Matthew 4:23-5:12
The world is not as it was meant to be, and you don’t have to be a Christian to know it! All around us, among our best relationships, and even within ourselves, we sense the reality that things are off, and we’re always trying to make them right. We want what the bible calls “righteousness,” the desire for all things to be as they ought, with God, one another, ourselves, and in the world. Jesus names this desire in Matthew 5.6, announcing his blessing to those who “hunger and thirst for righteousness.” That unmet longing, according to Jesus, is deep in us because we were made for Eden, made for a world of goodness and flourishing, and we’re over-built for the world as it is. Jesus blesses that longing, and promises a satisfaction of it that will be like a feast of rich food. That feast begins now in Jesus, in the righteousness of God given as a gift to those who confess they have none. The feast is a shared table of fellow sinners-declared-righteous, where joy and love abounds. It is an invitation to the feast for those who have been mistreated, who lack justice, who live in a world broken and full of deep injustice. And as we feast, we're fueled for a life of justice doing until Jesus returns to make all things right.
Discussion:
1. Where do you sense the lack of righteousness the most? Where do you long for things to be made right?
2. What does it mean that Jesus blesses that longing? How is good news that Jesus brings satisfaction?
3. In what ways might you or your community put righteousness into action in our city?
August 1, 2021 - Steve Hart