Blessed are those who Hunger and Thirst After Righteousness

Nobody who is full will be hungry, nor will anyone who has had enough to drink be thirsty. Thus in this beatitude we again see the blessing that comes upon lack.

The counter-intuitive notion that we see here is that no blessing is pronounced on those who are full of righteousness, who “have enough.” Of course, you might argue that nobody has enough righteousness, but that way of thinking must be learned; it does not come naturally. In fact, most people, even Christians, consider themselves right, and are willing to jump through many mental hoops in order to maintain their sense of self-righteousness.

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

Interpreters seem to mostly see this hungering and thirsting as subjective. That is, they view it as a “passion” for righteousness.

But I believe that this turns the beatitude into a human qualification: those who desire righteousness are blessed. Instead, I believe the beatitude brings better news than that: blessed are those who are conscious, not of their desire, but of their lack. This beatitude seems more consistent with the “loser” idea I described in the first beatitude.

As I said earlier, most people feel a strong need to be right in their own eyes. They will say and think absurdities to avoid having to admit that they are wrong. For example, one woman decided to divorce her husband. When he asked her if she remembered the “till death do us part” section of their vow, she said, “Of course. And I meant it at the time.”

The wonderful thing about being a Christian is that you get to declare moral bankruptcy. You get to say, “I’m wrong, and I don’t have to prove to anyone that I’m right.” You are justified not by your own rightness but by the righteousness that comes to you as a gift.

But in order to accept such a gift, you do indeed have to abandon your own rightness. Only when you can see the reality of your sin will you be able to say, as Paul quotes David in Romans 9:

Blessed he whose wickedness is forgiven,
And whose sins are covered.
Blessed the man against whom the Lord does not count sin.

– Romans 4:7-8

Someone who is full of his own righteousness will not feel any need for such a blessing.

But of course to admit your own moral bankruptcy is dangerous. After all everyone expects others to be morally perfect. And in Christian circles this is exacerbated by the fact that Christians are supposed to be good guys. In particular, for Christian leaders to admit their moral struggles and failures can result in major disruption.

I heard a story about a church where the leadership tried to encourage a policy of openness among one another about the struggles they were going through. The youth pastor naively took this seriously. He shared about his struggles with pornography and was promptly fired.

Henry Nouwen, in his book In the Name of Jesus, points out that many people in ministry are unable to share their struggles with their own congregation. They either find confidants outside their circle of ministry, or struggle alone with their issues.

Our lack of righteousness would lead us to despair if it were not for the fact that we are told that we will be filled with righteousness. Given that future hope, we can lay down our attempts to self-justify or prove our righteousness to others. We can be open (in appropriate ways and settings) about the struggles we experience because of our lack of righteousness. I believe this kind of transparency is essential to authentic ministry. How can you minister to the struggles of those around you if you refuse to admit that you yourself struggle with the same things? Even Jesus was “in every respect … tempted as we are…” (Hebrews 4:15).

We see that a proper understanding of this beatitude puts it in the mainstream of Christian teaching about righteousness. In Philippians 3:9 Paul talks about how this works: “… not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith….” In Romans 5:17 he refers to the “the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness” that makes us “reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ.”

Because righteousness is a gift, we do not have to cling to it in desperation. Many conflicts between people could be resolved if the question of “who is right” could be abandoned. Because being right is such a strong psychological need, though, people will fight over “the principle of the thing” rather than simply seeking a mutually agreeable compromise. If we abandon our need to be right, we can move toward “win-win” arrangements that preserve and enhance relationships. All this is possible when we admit that we lack righteousness and that our only, but certain, hope is that God will fill us.