At the very beginning of the most famous sermon that he ever preached, Jesus offered what have come to be known as the Beatitudes (Matthew 5:1-12). The word “beatitude” is a derivative of a Latin word which means “blessedness” or “blessing.” We call them the beatitudes because, in them, Jesus speaks of the revolutionary blessedness that is to be found in the kingdom of God.
By the standards of many in our world, people are blessed only if they are happy. In the beatitudes, however, Jesus dares to say, “blessed are the poor in spirit and those who are mourning [those who are fragile or emotionally broken or grieving], for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” Might this mean that those who are poor in spirit are uniquely blessed in Christ because they understand their need for him more than the rest of us do and are therefore more receptive to the blessedness that he has to offer?
By the standards of many in our world, people are blessed only if they are powerful and successful. But, in the beatitudes, Jesus dares to say, “blessed are the meek [those who are gentle and humble and unassuming], for they shall inherit the earth.” Might this mean that those who are meek are uniquely blessed in Christ because they are humble enough to acknowledge their need for a savior and are therefore more receptive to the blessedness that only he can provide?
By the standards of many in our world, people are blessed only if they are ambitious and aggressive and comfortable. In the beatitudes, though, Jesus dares to say, “blessed are the merciful and the peacemakers and the persecuted [those whose inclination is to minister to others, to become instruments of peace and reconciliation, and to carry the cross, if it comes to that], for they will be called the children of God.” Might this mean that such peaceful and persecuted people are the ones who incarnate the very same spirit by which Christ lived?
All of the beatitudes, you see, bear witness to the revolutionary condition ushered in by God’s kingdom. It is a condition that illuminates what God can accomplish in the lives of those who are poor in spirit and persecuted. It is a condition that illuminates the way in which God is revealed in the work of the merciful and the peacemakers. Most of all, it is a condition that redefines what blessedness really means.
At the heart of the beatitudes is a verse of scripture that, in many ways, ties all of the beatitudes together. That verse is this: “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.” What is righteousness? It is, quite simply, right living—living in alignment with the desires and purposes of God. Literally, the word “righteousness” in Greek refers to the state of being as we ought to be or, more specifically, the state of being as God created us to be. Therefore, when Jesus says that people are blessed when they hunger and thirst for righteousness, he is telling us that they are blessed when their most passionate desire in life is to live rightly, manifesting integrity and virtue in their living, so that their lives become everything that they ought to be, everything that they were created to be, everything that God wants them to be. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, Jesus says, for they will be filled.
What I appreciate most about those words is the way in which they provide for us a helpful vocabulary with which to speak about the saints of our faith. In some segments of the church, sainthood is a title reserved for a very few people who have garnered enough votes based upon their extraordinary accomplishments. In other segments of the church, however, including United Methodism, sainthood is something broader and more comprehensive than that. In the scriptures, after all, when the Apostle Paul refers to the saints of a particular church, he is not making reference to a group of people who have been canonized or voted in. Rather, he is making reference to all of those who have given their lives to Jesus Christ and who are endeavoring further his kingdom.
Biblically speaking, then, the saints are not perfect or sinless people. They are not even people who have accomplished something tremendous. Rather, the saints, to borrow Jesus’ vocabulary from the beatitudes, are all those people who consistently hunger and thirst for righteousness for the sake of Jesus Christ and his kingdom.
The saints, in other words, are disciples who do not simply flirt with right living. They hunger for it with their soul, they thirst for it with their spirit, as though living in alignment with the purposes and desires of God were the governing passion of their lives.
In the aftermath of All Saints Day, who are the saints that you are remembering? What faces are appearing in your thoughts? Who are the people who have shown you throughout your life what it looks like to hunger and thirst for the righteousness of God? Remember them well.
Thanks be to God for the saints of our faith who have hungered and thirsted for righteousness and who now rest from their labor in a realm where their hunger has been completely satisfied.