Hungry People and Full People

As a sociologist, I know that kingdoms have cultures.  They have a language, mores (or prohibitions), accepted ways of doing things, and values or beliefs.  So, when Jesus came preaching that the Kingdom of God was at hand (Mark 1:14-14), he couldn't stop with proclamation.  Jesus had to add instruction so that his people would know how to live.  This is how we receive the Beatitudes (Matthew 5:1-12).  These familiar declarations of blessing set forth the character of the true people of God and the culture of God's kingdom.

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Jesus, like a good Jewish rabbi, formulated the Beatitudes as a chiasm.  Jewish rabbinical teachings organized in a chiastic structure are the cream filled donut of the rabbinical world - the top and the bottom mirror each other, and the cream in the middle is the best part of the passage.  Smack in the middle of he Beatitudes, we find: "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they will be satisfied" (Matthew 5:6).  Typically, particularly within Western Christianity, this Scripture text has been taught as referring to personal holiness.  But that is not the Jewish view of righteousness at all.  Righteousness was never solely personal.  It was about seeking to make right.  Righteousness requires that you see something in the world that is wrong, that is not aligned with the will of God for the Kingdom of God, and that you not be satisfied until that thing is thoroughly unmade and remade in God's image. 

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Read Oneya Okuwobi's full essay here: