Blessed Are Those Who Hunger and Thirst for Righteousness

Maybe it’s the snow, or having the kids around the house more this week, or the imminent arrival of Christmas and all that goes with it, I’m not sure. But I’ve found it harder than usual getting going with the sermon this week.

I did my reading, took notes, tried to shape them, tried to put things down on paper, but somehow nothing seemed to be clicking into place. Five years in, I’ve learned that this is one of the challenges of the job – being creative is one thing; being creative to order is something entirely different.

I watched a documentary on the artist Peter Howson this week - a really interesting and complex man. He’s had a difficult and tortuous life, Howson – spells of homelessness, mental illness and alcoholism are some of the things he’s had to contend with. But his work is exceptional, and since the year 2000 when he had a profound spiritual experience, his paintings have often had religious themes.

In 2008 he was given a commission by the Archdoicese of Glasgow to do a painting of St John Ogilvie, a priest who was tried and hanged for treason after the Scottish Reformation.

He spent eight months working on an execution scene which had something like 600 individual figures – and we watched this magnificent painting emerge from his imagination and evolve over time. But one day, having stood back and surveyed it all, he took a great black brush, painted over almost everything he’d done and started again. It just wasn’t right, he said.

On a far smaller scale, I had my own mini-Howson moment this week – a sermon which was most of the way there, but which ended up in the bin. Why? Because it just wasn’t right.

And that, I realised, was my way into a better sermon.

It got me thinking about ‘rightness’.

If I say that something’s not right, that’s a loaded statement. It means that out there, somewhere, whether in reality or in my brain, there’s a way that things should be. And the success of what I create is measured by the extent to which it captures what I’m trying to describe.

If I paint a picture of John Ogilvie’s execution which doesn’t capture my sense of how things were for him in that moment, then it’s not right.

If I cut two piece of wood at 45 degrees and they don’t make a right angle when I join them, then it isn’t right. Literally.

If I write a sermon which doesn’t get to the heart of what I think God wants us to understand from the text that week, then it’s not right either.

Two of my three kids are learning piano at the moment and one of the joys of that – when you’re not trying to write a sermon – is hearing how the pieces they’re learning improve over time.

At first there are just the plain mistakes. A crotchet rest instead of a minim. A black key instead of a white key.

But in time those mistakes get ironed out. And as they practice, the piece begins to take on more fluidity and character. It even begins to take on some of their own personality. They get it about as right as any child of their age could, and it’s lovely to hear.

There’s something in us that loves rightness. Rightness matters. It matters whether we’re talking about an objective fact like two plus two equals four, or a subjective aspiration like painting the best picture or writing the best sermon you can. There’s something in us that wants to get things right.

Now, with that excursus behind us, we’re in a better place to look at the beatitude that falls to us today, the sixth in our journey up to Christmas.

Jesus says: “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. For they shall be filled”.

So what’s he saying here? What is this righteousness that Jesus is talking about?

Well, some hold that this beatitude’s about those who are hungry to be made right with God.

And although that’s true, I don’t think it’s the whole story. And the reason I say that is when you dive into the Bible and spend some time looking at the 200 or so uses of that word righteousness, you begin to get a feel for that word in all its richness.

And one of the most significant insights that emerges is that on more than 30 occasions, righteousness and justice are linked together. They’re linked together in the prophesy we heard earlier on from Isaiah, looking forward 700 years to the birth of the Messiah:

He will reign on David’s throne
and over his kingdom,
establishing and upholding it
with justice and righteousness
from that time on and for ever.

Justice and righteousness go together like salt and pepper in the Biblical story. And what that points to, I believe, is that this word righteousness is about more than individual salvation. It’s about the rightness God wants for his world. Righteousness is the rightness God wants for his world. Right relationships with God, with one another, with the planet. It’s cosmic in scope.

Instinctively, we know that Rightness matters. Howson wanted his painting to be right. I wanted my sermon to be right. And God wants his world to be right.

But the world is far from right. I don’t mean to be a pessimist – just a realist. Read the papers. Watch the telly. You don’t need me to spell it out for you.

There is a rightness – a way the world should be. That’s what Jesus means when he speaks about the kingdom. But the world is very far from right. And it breaks God’s heart. Because the one thing he will never do is force our hand. The price of making creatures who could freely choose to love him, was the risk that they would choose not to love him. We chose badly, and the world became what it now is.

But all of us are haunted by the idea that this is not the way things should be. That there’s someone or something who can bring rightness. And there are times when we ache for that rightness. We wouldn’t put it in those terms, maybe, but we ache for it.

We see a relationship going to pieces; battle-lines hardening; friends taking sides. And we ache for a resolution.

We see someone we love suffering in ways we wouldn’t wish on our worst enemy. And we ache for it to come to an end.

We see some tragedy or some staggering evil unfolding before us on the TV news, and we ache for the victims and the survivors.

We long for things to be made right. We may not know what that rightness looks like: we may not know where it will come from; we may not consider ourselves religious people, but we still find ourselves hungering and thirsting for rightness. And the Bible tells us there’s only one place we’ll find it – and that’s in God himself.

“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness” says Jesus. “For they shall be filled”.

This beatitude isn’t a pat on the back for the religiously devoted. It’s an encouragement for every single person with a tender conscience; everyone who finds themselves yearning in some way for a world made right.

It’s a promise that the king whose humble birth we celebrate at this time of year, is bringing in his Kingdom; and when it comes there will be, in John’s memorable words in Revelation, no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things will have passed away.

The Rev Martin Luther King put it this way: I am convinced that the universe is under the control of a loving purpose, and that in the struggle for righteousness man has cosmic companionship.

There is a rightness. And one day it will dawn in all its glory. And all that mars and spoils will melt away like winter snow in sunshine. The Sun of righteousness, says Malachi, will rise with healing in his wings.

Until then, we play our part in the story by doing our best to live aright with God, with one another, with the planet and with ourselves. And we let out hunger pangs remind us that in this struggle for rightness and righteousness, we are not alone.