How shall we direct our hunger?

Hunger and thirst are two desires very familiar to all of us. When we are hungry, our bodies cry out to be fed. When we are thirsty, our throats demand to be wetted.

Hunger and thirst are special in the hierarchy of human needs. There are certainly other basic needs to be a healthy human being. People long for intimacy. Sexual expression is a part, but not the entirety, of the longing for intimacy. Related to intimacy is the desire for community. People need one another. Human beings are social by nature. I have never known a person who wanted to be alone all the time.

To the list of desires we can add security and privacy. In addition, we humans have a need to laugh and cry. I am certain the list of basic human desires can be further expanded, but when the list is completed, hunger and thirst stand at the top.

Our hunger for food must be satisfied or we die. Our thirst for water must be fulfilled or we waste away and die. No other physical needs are quite like them. This is what makes the fourth beatitude so important. Jesus said, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness for they shall be satisfied.”

The next issue in the fourth beatitude is the meaning of righteousness. My own understanding is that righteousness is achieved when everything is the way it ought to be for everyone and everything. This is the ultimate desire of God for his entire creation.

In the Bible materials there is a cluster of words that point us in this same direction. I would like to say these words are synonyms, but they are not. They are all special words that point to the same goal. Righteousness stands together with salvation, shalom and justice.

It is tragic to see what churches and ministers (who should know better) do to these words. Salvation has been reduced to a ticket to heaven after we die. How absurdly shallow. Shalom has been translated into the English word “peace,” and peace has been interpreted as the cessation of hostilities. How ignorant. Bible justice has been completely misunderstood and reduced to punishment appropriate for an offense. How arrogantly wrong.

The word “righteousness” has met a similar fate. Righteousness is a marvelous word that has been misinterpreted as referring to personal piety and to living carefully by a select set of rules. Righteousness has been so badly misused that thoughtful persons are afraid to affirm righteousness is their prime goal in life.

These four basic Bible words point to the one great desire of God, the father of Jesus of Nazareth. The great desire of God is that all people, along with all of creation, be made whole and complete. The path to the full will of God is paved with love and kindness. There is no place for judgment or punishment. There is no place for war or threats of war.

The goal to which righteousness, shalom, salvation and justice point can never be reached by means incompatible to the goal.

There is a catch in the scenario of the fourth beatitude. Hunger for food and thirst for water are natural. Hunger and thirst for righteousness are not natural. Hunger and thirst for righteousness are acquired commitments. When Dietrich Bonhoeffer discusses the fourth beatitude in his book “The Cost of Discipleship,” he confronts the reader. To acquire hunger and thirst for righteousness, a person must consciously place these basic commitments at the head of the list of basic needs. They come ahead of physical hunger and thirst, and even ahead of the preservation of one’s own life.

Jesus concludes the fourth beatitude with a promise. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness for they shall be satisfied.

Our selfish, greed-driven American society is vigorously selling a very different path to all of us. It is trying to sell us the idea that satisfaction in life will be found in a new car, a new home, a more exciting vacation or being physically attractive. What wicked deceptions.

Each Sunday, Christians pray, “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on Earth as it in Heaven.” I suspect we could better understand that for which we pray.

The Rev. Howard Bess is pastor of Church of the Covenant, an American Baptist church in Palmer. His e-mail address is hdbss@mtaonline.net.