Hungering for Righteousness

Consider this beatitude (Matthew 5:6)

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. (NRSV)
You're blessed when you've worked up a good appetite for God. He's food and drink in the best meal you'll ever eat. (The Message)
What does righteousness mean? I tried to find a definition, and all of them relate to the idea of abiding by divine or moral laws. Righteous. I ask myself if that is what Jesus meant when he used the word. He didn't often advocate adherence to specific rules -- perhaps the righteousness that he speaks of is a closeness to God. Perhaps rather than an outward legalism, he means an inward state of walking with God. Does that make any sense, or am I on the wrong track?

Consider also the words hunger and thirst. Hunger and thirst are basic, elemental responses to need. I think that they may be even more ingrained in us than desire or want. Consider this quote from C.S. Lewis:

If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.
I think we have a hole, a place within ourselves that we yearn to have filled. We are designed -- created -- to need God.

So what does the promise mean? What does he mean when he says that "we will be filled?" I think it means that we will be filled with grace. We will be filled with joy. We will be filled with God. That space within us that knows it is empty will no longer BE empty. We will be recreated into a wholeness that includes God.

But look again at the beatitude. No where in it does Jesus say that we will be filled when we achieve righteousness. Take a look at this quote from Frederick Buechner:

Not the ones who are righteous, but the ones who hope they will be someday and in the meantime are well aware that the distance they still have to go is even greater than the distance they've already come.
It is a paradox. We have a deep, ingrained need in ourselves to achieve closeness to God. We want it so badly that we can taste it. And yet it is beyond our grasp. We want it, but there is no way that we can touch it or reach it. It is in the recognition of the need -- in the awareness of the hunger -- that we discover how far from God we are. That is when we are filled.

It makes no sense, and that is why it is grace. What we need to be made whole is beyond our grasp, so God has already given it to us as a gift.

Images: Sunrise, again, at the VA, this time with a spider web. The second image is of the sky yesterday as I came back from lunch. It was amazing -- I have no idea what kind of clouds those are, but they were beautiful. I was wearing my sunglasses, and wanted the picture to look like I was seeing the image myself, so this one is taken through my sunglasses.