Craving Num. 11:1-2,4-5,18-20,31-34 Matt.5:1-12 92715
When Jesus shared the Beatitudes, he wasn’t addressing children or youth; he was talking to adults who had sharpened their focus regarding life and its meaning. This is particularly true with the beatitude that stated: “Blessed (that is, “happy”) are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.”
A person has to let go a lot of his or her agenda items in a day if he or she is going to focus on doing what is right – righteousness, to focus on doing what is just – justice. Part of Jesus learning in his younger years of Jewish training was the truth that Micah proclaimed: “….what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?
THAT CALL IS JUST AS TRUE FOR THE MATURE JEW AS FOR THE MATURE CHRISTIAN; just as true centuries ago as for today; just as directly a call to me as to you.
How can I right what is wrong in my life, my church’s life, my community’s life? How can one person right what’s wrong in the world? How can I address someone or some group that has been unjustly treated?
I don’t have a single easy answer this morning. Rather, I am trying to help me and you to include it in our daily agenda – the truth that there is deep happiness when we make space in our hearts and minds whereby we hunger and thirst for righteousness.
When the Hebrews were in Egypt, they complained, “We want freedom; we want out of here.” When they were out of Egypt, they wanted the good old days when they had meat to eat. What is it I complain about, or better put, what is it I crave?
I mean more than biting into sweet corn. I mean other than our gradual growth toward hungering and thirsting after righteousness. Through my years, I thought what I really craved were women, sex, that sort of satisfaction. I have concluded what I crave is intimacy. It’s a hot potato; I can’t hold onto it very long. A helpful way of understanding is: into-me-I-see.
Intimacy involves me in various forms, various ways:
1. Eye contact that is sustained.
2. Touching.
3. Hugging with my whole self and being hugged back by another’s offering their whole self.
4.Hearing and/or saying just the right words.
5. Music.
6. Beauty
7. Reminders that connect me with past intimacy, e.g. someone who looks like an early loved one.
A reason we can’t hold onto the feeling of intimacy very long is that it is a powerful charge of energy to be used to move me and you into appropriate action. The pattern is this: ENERGY moves us to ACTION which moves us to INTERACTION with a persons or persons or thing. And those three things (energy, action, interaction) yields: MEANING.
If we are not in touch with the energy of our feelings, no energy emerges and gets named. If that step is missing there is little or no action.
If we are short on feelings/energy, action or interaction beyond our world, our self, we are short changed on something else we crave: meaning.
Be in touch with your feelings. Act on them and discover how God’s blessings will abundantly flow.
I invite you to take a moment, then share your thoughts or feelings on this perspective.