CE Week 4: Those Who Hunger + Thirst

Truly hungry and thirsty people will do almost anything to satisfy such powerful urges. Look at Jacob and Esau in Genesis 25:29-34. Look at the Israelites after being delivered from Egypt in Exodus 16-17. I love the show Survivor on CBS. I've been a loyal fan since season one. Inevitably, there comes a point in the show when a lack of food coupled with a desire for creature comforts (blankets, tarps, fishing gear, etc.) presents the opportunity for some good TV: a food challenge. And, the "food" is GROSS, but they eat it anyway. Cattle milk mixed with cattle blood, marinated raw fish (marinated in a sauce made of fish bones, crab legs, lobster legs, soaked in sea water for 3 days and left out in the baking sun for a couple of hours), a spoonful of ants, a 3-inch water roach, 3 live grubs, a boiled tarantula, a boiled scorpion, sea slug guts, etc. YUM!

The people standing around Jesus were well acquainted with hunger and thirst. Most of the food the land produced was taken by Caesar, his local henchmen, and tax collectors. It was to these people that Jesus made this announcement. Now, righteousness has a range of meaning. It can mean right relationship with God. It can mean right moral conduct and character. It can also refer to the intense longing for the social righteousness that the prophets spoke of: liberation from oppression and the longing for justice (Isaiah 61:1). Righteousness is the blazing longing for the things to be as God intended them to be, and according to Jesus, the people who hunger and thirst for it will be filled.

Meanwhile, we live in a world that produces enough food for everyone, yet there are millions that starve to death and lack clean water, which leads to countless others suffering disease and dehydration. Righteousness is longing for that to be made right. Righteousness unsettles us. Righteousness disrupts us. You know, another way of looking at this may be, "Blessed are those who allow themselves to be disrupted by what they see in the world around them." Allow yourself to be disrupted this week.