Upper Path Valley Presbyterian Church

Matthew 5:1-6 March 11, 2007

The Beatitudes #4:
“The Promise of Righteousness”
Rev. Meagan M. Boozer

Matthew 5:1-6
When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain; and after he sat down, his disciples came to him. Then he began to speak, and taught them, saying: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.” “Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.” “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.”

Prayer: O God, please help us hear you speaking in these moments. Your words alone give life and light. May we hear, and may we be persuaded to do what you are calling us to do. This we pray in Jesus’ name, Amen.

My friend, Pat, is dying. With each passing day now, she is eating less and drinking less. We all know that a body needs food and water to live. Pat knows this too, in her mind. However, her body is telling her something different. Her body, in its mysterious makeup, is helping her prepare to die.
A body that hungers, and a body that thirsts, is a body in healthy mode. A body that no longer hungers and thirsts is a sick body.
As we prepare for the 30 Hour Famine each year with the youth, I am reminded of the fact that people who don’t have any food or drink at all will be hungry and thirsty in the first days without food, but then the body adjusts to the famine, and will go into a state where they don’t really feel the hunger, or feel the thirst. I believe this is God’s mercy for the person literally dying because of lack of food & lack of water, but whether you feel hungry or feel thirsty, or not, the truth is, without food, without water, a person’s body will eventually shut down.
Jesus knew that every human being understands about hunger and thirst. He knew when he used these words, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst,” that everyone - young, old, big, small, male, or female - could relate to this teaching. But of course, because he is Jesus, he brings new meaning to hungering and thirsting.
“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness.”
Now, let’s remember that though Jesus was famous, (everybody knew about him), he wasn’t very popular among the Jewish religious leaders of the day. He was famous throughout the region, but he wasn’t popular among his own, because he challenged religious leaders in their long-held beliefs about what it meant to be faithful to God.
To be faithful in those times, or we can say, to be righteous in those times, was to do everything just right. The religious leaders believed a person’s righteousness was able to be measured in terms of their attendance for prayers and worship, contributions to the temple, and obedience to a whole slew of rules, traditions, and laws handed down by generations of priests. For those on the outside looking in, they probably thought that if you were truly righteous, you had to be snooty, cold, judgmental, and lead about as boring a life as a person could lead.
But, here’s the thing: Religious life in Jesus’ day had turned into mostly an external thing. Many faithful Jews kept the rules and fulfilled the traditions not because they really believed in the importance of them or wanted to do them, but because they had to do them. Their righteousness was sort of like perfume: it wasn’t part of you, but if you had it on, you could pass yourself off as “one of the chosen righteous ones.”
The question is: Why did they do this? Why did they live out their religious beliefs this way - because they loved God? Well, who am I to say they did or didn’t love God, but it seems that many of them went through all the motions of faithfulness because they wanted others to see them and think they were all good with God. Why would Jesus have said the following words a little deeper into this sermon in 6:1 if something wasn’t out of balance? “Beware of practicing your piety before others in order to be seen by them; for then you have no reward from your Father in heaven.”
They wanted reward for all they did. They wanted the reward of people thinking they were great, thinking they were holy & righteous – and they wanted the reward of God. They wanted God to bless them and protect them. That doesn’t sound that different from what we want, does it?
So what is Jesus getting at here? “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness.” Is he telling us we should want to work harder and harder at following all the rules and traditions of the church so that we will be blessed?
Let’s remember what he has taught us so far in these beatitudes. Blessed are the poor in Spirit: He taught us that we will be blessed if we will truly understand that we are helpless and without anything good apart from Christ. Blessed are those who mourn: He taught us that we are blessed if we are willing to look honestly at ourselves and mourn the filth of our sin. We are blessed if we mourn the state of this sinful world, and choose to do something to make a difference like going to, or sending people to Honduras to help the poor and oppressed. The poor in spirit and the one who mourns well, partner beautifully with the meek one, who desires to let God’s will flow through him. “Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth,” Jesus said. The truly meek are the girls and boys, the men and women, who stand up for Jesus while at the same time, bowing before him in grateful submission.
To follow these three self-examining beatitudes, Jesus adds clear instruction: Do not think that you can do these things by your own effort. You cannot achieve this kind of Christ-like character on your own strength. Notice what Jesus does not say. He does not say, “Blessed are those who are righteous.” He says, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness.” Jesus is telling us that in order to keep living spiritually (not dying spiritually, not existing spiritually, but growing in health spiritually), in order to keep living spiritually, just the way we must keep living physically, we must have a healthy hunger and thirst for the things which feed and nourish our spirit.
To be righteous means to be in right relationship with God. You know how it is when you are “on the outs” with someone. You know how it is when there is tension between you and another person – when there is something keeping you from being close to each other. Our sin is what keeps us out of close relationship with God. We are “on the outs” with God as long as our sin remains exposed to Him. We cannot become right with God on our own. No amount of working on doing everything the right way can get us into a right relationship with our Creator. We become righteous in one way only:
We are put in a right relationship
with our Creator by the shed blood
of the perfect Lamb of God.
We are given the righteous robes to wear over our own dirty filthy rags the moment we say “Yes!” to Jesus’ request to come and let his pure blood cover us – allowing him to be the Savior and Lord of our lives.
I am already righteous. My friend, Pat, is already righteous. One day, very soon, she will stand before God, and His eyes will sparkle and His righteous right hand will reach out for her as he looks upon that beautiful righteous robe she is wearing.
If you have received Jesus Christ as your Lord, and trusted his work on the cross for your salvation, you are already righteous in his sight. “For Christ is the end of the law so that there may be righteousness for everyone who believes.” (Romans 10:4)
So, why would Jesus say, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,” if he knew we could have it instantaneously and eternally?
For most of our lives we seem to have a tendency to want what is beyond where we are. When we’re little, we can’t
wait to walk; we can’t wait to run; we can’t wait to ride a bike; we can’t wait to go to school; we can’t wait to stay overnight at a friend’s house; we can’t wait to get our driver’s license; we can’t wait to have our first date; we can’t wait to fall in love; we can’t wait to graduate from high school; we can’t wait to get that first paycheck; we can’t wait to buy a car; we can’t wait to buy a house; we can’t wait to get married; we can’t wait to get a better job; we can’t wait to get a promotion; we can’t wait to retire; we can’t wait, can’t wait, can’t wait. We are a people who hunger and thirst for something beyond what we have – especially in America.
But what we eventually learn over the course of our lives, is that with every new thing we have, with every new step we take, with every new challenge, new accomplishment or achievement, there is added responsibility. Responsibility is the state, fact, or position of being accountable to somebody or accountable for something.
Being given the robes of righteousness means that we carry quite a responsibility.
It is an incredible, indescribable gift to us to know that when God looks upon us, he sees the strength & the gentle humility of heart of Jesus looking back at him. That’s how it works in the unseen spiritual realm. (What confidence this gives us as we approach our own dying days!)
But while we are still in this earthly realm, Jesus is teaching us that we should want our righteousness to be more than just an external robe. While this is enough to get us into heaven, Jesus says that we will be blessed if we hunger and thirst for a righteousness that fills us from the inside, and covers us on the outside. The very shape of the cross can remind us that the righteousness we get as a gift from above comes with a responsibility to display Jesus’ righteousness to the world. What we receive as a gift must go out to the world. And Jesus tells us that if we hunger and thirst for righteousness, we will be filled with righteousness. We will be filled with a desire to live more like Jesus.
On the day that I was installed in my first pastorate, I became a pastor. From that moment I had choices to make. I could either do things that a pastor is supposed to do according to Scripture, or I could choose to do things that pastors shouldn’t do. I’m one of those people whose weight fluctuates up and down 15 pounds, depending on my level of exercise. Right now I’m back in exercise mode because (Yes, it makes me feel better, giving me more energy), but primarily I do it because I believe that as a pastor I have an added responsibility to you. I believe that I should be an example to you of how a Christian should take care of the body that God has given us.
Here’s another example: When a person gets their RN degree after being an LPN for a while, that person has to choose whether they are going keep working as an LPN, even though they are now an RN by certification and credentials. Will this person take on the added responsibility that comes with the position? They have a choice to make.
Here’s one more: We have sent 16 people across the miles to Honduras as missionaries. They are traveling as we worship here this morning. They are missionaries. They have been sent. But the question is: Will they truly take on the responsibility of doing the work of a missionary when they arrive at their destination? Or, did they go just so that others might think more highly of them, so that they could say they went, so that they could go to the beach at the end of a long day of work? They have a choice to make.
When we become righteous by the work of Jesus, we have a choice to make. We can choose to selfishly wear the robe, yet never fulfill the responsibility to extend God’s grace to others, or we can choose to live like Jesus calls us to live. What choice have you made? In the shadow of this cross, it may be time to re-evaluate your choices.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. Blessed are those who want to take it in and use it to share the good news of Christ and model his love. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for whether we are in the beginning, the middle, or the end of our life on earth, we will be filled, and filled, and filled to overflowing.
1 Peter 2:21-25:
“For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you should follow in his steps. “He committed no sin, and no deceit was found in his mouth.” When he was abused, he did not return abuse; when he suffered, he did not threaten; but he entrusted himself to the one who judges justly. He himself bore our sins in his body on the cross, so that, free from sins, we might live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed. For you were going astray like sheep, but now you have returned to the shepherd and guardian of your souls.” Amen.

Upper Path Valley Presbyterian Church

03-11-2007