Saturday after Ash Wednesday, February 25. HAPPY ARE the HUNGRY and THIRSTY

Prepare to Listen.  Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.
 
Prayerfully Read Matthew 5:5-6
5Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.
6Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.
 
Prayerfully Wonder
I was a teenager when the Rolling Stones sang, “I can’t get no satisfaction.”  Evangelists said, ‘Come to Jesus and you will have satisfaction.’  And it’s true, there is satisfaction in Jesus, but not yet.  Jesus taught: “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.”  In other words, blessed are those who can’t get no satisfaction.  It’s as if Jesus said, as Richard Rohr suggests, “Make sure you’re not satisfied….  Keep yourself in a state of deliberate dissatisfaction.”[1]  Followers of Jesus, he says, are blessed when they live with a constant hunger and thirst, now, in the present.  Not the hunger and thirst of the self-centered, me-oriented person who just wants to please her/himself.  Hunger and thirst for righteousness, for God.  Then we will find it.
 
Perhaps we often think righteousness is about being morally upright and no more, which is important.  But there’s more to it.  The word in Greek, as Rohr maintains, “clearly means ‘justice.’”[1]  It has social implications, promoting liberation from oppression for all peoples, civil rights, integrity in business and government, respecting each other in society and in our homes.  It means being appalled at the lack of justice in the treatment of aliens, minorities, women, the poor.  If we hunger and thirst for the reversal of injustice and for restoration for all peoples, we will, Jesus said, “be filled.”  The promise is future--will.  Meanwhile, we live in dissatisfaction and wait in hope.
 
Prayerfully Reflect
What do you hunger and thirst for?
 
Respond in Prayer
Keep me dissatisfied, Lord Jesus, until justice comes for all your creation.  Amen.
 
Live Obediently.  Be dissatisfied.
[1] Rohr, Richard.  Jesus’ Alternative Plan: The Sermon on the Mount.  Cincinnati, OH: Franciscan Media. 2022, p. 163.