"They came to the market to make money, and they told themselves what they wanted was the money; security, a trip around the world, a new sloop, a country estate, an art collection, a Caribbean house for cold winters. And they succeeded. So they sat on the dock of the Caribbean home chatting with their art dealers and gazing fondly at the new sloop, and after a while it was a bit flat. Something was missing.

“If you are a successful game player, it can be a fascinating, consuming, totally absorbing experience. In fact, it has to be. If it is not totally absorbing you are not likely to be among the most successful, because you are competing with those who do find it so absorbing.

"The lads with the Caribbean houses and the new sloops, did not, upon the discovery that something was missing, sell those trophies and acquire sackcloth and ashes. The sloops and the houses and the art are still there.

But the players have gone back to the game, and they don't have a great deal of time for their toys. The game is more fun—money is the way they keep score. But the real object of the game is not money; it is the playing of the game itself. For the true players, you could take all of the trophies and substitute plastic beads or whale's teeth; as long as there is a way to keep score, they will play."

These words from Adam Smith in his book The Money Game are about hungering and thirsting--hungering and thirsting for victory, for success, for proving one's self in competition, for outdoing the others, for demonstrating one's superiority.

These words are about our world. Although most of us will never play "the game" in the rarified realm of the commodities market, the goals of the game player's are the goals we are also given by the world--succeed, compete, outdo--win!

That is one reason why pure, unadulterated, unfiltered Christianity grates on our ears--if we really look at what Jesus says and don't block it out.

Some people claim that Christianity is just a form of wish fulfillment. If it is, it is a fulfillment that goes against many of our wishes. Jesus takes the goals we are handed by the world and the methods we are handed by the world and turns them around--"He who would be great among you must be the servant"--"the first will be last and the last will be first." "The only competition that should exist among you is a competition in showing each other honor."

In the beatitude we are looking at this morning, Jesus said, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness for they shall be filled."

Remember that the root of the word "blessed" literally is "on the right road" or heading in the right direction." Jesus says that it is those who are hungering and thirsting for righteousness that are headed in the right direction.

Now righteousness is not some sort of stained glass holy pose. It simply means "right behavior--right relationship." If your relationships are all right--your relationship with God, with others, with self and with the created world--if you are fulfilling all of the obligations of your relationships--then you are righteous in yourself and don’t need a savior.

But, of course, the only one who qualifies is Jesus. You can never be perfect like Jesus. But you can desire to be. You can hunger and thirst. This can be the ambition of your life. That’s the point of the beatitude.

How much do you want to be righteous? It this a part-time passion? Are there times when you want top do what God requires and other times when you just want to go your own way? If that’s where you are, you aren’t hungering and thirsting.

Last Sunday Ralph DeVane shared about our recent trip to Kenya. We saw widespread poverty and want – especially in the teeming slums of Nairobi. It’s hard to relate to what the people in those shanties and shacks are going through.

As a middle-class American, I have never been really hungry. I have missed meals now and again--even two meals in a row. I have earnestly looked forward to dinner on occasion. But I have never experienced the desperate, gnawing hunger that is a fact of life for many in the world today.

I have been thirsty. As I shared last Christmas, one time I was out with a stuck truck on a boiling hot day and became thirsty enough to try to suck the juice from a cactus. It didn’t work out well.

So I know that to thirst for is to experience an all-consuming drive. And that defines who Jesus is not talking about in this beatitude. He is not speaking of those who vaguely feel that "something is wrong" and feel a slight need to "get it together." He is not speaking of those who wish to be better people but who aren't willing to expend any energy to make the wish a reality. Neither is he speaking of those who wish to be good on a part-time basis--"good enough to be okay but bad enough to be interesting."

Jesus is speaking only of those who hunger and thirst after righteousness. And He says that this desire for righteousness, this passion, this hunger and thirst, is to be all-consuming. It’s not like the occasional urge for an ice cream cone. It’s the hunger to survive. In fact, in the Greek text, Jesus literally says that we are to hunger and thirst for all righteousness. I can’t just want some righteousness. I have to want it all.

For it is the hungry and thirsty after righteousness, you will be satisfied.

Not all hungers and thirsts can be satisfied. The one who hungers for self-fulfillment will end up empty. The one whose goal is fame or victory will find that the fame is fleeting and victory is temporary.

In the recent Olympics, Mark Spitz was watching the swimming competition but was didn’t have the right pass for where he was seated. Security came and told him to move. He said, “But I’m Mark Spitz.” They said, “Who?”

It goes away. In the word's of Thomas Gray in his "Elegy in a Country Churchyard." "The paths of glory lead but to the grave." One may have a craving for wealth as long as one lives. But who ever gets all the wealth he thinks he needs? Or whom when he gets it, finds that it solves his problems.

The Apostle Paul wrote in Philippians, "For me to live is Christ and to die is to gain all." Do you realize that you cannot replace Christ with anything else in that sentence and have that sentence make sense? "For me to live is money and to die is "gain" doesn't work. "For me to live is my family and to die is "gain" doesn't work either. For me to live is myself and to die is "gain" is ridiculous. Only Christ makes sense in the scope of eternity.

If you experience this hungering and thirsting after righteousness, Jesus says that you are on the right track. He also promises that there is a goal at the end of the journey. He says, “If you hunger and thirst after righteousness, you will be filled.” The desire for actual righteousness is placed in us by God and God will not forsake the work of His own hands. We will be filled.

This means that there will come a day when we will be right in all of our relationships--when we will be fully at peace with God, with others, with ourselves and with the created world.

As we shared this morning in our affirmation of forgiveness from the Heidelberg Catechism. in Christ, God has already declared us righteous. But a day is promised when we will be righteous--not only in declaration or in expectation but in fact. Our consciences will no longer accuse us.

We have genuine needs as human beings. God knows what these are because He made us. He holds the patent on the human race. And Jesus said, "seek first the kingdom of god and his righteousness and all these things will be added to you." On the right road are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness--for they, and only they, shall be filled.