of being like white-washed tomb stones. Clean on the outside, but full of all sorts of hatred, anger, lust and scheming on the inside. Jesus also accuses them of being nit-picking about paying a tithe of their herbs and spices from their kitchens to the Temple, but failing to act with mercy and compassion towards fellow human beings. 

The truly righteous, those whose lives are in harmony with God, according to Matthew’s Jesus in the sermon on the mount, are those who are upright in secret when nobody can see. They’re not in it for egotistical reasons to boost themselves in the estimation of others. Rather they have given up the self, they are happy to quietly get on doing the right, good, merciful and compassionate thing without anyone knowing – no ego, no self. This is seen most especially in Matthew’s Gospel the parable of the Sheep and the Goats in Matthew 25.  The parable is about the righteous and the unrighteous. In it, Jesus describes the sheep as the righteous, who are separated from the goats who are labelled as the unrighteous.  What does righteousness look like in the parable?  It looks like this: 

Visiting with mercy and compassion, those in prison.  Giving a cup of water to someone who is thirsty and food to those who are hungry. It is about reaching out to welcome and receive a stranger.  It is about helping to provide clothes to those who do not have. 

But even more than that, in the parable, those who are labelled as the righteous are not even conscious of being righteous.  Their acts of mercy and compassion have not been calculated to impress others or done so that they feel superior to others, but come from hearts overflowing with love, compassion and mercy towards others, especially to those in need. “They will say” says Jesus, “Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you? When did we see you thirsty and give you a drink? When did we see you a stranger and make you welcome, lacking clothes and clothe you? When did we find you sick or in prison? And the King will answer: “In truth I tell you, in so far as you did this to one of the least of these, you did it to me.” 

And so true righteousness is forgetful of the self. No thought of patting oneself on the back with how good one has been.  As we read in Matthew 5 the truly righteous give with the right hand, and not even the left hand knows that they are doing so.   And so, in seeking first, God’s Kingdom and God’s righteousness (as we read in Matthew 6:33) the truly righteous have emptied themselves of all but love. To be righteous is to live in a state of harmony and one-ness with God and to become channels of that Divine Love which according to Matthew 5 constantly pours itself out on good and evil alike.  Love given to all without without question or discrimination. 

And according to Matthew’s Gospel, this true righteousness of a life lived in harmony and in Oneness with the Divine Love is ultimately seen in Jesus who is willing to pour out his own life in love as a ransom for many as he is crucified.  In giving away his own life so freely, as he reveals the full extent of Divine Life expressed through him, he ransom’s us from the slavery of our own self-concern and selfishness. As we sang in that hymn a week or two ago “Love so amazing, so divine, demands my soul, my life, my all.” That is why in John’s Gospel Jesus is called the Bread of Life. He has become the Bread of Life for us, because his life points us in the direction of true satisfaction, becoming channels of love, blessing, mercy and compassion towards others. 

In Acts 20:35 we read of one of the sayings of Jesus that never made it into the four Gospels: “It is more blessed to give than receive”.  I think many will be able to identify that some of their most satisfying moments in life have come in seeing the joy or the gratitude in some-one else's face. Such moments are little reminders of the nature of true righteousness, when we have become channels of love and blessing to others it is one of the most satisfying things in the world.  A little bit like that Dr at the Newcastle United game about a week ago. When he ran over to help one of the fans in the stands who was having a heart-attack, he responded spontaneously and freely. He wasn’t asking if he would receive a reward of any kind. And when the fans in the stands afterwards chanted “hero, hero, hero”, he said it was the best feeling he had ever had. In that action, he had unknowingly done an un-calculated act of true righteousness, in that moment, his life had expressed itself in harmony and in one-ness with Divine Love, and the crowds could see it and responded accordingly. 

Jesus, the truly righteous one, who has become the bread of life for us tells us: Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. Not the phony pasted on righteousness. Not the righteousness that seeks a reward. Not the righteousness that is constantly calculating who is deserving and who isn’t, but the righteousness that is a flowing of love, compassion and mercy from the heart. They will be satisfied says Jesus.   In contrast, a life lived for self-gratification, self-promotion, self-aggrandizement, self-interest is like a great empty hole that will never be filled. 

Blaise Pascal once wrote: “There is a God-shaped vacuum in the heart of every person, and it can never be filled by any created thing. It can only be filled by God.”

Jesus says: “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for a life lived in harmony with God’s Divine Love: they will be satisfied.”