Matthew 5:6

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

From Background Notes [BN] for May 26^th & 27^th written by Pastor Bob Brown:

Jesus stands with those whom others have disenfranchised. “The hungry” touches a chord in Israel’s history…

… reaching all the way back to the famine in Egypt and the seeming lack of food in the wilderness. The lack of food — scarcity — defined in large part the kind of faith Israel experienced in the long journey from Egypt to the Promised Land. No sooner had they left Egypt, than Israel complained about lack of water and lack of food, wanting to go back to slavery in Egypt rather than go hungry in the desert. God’s people constantly face such choices: food for freedom. The answer God gives His people back then was the “manna,” that mysterious food source that appeared on the desert floor. When gathered it was never too much or too little. Manna — a word in Hebrew that means “what is it?” — came to symbolize the deeper truth that with God there is always enough. Even when Sabbath is kept and none is gathered one day in seven, there is still enough. There is enough because Yahweh cares for His people righteously, justly, and with equity.

Therefore, when Jesus tells of the blessed hungry ones he expands this hunger to include righteousness. To hunger and thirst for righteousness is to stand with ancient Israel in the wilderness and to ask God to bring about righteousness — to make the world right so that the hungry are fed and the thirsty are refreshed. This is not hunger as a solitary or private need. Instead, the hungry and the thirsty stand together in solidarity seeking a righteous resolution of the long-standing problem of hunger and thirst. The word “righteousness” and its family of words have to do with straightening what is crooked, leveling what is uneven, and correcting what is wrong. The Hebrew root, tzadîq, and its Greek counterpart dikaiosunē all point in the same general direction. Archers referred to their arrows as righteous when they were straight and true, reliable for the hunt or for battle. [BN, 7-8]

Join us this week in Study, Worship, Praise and Celebration at Chicago First Church of the Nazarene –

* Saturday 6:00pm
* Sunday 8:30am & 11:00am, 5:30pm