The
beatitudes are wonderful to hear, aren’t they? The woes… not so much. We like
hearing about the last becoming first, but it’s not so nice to hear about the
first becoming last, especially when we take honest stock of where we stand in
the line. Blessed are the poor, great. Woe to the rich, a little more troubling,
especially when we consider that thinking globally, if we can turn on our taps
and have something drinkable come out, we’re rich. Now, it should be noted that
Jesus doesn’t talk about any kind of punishment for being rich, but there’s
still this idea that the rich have already got what they’re going to get. And we
want more.
The
woes, I think, are, at least in part, meant to move us through their sting.
Move us to consider what more we want. Move us to examine, to own, to value,
the part of us that’s hungry. Hungry for more. The part of us that recognizes
the radical insufficiency of what we have. Blessed are the hungry, for they
will be filled, but woe to you who are satisfied now, for you will be hungry. The
feeling of hunger is a healthy sensation for us animals; it’s how our body
tells us to eat more. If we didn’t feel hunger, we’d just waste away. It’s
spiritually healthy too. If we don’t let ourselves feel spiritually hungry
(which includes emotionally hungry, but is bigger than that), we waste away,
because we kid ourselves into thinking that what we have now is enough to
sustain us, and it’s not. That’s not to deny the goodness of the good things we
have, I’m firmly convinced that gratitude is the foundation of a good prayer
life and moral life, but proper gratitude puts what we have in proper
perspective, and doesn’t kid ourselves that it’s enough to truly sustain us, it
doesn’t deny our hunger, but strengthens and supports us to examine that
hunger, to name that hunger in prayer and maybe later out loud, and to seek.
What I’ve
just said, about daring to feel spiritually hunger, might sound like I’m
spiritualizing away the material dimension of the beatitudes, and I don’t want
to do that. These beatitudes and woes are first and foremost about physical
realities of full and empty stomachs; social realities of having and not having.
While I totally want us all to build up our sense of spiritual hunger,
scripture is clear that we can’t divorce that from physical hunger. We can’t
divorce our spirits from our stomachs, and we can’t divorce our spiritual life
from the lives of those who are hungry, who know food insecurity in our
neighborhoods and in our world.
The practice
of charity, the seeking after justice are concrete practices that should build
up our spiritual hunger. Lent is coming, and almsgiving is one of the three
pillars of our Lenten practices. Fasting is another one. As I said, our spirits
and our stomachs are not disconnected. Physical hunger, accepted through
fasting, is a way our bodies can teach us what hunger is and help us develop that
sense of spiritual hunger, a true, gritty sense, that doesn’t romanticize
hunger but helps us recognize our spirits doing what our body does: signally a
kind pain to us, rebelling at the idea of burning little parts of itself
because there isn’t enough fuel otherwise.
When we
develop this sense of hunger, let ourselves feel the sting of “you have already
received your consolation,” it makes us feel differently about our stuff, and
that should make us act differently with our stuff. But even deeper down from
our actions, it should reshape our trust. In our first reading, Jeremiah
contrasted those who trust in their human alliances to those who trust in God.
He paints a vivid picture: when we trust in what we’ve got now, we’re like a
bush with no roots, we dry up. Trusting in God looks like deep roots that
stretch out to an abundant river. That kind of trust is stretching, and it
doesn’t always feel comfortable, it feels like being stretched. But it leads to
cool refreshing water and abundant growth. God has the water that will quench
our thirst; it’s offered to us to reach out to.
There used
to be a British kids’ tv game show called Crackerjack. In the final
round of this show, the winning kid would be asked a series of trivia
questions. Whether they got the question right or wrong, they’d be given a
prize. There were only two catches. Firstly, if they got the question right, it
would be a prize they’d want, otherwise it would be a cabbage. Secondly, they
had to hold all of the prizes; as soon as they dropped one, the show was over,
and they went home with whatever was left in their hands. When we don’t feel
spiritual hunger, we’re like a kid clutching cabbages, kidding ourselves that
they’re enough, scared of dropping them. God has gifts untold, but woe to those
too busy grasping to be able to receive them.
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