Perspective: Stay Hungry and Thirsty, My Friends

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Stay Hungry and Thirsty, My Friends

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.

Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.

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

Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Matthew 5:3-6, 10 (NRSV)

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But woe to you who are rich,

for you have received your consolation.

Woe to you who are full now,

for you will be hungry.

Woe to you who are laughing now,

for you will mourn and weep.

Woe to you when all speak well of you, for that is what their ancestors did to the false prophets.

Luke 6:24-26 (NRSV)

You call me out upon the waters

The great unknown where feet may fail

And there I find You in the mystery

In oceans deep my faith will stand

From "Oceans" by Hillsong United

For some of us who study the Bible, there are certain passages that have become so painfully familiar to us that we'll read them or listen to them without actually taking them in.  Reading such familiar passages from an unfamiliar translation of the Bible can help us to experience them afresh and glean new insights from them.  Last week, at the church I attend, the congregation heard one rather familiar passage - a certain discourse on love¹ - read from The Message, Eugene Peterson's paraphrase of the Bible, which serves at times as both translation and commentary.

After church, my own personal Bible study brought me back to another familiar passage, the Beatitudes.  I decided to apply the same Bible study hack that was used during the service, and I read the Beatitudes from The Message.

The Beatitudes, which are found in the Gospel of Matthew at the beginning of Jesus' famous Sermon on the Mount, are a series of announcements of blessing upon people whom the world would not normally consider blessed.  Jesus blesses "the poor in spirit," "those who mourn," "the meek," "those who hunger and thirst for righteousness," "those who are persecuted," and others.

In The Message, Peterson shows how the circumstances of the people Jesus calls blessed are tied to the blessing they will receive.  Consider the following:

You're blessed when you're at the end of your rope.  With less of you there is more of God and his rule.

You're blessed when you feel you've lost what is most dear to you.  Only then can you be embraced by the One most dear to you.

You're blessed when you're content with just who you are - no more, no less.  That's the moment you find yourselves proud owners of everything that can't be bought.

You're blessed when you've worked up a good appetite for God.  He's food and drink in the best meal you'll ever eat.

You're blessed when your commitment to God provokes persecution.  The persecution drives you even deeper into God's kingdom.²

Frederick Dale Bruner describes the Beatitudes as "Jesus' surprisingly countercultural God-bless-yous to people in god-awful situations."³  Eugene Peterson seems to suggest that these "god-awful situations" are exactly what puts people in contact with God's blessings.  When we've reached the end of ourselves, we are forced to turn to something beyond ourselves.  When we rely on God, we experience God's blessing upon us.

In the Gospel of Luke, Jesus delivers a very similar message which is sometimes called the Sermon on the Plain, and He begins this sermon with a series of blessings similar to the Beatitudes.  Interestingly, He goes on to announce woe upon people who would generally consider themselves #blessed: the rich, the well fed, the laughing, and the highly praised.

When Jesus enters the scene, everything seems to work differently than it would otherwise.  One evening, Jesus sat down for dinner with a number of tax collectors.  The Pharisees - the good salt-of-the-earth religious folk of the day - wondered why Jesus would associate with such scumbags.  Jesus told them, "Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick."⁴  Later on, when Jesus encountered a rich man who wanted a place in the Kingdom of God but had no desire to let go of his wealth, He told His disciples that "it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God."⁵

I live in a society in which self-sufficiency is lauded as a virtue, a society in which the rich man who approached Jesus would be considered a success.  Even those of us who claim that we've put our trust in God like to think that we have it all together, like the Pharisees who criticized Jesus.  I wonder if our "virtues" of self-reliance and self-assuredness actually get in the way of our experiencing everything God has in store for us.  If our relationship with God is somehow connected to our dependence on God, then maybe self-sufficiency actually robs us of God's blessings.  Perhaps a step toward God is actually a step away from ease, comfort, and self-sufficiency.  Jesus came for the people who actually needed Him, not the self-reliant, the self-assured, and the self-righteous.

It is not the filled who need to be fed.

It is not the comfortable who need comfort.

It is not the healthy who need to be healed.

It is not the sheltered who need shelter.

It is not the safe and sound who need to be saved.

For the last year and a half, I've complained that I feel like I'm in a rut and that my life has become stagnant in some way.  I wonder if, at this time, I might be a little too comfortable with my circumstances - or at least "comfortably numb."  Looking back on my journey of faith, I see that it is a sense of need that draws me closer to God.  The time I spent working in the gambling industry was the most miserable season of my life, yet, ironically, I think it might have been the time I was actually the closest to God.  Every morning before work, I turned to God in prayer, begging God to get me out of my "god-awful situation."  I did not need God's help at that time - I was desperate for it.

If we're dissatisfied with our spiritual lives, then perhaps what we need the most is to experience our need for God.  The challenge then for some of us is to venture out from the spaces where we are comfortable and where we feel that we're in control, toward the spaces where we actually have to rely on God.  Though contentedness is generally considered a good thing, there are some aspects of our lives with which we should never be content.  When it comes to our relationship with God, we would do well to stay hungry and thirsty.


Notes:

1. 1 Corinthians 13:1-7
2. Matthew 5:3-6, 10 (The Message)
3. Frederick Dale Bruner.  Matthew, a Commentary: The Christbook, Matthew 1-12.  2004, Eerdmans Publishing Company.  p. 165
4. Matthew 9:9-13 (NRSV)
5. Matthew 19:16-30 (NRSV)

The Sermon on the Mount was painted by Carl Heinrich Bloch in 1877.