Blessed are they who hunger and thirst?

Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be satisfied. ~ Mathew 5:6

Food prices have increased by 83% around the world in the past 12 months.

With the cost of food skyrocketing around the world, there are today millions of hungry people. Are they blessed?

With less than 2.5% of the world’s water in drinkable form (contain no salt) and corporations gobbling up those resources for profit as fast as they can, the number of thirsty people are growing each day. Are they blessed?

The immediate response of the United States to this hunger crisis has been $200 million in food aid. However, in the need for affordable food, $200 million provides no more than a snack.

Debnath Guharoy, in an article in The Jakarta Post entitled Global hunger, corporate greed: When will enough be enough? writes:

A kilogram of rice costs more than US$1 and a barrel of oil costs over $100. One influences the other. The subprime loan crisis will cost more than $1 trillion and the Iraq war will cost the United States alone as much as $3 trillion.

Different problem, same instinct. Many pundits will argue none of this has any connection to global hunger, as if these colossal costs aren't real and do not affect the common man.

… It seems as if the profit motive is no longer an adequate driver of business today. Unbridled greed has taken over, a global corporate culture spreading like a cancer unchecked.

Are these signs of being blessed? And what about this hunger and thirst for righteousness? Are only the righteous to be blessed?

In the ways of the ancient Hebrews, to be righteous means to be just—God’s concept of justice, not the human concept. In contemporary usage the word justice is used when referring to human rights, equality, the equitable distribution of the world’s resources, and the institutions that exist to uphold the law. But when Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount addresses righteousness and justice, he goes beyond the contemporary usage to a more comprehensive justice—a justice that has to do with harmonious relationships, with concord, with peace.

Hunger and thirst speak to us of the basic needs of each person. Justice, in the biblical sense of the word, means to live in conformity with the plan God has for creation, which is to be a family united in love. As with any family, when one is in need, all are in need.

My cupboard is filled with a month’s supply of food from NutriSystem.

My hunger needs are met for at least the coming month. But what about the needs of my sisters and brothers around the world?

There is a line in one of the Eucharistic prayers in the United Church of Christ Book of Worship:

We bless you for the beauty and bounty of the earth and for the vision of the day when sharing by all will mean scarcity for none.

I, among many others, take that line seriously. We believe that God’s creation can provide sufficiently for the needs of all people. We believe by removing the element of greed from humankind and by recognizing in each human being what he or she really is, our neighbor—our sister and brother—with his or her rights and basic equality with everyone else, that that vision of sharing by all will mean scarcity for none can be realized.

We believe that we must love our neighbors—even if they are our enemies—with the same love that the God has for them. We believe that we must be ready and willing to make sacrifices for them, even the greatest one: “To give one’s life for one’s friends.” This means to live with them in mutual giving, sharing our spiritual and material goods, so that all will become one family.

And we believe that we cannot simply stand by and watch the greed of corporations gobble up the necessities of life from our brothers and sisters. We cannot simply look for the vision of sharing by all will mean scarcity for none; we must actively join together to make it a reality. Then and only then our longing for a just and righteous world, as God has envisioned it, will become a reality.

I end this post with a song written and sung by Joe Wise. Please take a moment to click below and listen.

Shalom, my friends.