“MEEK: The Power to Trust

A Sermon Based Upon Matthew 5: 5; 26: 59-64

By Rev. Dr. Charles J. Tomlin, DMin

Flat Rock-Zion Baptist Partnership

Transfiguration Sunday, March 2nd, 2014

"Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.” (Mat 5:5 NRS)

Several weeks ago, YouTube’s most popular video was about the famous illusionist and escape artist, Harry Houdini.  The video claimed to demonstrate with a slow-motion video, how Houdini died due to a blow to the stomach.    One of Houdini’s favorite claims was that he could take a punch; and he could.  But on one occasion, perhaps due to a broken ankle, Houdini was unable to take a certain punch given to him and he ended up dying a few days later of peritonitis---inflammation of the abdominal wall.    Mostly likely, Houdini would not have died, if he sought medical treatment, but he stubbornly refused.   At the close of the video, a Bible text from the Hebrew Bible flashed on the screen: Proverbs 16:18.   Perhaps you know it from the King James Version:  “Pride goes before destruction; and a haughty spirit before a fall” (Pro 16:18 NRS).

The opposite of ‘pride’ and ‘haughty’ is ‘meek’ and ‘humble’.   For some reason, perhaps due to his success and great talent, Harry Houdini did not value being ‘meek’.  If your livelihood depends on making ‘headlines’, he wouldn’t dare admit his vulnerability.  Few people today value the virtue of “meekness” either; and even fewer would ever agree with the idea suggested in Jesus’ words, that the ‘meek’ will end with much of anything, let alone, ‘inheriting the earth’.   Meekness is simply the most misunderstood and least appreciated of all the virtues of these beatitudes.  How in the world can a person amount to much of anything if they are ‘meek’ and ‘humble’ in a world that recommends self-assertion and mostly rewards big egos?   CEO’s, who make 6 figure incomes, have to appear be larger than their big jobs.  Meekness is understood as weakness, and it doesn’t cut it today in much of anything.   You know the saying, “Only the squeaky wheel gets the grease”.   To make Jesus’ words more politically correct we might rather say: “Blessed are the aggressive ones, who get what they want!”  

Nowhere is the radical nature of Jesus’ ‘upside down’ world made any clearer than here.   It goes against everything we know and experience to suggest that being humble and meek will get you anywhere or gain you anything.   You will never see the value of Jesus’ words, unless you learn to look at life through a whole difference filter or lens.   Harry Houdini needed that ‘filter’ of meekness after he was injured, but he refused.   He died holding on to his ‘pride’ and refusing to be ‘humbled’ by anything.  His dying words were: “I’m tired of fighting!”  Too bad he didn’t stop fighting a little sooner, he might have lived. 

WHO SHALL INHERIT THE EARTH?

Meekness is a very difficult virtue to appreciate, but even more confusing is the concluding promise:  ‘for they will inherit the earth’.   What exactly is being promised here?  How can those who demand nothing end up with everything?   Before we can fully understand the nature of ‘meekness’ Jesus blesses, it may help us to better understand more about what the ‘meek’ will gain.  

Jesus does not grab this ‘blessing’ of inheriting the earth out of thin air.   It comes directly from one of the most beloved songs of Israel’s poor: Psalm 37.   The promise to ‘inherit the land’ (37:9, 11, 22, 29, 34) is repeated 5 or more times in this Psalm.   Throughout the entire Psalm, the writer displays sharp contrasts between what was happening then--how the ‘wicked’ live in ‘abundance’  (37.16) and hold all the land and wealth, while using their power to ‘oppress’ (37:35) God’s “needy” (14), “righteous” (28), and ‘peaceable’ (37) people----with what would someday come true----how the ‘wicked would be no more’ (10)…‘But the meek shall inherit the land, and delight themselves in abundant prosperity” (37:11).    The Psalmist encourages the righteous poor, not to “fret” or be ‘envious’ (37.1), nor to join the wicked at their own game of “borrowing and not paying back” (37:21), or power-plays to get ahead (14), but he calls them to ‘trust in the LORD and do good’ (37.3), to ‘wait patiently’ (7), to ‘refrain from anger’ (8),  to be content with the ‘little’ (16) they have, to remain ‘generous’ and to ‘keep giving’ (21) until the LORD gives ‘the meek’ (11) what the ‘wrongdoers’ will never have, and the ‘righteous’ will never lose: the gift ‘to inherit a land’ they will one day ‘live in…forever’. (29).    

This is a lot to comprehend, but essentially it is all summed up in verses 10-11: “Yet a little while and the wicked will be no more….But the meek shall inherit the land.”  This promise of ‘land’ or ‘earth’ goes all the way back the promise given to Abraham (Gen 12) but Jesus now preaches this very promise being fulfilled as God’s kingdom comes to the whole earth.   Thus, it is much more than land that is being promised, as the Psalmist himself concluded, this is the “salvation of the righteous’ which is ‘from the LORD’, because ‘the LORD rescues’ and ‘saves’ the people ‘who take refuge in him.’ (39-40).  What Jesus is promising is the fulfillment of a whole new world and brand new reality, where there is a sharp reversal of the haves and have-nots.  This is the kind of promise that still grabs our attention for the same reason it did St. Augustine who warned: “You who wish to possess the earth now, take care.  If you are meek, you will possess it; if ruthless, the earth will possess you.”  Living only to go after our piece of the pie, at the expense of others, is deceptive, because, “it is impossible for the possessive to keep from being possessed” (James Howell, Beatitudes for Today, p. 51).

Most of us can remember a time in our own southern culture when many tried to be ‘possessive’ of the way things were and did not want to allow for change to share space with our black brothers and sisters.   Many white southerners ended up not just being possessive, but became ‘possessed’ and there was a great civil rights struggle for several years in the 60’s.   Right in the middle of that struggle was Ruby Bridges, who was just six years old when in 1960 she stood before a judge who ordered her to go to first grade in the William Franz Elementary School.  No black child had ever before stepped foot upon the hallowed white ground. Ruby recounts: “my mother and I drove to school with the marshals. The crowd outside the building was ready. Racists spat at us and shouted [horrible things].” One woman screamed at me, “I’m going to poison you. I’ll find a way.” She made the same threat every morning.  And this was Ruby’s routine for much of the year – go to school with Federal Marshals, stoically walk past the incensed crowd…learn all by herself in a classroom where every single white child had been withdrawn from school, and then go home just to do it all over again…that was first grade.

One day, there was a break in her routine. Her teacher, Mrs. Henry, noticed Ruby walking toward the school and the protesters.  But then she stopped, turned toward the howling crowd and seemed to be trying to speak to them.  Finally, she stopped talking and walked in.  Mrs. Henry immediately asked Ruby what happened; why did she try and talk to such a belligerent crowd.  Ruby irritatingly responded that she didn’t stop to talk with them. “Ruby, I saw you talking,” Mrs. Henry pressed. “I saw your lips moving.” “I wasn’t talking,” said Ruby. “I was praying…I was praying for them.” Ruby had stopped every morning around the corner from the school to pray for the people who hated her. But on this morning she had forgotten until she was already in the middle of the mean and malevolent mob.

After school that day, Ruby bolted through the crowd as usual and headed for home with her two companion federal marshals.  After a few blocks and with the crowds behind her, she paused as she usually did to say the prayer that she had repeated not once but twice a day — before and after school.  Her prayer was:

“Please God, try to forgive these people.  Because even if they say those bad things,

They don’t know what they’re doing. So You could forgive them, just like You did those folks a long time ago

When they said terrible things about You.” (From a sermon by Chris Tuttle found at http://sites.duke.edu/wpcsermons/2011/03/20/beatitudes-3-blessed-are-the-meek/#fn-4-1).

Can’t we all agree that “Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth”----means people like Ruby Bridges and any others who struggle against those who in power who would keep the ‘earth’ for themselves!  Those who try to hold on to power like that will not keep it forever.  Those who try to oppress, oppose and ostracize the work of God and the way of the future can’t hold out.   As Martin Luther King Jr. once said,  “The moral arc of the universe is long, but it bends toward justice”.   Do you know where King got such an idea?   Well, the formulation can be found among other early American preachers and even in the writings of the Free Masons, (http://quoteinvestigator.com/2012/11/15/arc-of-universe/), but finally, if you keep searching you will end up sitting at the feet of the Hebrew prophets, especially under one like Isaiah, who wrote: “Listen to me, my people, and give heed to me, my nation; for a teaching will go out from me, and my justice for a light to the peoples.  I will bring near my deliverance swiftly, my salvation has gone out and my arms will rule the peoples; the coastlands wait for me, and for my arm they hope.” (Isa 51:4-5 NRS).   

Furthermore, we should understand that this promise to ‘inherit the earth’ is for those who believe that this is God’s world, not mine or yours, but it is ‘ours’, both mine and yours together, because it is the world God created for every one of us.   When will the ‘promise’ be realized?  This promise ‘to inherit the earth’ is already fulfilled in Christ through small ‘breakthroughs’ and local personal ‘miracles’, where people of faith submit to the rule of God in their hearts instead of insisting on ruling and lording over each other.  Remember Jesus explaining to his disciples exactly how this inheritance comes:  In Mark’s gospel, chapter 10, we read:  “So Jesus called them and said to them, "You know that among the Gentiles those whom they recognize as their rulers lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them.  But it is not so among you; but whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all. For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many." (Mar 10:42-45 NRS) :   Here is the where ‘miracle’ of transformation of the world begins, in the heart of the meek who serve each other rather than rule over each other, because the ‘proud’ who try to seize and rule, only hold on to an illusion. 

MEEKNESS IS A MATTER OF TRUST

So now, since Jesus has told us how things are when God rules our hearts, we are ready to try to understand more fully who are the ‘meek’ blessed by God to “inherit the earth?   Who are those who will inherit ALL God has in store?   If we go back to Psalm 37, we do not have to guess who Jesus meant.   The “meek” are those who ‘Trust in the Lord, and do good, so they will live in the land (3) The meek are those who ‘commit’ their ‘way unto the Lord’ (5) and ‘wait patiently’ (7) before the Lord.   They are those who ‘refrain from anger, and forsake wrath’ (8) and who are ‘generous’ and ‘keep giving’ (21).    The psalmist also names them as ‘the blameless’ (18), the ‘righteous’ (28), the ‘peaceable’ (37), and ‘those who take refuge in him’ (40).   These are beautiful images that God’s people have even when they do not have the world.  In fact, it is easier to have all God has, when we don’t have much from the world. 

I can’t cover all these descriptions of the meek, but the one I find most foundational is Trust.  Meekness is not weakness, but it is trust: “Trust in the Lord and do good, so you will live in the land and enjoy security.” (3).  You can’t be meek enough to give up your forceful rule over another without trust.  You can’t live faithfully in meekness toward God’s coming inheritance without trust.  And unfortunately, trust is what we seem to have less and less of these days.  It seems our world is more and more suspicious and apprehensive about what is being taken from us, than excited about what will be given to us, and we don’t trust our politicians, store managers, religious leaders, doctors or much of anyone these days.   If meekness depends on trust, how can we trust and who can we trust when we feel so out of control, so forsaken, and so forgotten by those who pull the strings in this world?   

Hardly any people were more threatened and forsaken in recent years, than the Jewish people during the Holocaust.  To write off a whole race of people was often done in the ancient world of Bible times; but it should be unthinkable in our modern world, but it was attempted to the horror of millions.  One of those who was a young woman in her twenties, Etty Hillesum of Holland.  She was not particularly pious or religious, but in that terrible time, her dairies showed that she became more and more conscious of God’s hand in her life.  You would think it would have been the opposite, and perhaps it is the curse of some who claim to have faith now, to lose their faith when they need it the most, but for Etty, this was the time she grew more aware of God’s promises and to learn to trust.  As in 1943, when she was imprisoned before being sent off to Auschwitz, she wrote, “there must be someone to live through it all and bear witness to the fact that God live(s), even in these times.  Why should I not be that witness?”  ….simply to proclaim You, God, to commend You to the heart of others….”  Isn’t it rather surprising, if not amazing, that instead of losing trust, when all seemed to be lost in this life, this young woman named Etty, realized that God was the reason to trust, to wait patiently, and to “keep giving” and to find ‘refuge’ in him. (This story is from Rowan Williams, Tokens of Trust, p. 22).    

I know it sounds crazy to some, to trust in the God who’s kingdom is still coming; but it not yet fully here.  I know it sounds ridiculous to trust God when you find yourself in weakness, in sorrow, feeling abandoned, worried, alone, or without a great ‘inheritance’ or a good ‘piece of the pie’ of this world.   It may sound crazy, and it is crazy, if you only think that this world, as it is, is all there will be.   But if you believe, like faith believes, that this world is not all there is, and that God has more in store, and that the has a whole world prepared for those who trust in him, then like the apostle Paul you can say that even when you are ‘weak’, you are strong, because God’s strength can be perfected in your weakness (2Co 12:9 NRS).   

Gordon Powell said that it is exactly this kind of meekness that made a lot of morally weak and positively evil people frightened of Jesus---so much that they had to kill him.  And you know why they killed him, because he was telling the truth.  What was that truth:  They would kill him, but he would inherit the earth, as Jesus told the High Priest:  “But I tell you, From now on you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of Power and coming on the clouds of heaven" (Mat 26:64 NRS).   Only the meek will inherit the earth, because only God has the power to raise them up and give them the world.   In his ‘grace’ the meek live, love, trust and wait until God’s long arm of justice fully reveals ‘who’ fully inherits the world that is still to come.   Amen.