Are you hungry but uncertain whether you will have food to eat? Then the fourth beatitude is for you. “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled” (Matt. 5.6).
“Wait a minute, George! This beatitude mentions a ‘hunger and thirst for righteousness,’ not food. It talks about spiritual, not physical, hunger.”
Yes and no. It focuses on the hunger and thirst for righteousness. But such a focus does not exclude concern for the physically hungry.
Start with Luke’s parallel beatitude, “Blessed are you who hunger now, for you will be satisfied” (6.21), and its corresponding statement of woe, “Woe to you who are well fed now, for you will go hungry” (6.25). A straightforward reading of these statements suggests that Jesus is talking about physical hunger—but not merely physical hunger. After all, is Jesus promising easy bread to lazy people? Is he threatening the honest and hardworking rich with starvation? No and no.
Take a look at Jesus’ parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus (Luke 16.19–31). “There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and lived in luxury every day. At his gate was laid a beggar named Lazarus, covered with sores and longing to eat what fell from the rich man’s table.” When the men died, they experienced reversals of fortune. Lazarus entered “Abraham’s bosom” (i.e., heaven), but the Rich Man went to hell. The hungry man was “satisfied,” but the well-fed man went “hungry.”
Why did they experience these reversals? Jesus does not say so explicitly, but it’s not hard to draw the obvious conclusion. The Rich Man had everything except concern for his poor neighbor. Consequently, he felt no need to turn to God. Lazarus, on the other hand, had nothing except his faith in God.
Return to Matthew 5.6: “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be satisfied.” The difference between the Rich Man and Lazarus was not merely the state of their stomachs but the state of their souls. Lazarus’s physical hunger for food led him to a spiritual hunger for God. The Rich Man felt the pangs of neither hunger. Lazarus, in other words, hungered and thirsted for righteousness, but the Rich Man did not.
In the Sermon on the Mount, “righteousness” describes three things: (1) what God’s character is. “But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness” (Matt. 6.33a). (2) What our character should be. “For unless you righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven” (5.20). And (3) what the future is like. God’s “righteousness” will be “given,” along with “all these things,” to those who “seek” it (6.33b).
In conclusion, we should feed the physically hungry (like Lazarus) without losing our spiritual hunger (like the Rich Man). “Man does not live by bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God” (Matt. 4.4).
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