Chapter 6: Our Daily Bread
The Hungry and Thirst (for Justice)
The various ways that the word often translated righteousness could be translated.
Actual Hunger
Matthew and Luke’s version of this beatitude are different. But most interpreters see “whose who hunger” as a distinct category.
Spiritual but with some material aspect.
Fasting: going hungry for God.
Going hungry for God—so that you can feed others. A different reading that has fasting as way to feed others.
Longing for God—spiritual food
Hungry here is not the need for food, but hunger for God.
Hungering for God’s justice because the hungry need justice.
Longing for God’s justice: doing justice (outward acts of righteousness). “ If one longs for God’s justice to be done—and God has described rather clearly what that might look like in a human society such as Israel—then one will take whatever small steps one can to bring about that justice.”
Hungering for God’s righteousness in the heart (inward righteousness). “And yet in our world,” wrote Leo Tolstoy drily (or perhaps despairingly), “everybody thinks of changing humanity, and nobody thinks of changing himself.” Does good works lead to faith or does faith engender good works?
Both inner and outer righteousness. “Righteousness indicates “a relationship with the Lord—namely, holiness; and at the same time a relationship with human beings—namely, recognition of the rights of each person and especially the despised and the oppressed, or, in other words, social justice.”
They/You will be filled
Both actual and symbolic bread.
Spiritual.
Conclusion
Quotes from: Rebekah Eklund. “The Beatitudes through the Ages.” Apple Books. https://books.apple.com/us/book/the-beatitudes-through-the-ages/id1551836162