Hungry and Thirsty

Woe to you who desire the day of the LORD! Why would you have the day of the LORD? It is darkness, and not light, as if a man fled from a lion, and a bear met him, or went into the house and leaned his hand against the wall, and a serpent bit him. Is not the day of the LORD darkness, and not light, and gloom with no brightness in it? “I hate, I despise your feasts, and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies. Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them; and the peace offerings of your fattened animals, I will not look upon them. Take away from me the noise of your songs; to the melody of your harps I will not listen. But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream. (Amos 5:18-24 ESV). The chorus has often been sung: Fill my cup, Lord; I lift it up Lord; Come and quench this thirsting of my soul. Bread of Heaven, feed me till I want no more. Fill my cup, fill it up and make me whole.

And, to be sure, Jesus promises that he would indeed fill it. But as with most of the beatitudes, this promise comes with a requisite demand. Jesus’ promise of filling is strictly limited to those who first “hunger and thirst.” The hungry and thirsty in our culture are invisible to most of us. They exist primarily in the underbelly of our excessive affluence. The kind of hunger and thirst Jesus talks about here is equally desperate. Can we even imagine what it would mean to want justice like someone dying of thirst wants water? Hunger and thirst for righteousness is not, of course, a physical craving. It is a spiritual one. In Jesus’ kingdom such desire is not just a concept or nice thought, a pious wish or polite prayer. The kind of hunger and thirst Jesus blesses is a powerful inward drive for justice, powered by passionate self-sacrificing love. This is the only law in the new kingdom. We crave righteousness so much that we will die without it. That may sound a bit melodramatic; you may be tempted to think I am speaking metaphorically. However, it is a clearly stated truth. The prophet makes it very clear in our reading today that this desire to seek justice for others is the focus of God. All of the religious acts in the world cannot compare to our desire and effort toward justice and mercy. It has become so fashionable to be the “schoolyard bully” I am afraid we have forgotten how to be merciful and just. Perhaps we simply are not hungry and thirsty for that in our culture. We should be. It is what God desires.