Hilton Head Island, SC – May 6, 2018
The Chapel Without Walls
Mark 9:33-37; Mark 12:41-44
A Sermon by John M. Miller
Text – “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.” – Matthew 5:5
For Americans living in the early years of the 21st century, the third Beatitude is very difficult to understand, let alone to emulate. Meekness, as ordinarily understood, is not an admired American attribute. If anything, it is a personal quality most of us have been taught never to attempt to adopt. Americans think of themselves as being tough, tough-minded, and not easy to intimidate. Meekness is not an ordinarily admired virtue for Americans.
Throughout these sermons on the Beatitudes, I am relying on the comments of William Barclay. Willie Barclay is one of the most memorable and admirable men I ever knew. He was almost totally deaf in his last years, although he certainly couldn’t help that. He once had been a serious alcoholic, but he overcame it, and he was greatly admired for that. Dr. Barclay taught New Testament at Trinity College of Glasgow University when I was there in the early Sixties. In those years, he also appeared in a weekly Bible study telecast on the BBC.
Like many other faculty members in those days, Willie Barclay was in many ways essentially self-educated in his field of expertise. He had a master of arts degree, which in Scottish universities was the equivalent of a bachelor’s degree in our system. He also had a bachelor of divinity degree, but that was all. I doubt that the pursuit of a Ph.d. or Th.d. ever occurred to him. He studied Greek and the New Testament on his own for years, and eventually he was named a professor at Trinity College because he had acquired so much knowledge of the New Testament in its own language. He wrote an extensive multi-volume commentary on the Greek scriptures which was a mainstay for mainline preachers for two generations.
On the bulletin cover is a quote from Dr. Barclay. (He had a doctor of divinity, an honorary degree, not a doctor of philosophy, a properly earned higher degree). He well characterizes how most of us perceive the word “meek.” In Barclay’s commentary on Matthew, however, he explained what Aristotle thought meekness was. The great Greek philosopher described the Greek word praus as the golden mean between excessive anger and excessive apathy or passivity in the face of ethical unacceptability.
We don’t need any illustrations of people who are too angry too much of the time; all of us have known many such folks. Some of us may be among those folks ourselves. But it is hard to think of anyone who seldom or never gets angry.
A few weeks ago there was an excellent article in Christian Century by a woman named Jamie Wright. It was called My life as a bad Christian, with the subtitle of ‘Quiet time’ pushed me over the edge. Jamie Wright described herself “a confused 19-year old with a child I didn’t know how to raise, a husband I didn’t know how to love, and a life I didn’t know how to live.” She had not been raised as a Christian, but one Sunday, when she was beside herself, she went to a nearby church. There she became associated with a group of young women who also were young mothers, and she joined their circle. She wrote, “Much to my surprise, I found a sense of belonging in church and an unexpected joy in the pursuit of faith.”
That, however, did not magically overcome being overwhelmed by eventually caring for three very young children. The cloying expressions of good cheer from her friends eventually began greatly to annoy her. Frequently the young mothers in her group said that spending some quiet time with God would solve her woes. She said she had no time for quiet time. The loving ladies lovingly insisted that she should get up earlier and pray. She knew what she needed was sleep, but a book they gave her said she could sleep when she was dead. “Quiet time,” said they.
Jamie Wright remembers having finally gone ballistic. “Oh, for [Blank’s] sake,” she screamed, “then call it ‘loud time!’ Call it ‘chaos time.’ …But do not tell me that God entrusted three kids to my care and protection --- knowing full well what a total energy suck they are, with the expectation that I would keep them all alive, and, oh, also, to get up before the crack of dawn to be ‘quiet with (God),’ because ‘I can sleep when I’m dead.’”
This eruption left the Church Ladies speechless for several long, emotion-packed moments. Then they began to pass a tray of muffins one of them had brought to their circle meeting as though nothing had happened. Not one word was said about the volcanic eruption of a young mother who did not take to motherhood like a duck to water. Ms. Wright wrote, “In that moment, I began to get comfortable in my own skin as a Pretty Bad Christian.” Maybe her anger was excessive, and therefore not very meek, but in light of how these women were oblivious to the pain their friend was obviously feeling, her outburst may have been justified.
There is a famous character in Dostoevsky’s novel The Brothers Karamazov who personifies the type of person who refuses to get angry. Alexei Karamazov was the third of the three Karamazov brothers. Alyosha became a Russian Orthodox monk, and lived in a monastery. It was to Alyosha that the agnostic or atheistic middle brother, Ivan, told the famous Legend of the Grand Inquisitor, which is the only part of the great novel most people know now, if they even know that. Alyosha would fit well into the sixth Beatitude, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” But he would be too meek for both Aristotle and William Barclay. He wouldn’t allow himself to become angry about anything, even the atrocious antics of the oldest brother Dimitri or the unorthodoxies of Ivan or the deviousness of their father and their half-brother Smerdykov. Perhaps Alyosha was too phlegmatic for his own good.
Dr. Barclay wrote that one acceptable translation of Matthew 5:5 would be to say, “Blessed are those who are angry at the right time and never angry at the wrong time.” It is appropriate to be angry at pedophile priests and at the bishops who simply move them from one parish to another with callous disregard for other children. Anyone who is not angry at that does not understand the gravity of both the sins and the crimes. And it is justifiable to become angry at Church Ladies who mean to help but who ignore the anguish of those they try to help.
On the other hand, some people choose to overlook bad behavior for what they assume is the greater good of the Church. Aristotle and Barclay are right; true meekness is the golden mean between excessive anger and excessive passivity in the face of serious moral ambiguity. When we are confronted by utterly unacceptable acts, we must speak out against it, lest we appear to give tacit approval to antisocial behavior. Excessive meekness no one needs.
Thus to be meek in the sense in which Jesus used that word is to exhibit the proper measure of concern between unacceptable outrage and unacceptable apathy. People who blow up at other people for minor infractions do them no favors, nor does anyone do any favors to anyone by accepting everything self-centered hearts desire. Those who are truly blessed by God are those who know where to land in their conduct between uncontrolled anger and complete apathy in the face of injustice or self-serving lawlessness and moral anomie.
And that leads into the second definition of how William Barclay describes meekness. The Greek word praus, “meek,” also means “controlled,” in the sense that a domesticated animal becomes controlled by its master. A horse or mule or ox or dog that is properly meek is one which follows commands. So too we need to understand the proper meekness of our position in the economy of God. He is our Master, and we are His servants. When we do what we ought to do, we accept our place in the scheme of things without complaining that we are not The Master ourselves. Then we are blessed by the meekness of which Jesus spoke. Further, we shall, in a very real sense, inherit the earth. That is, we find we fit in well in the world.
One notion of our understanding of meekness is undeniably correct. The meek by definition cannot be proud or haughty. Those who are genuinely meek accept the fact that their lives depend on far more than their own efforts and self-reliance. Too often we delude ourselves into thinking that no one but we ourselves can determine the course of our lives. In truth we all have been blessed by actions and circumstances in which we did not participate at all. There are times when it is solely good fortune and not good management which leads to our benefit. We were in the right place at the right time, or someone helped us when we did nothing to deserve the assistance. Ultimately, as St. Augustine said, all good comes from God, and the blessings of God are showered on us all, as the Beatitudes proclaim.
Our two scripture passages for today describe two different examples of the kind of meekness that Jesus was extolling in the third Beatitude. In the first example, from Mark 9 (33-37), the disciples were discussing among themselves who among them was the greatest. (We might note parenthetically none of them at that moment was displaying notable meekness [praus] but rather pride [hubris in Greek].) Jesus asked them what they were talking about. They were like children who had all been caught with their hands in the cookie jar, and at first they refused to tell Jesus. When he pried it out of them, Jesus asked them to sit down. Then he called to a young child. Without explaining why, Jesus said, “If anyone would be first, he must be last of all and servant of all.” Then, further to explain why Jesus called the child, he said, “Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me.” In that incident in Matthew, Jesus said, “Whoever humbles himself like this child, he is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven” (18:4).
Little children who are two or three or four are naturally meek in the best sense of that word. They exhibit no pretenses. Put them in school all day, and things start to change. Then they are ushered into the child-centered world of modern America. But when they are very young, toddlers and post-toddlers are the essence of humility and meekness.
The second passage is only four small verses, but they describe a very large concept (Mark 12:41-44). Jesus and the Twelve were in the temple, near where people came to put their offerings into a receptacle for that purpose. Wealthy people brought their tithes, and put them in with much public display of religiosity. They did so like Little Jack Horner, who sat in a corner, eating his Christmas pie. As you will recall, he stuck in his thumb, and pulled out a plum, and said, “What a good boy am I!”
Soon, Jesus and the disciples saw a poor widow who came up and quietly put in two copper coins, which the text says equaled a penny. No doubt a penny was worth much more then than a penny now, but still, it was only a penny. Of all those they had observed fulfilling their religious obligation, Jesus told the disciples, “They all contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, her whole living.”
To be meek does not mean that we must be patsies or pushovers or easy marks. Rather it means we cannot stand on pride; we cannot lord our lives over others; we must not assume our position gives us a higher station than that of other people.
When I was in seminary, I remember one of our professors preaching on the third Beatitude in a Friday chapel service. He said that an alternative meaning for the word meek is “debonair.” As I was working on this sermon, I took out my beloved Webster’s Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary, which was first published in 1961, which means it isn’t exactly new anymore, and I looked up the word “debonair.” It said the word derives from Middle English, which derived from the Old French, de bonne aire, which literally means “of good air.” Later, however, that came to mean “of good family” or “of good nature.” But the No. 2 definition, which Webster says is archaic, means “gentle, or courteous.”
Do you want to be debonair in an admirably old-fashioned way? Then be gentle, be courteous, be meek. That’s what Lew Briner was telling us, and that’s what Jesus is telling us.
But remember this: Jesus himself was not meek in the way we usually think of that word. He wasn’t a doormat or a pushover. He became angry at injustice. He was fiercely opposed to the rich taking advantage of the poor. He spoke against abuse and the overreach of power. He was never apathetic about anything. But Jesus was controlled in his words and his actions, and he felt controlled not by himself but by God. He was not proud or haughty; he was dependent on God. He was, in all the best possible meanings of the word, debonair.
Because Jesus was genuinely meek, he inherited the earth. During his lifetime he actually did inherit the earth. On Good Friday it didn’t look like it; not even on Easter did it look like it. But, as the hymn declares, “Christ for the world we sing; the world to Christ we bring.” Those who are meek in the way Jesus presented meekness find their place in the world in such a manner that they cannot be dislodged from the world, no matter what life hurls into their paths.
Therefore, as the soprano soloist declares in the Christmas section of Handel’s Messiah, just before the choir sings the final chorus, “Come unto Him, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and He will give you rest. Take His yoke upon you, and learn of Him, for He is meek and lowly of heart, and ye shall find rest unto your souls.” That kind of lowliness of heart implies strength in humility, power in a low-key lifestyle, might in modesty.
If you feel you are not meek, and you want to become meek, don’t pray that God will turn you into a doormat. That isn’t what Jesus meant at all. Pray for courage to express anger over obvious wrongs. Pray to become controlled, not by yourself and your own thoughts or passions, but by God, who is your ultimate Master.
Never pray to become meek in our current namby-pamby sense of that word. Pray to become meek in the sense that Jesus intended when he used the word “meek.” The truly meek are the properly meek, the acceptably meek, the correctly meek. When any of us is like that, we shall inherit the earth. We have the promise of Jesus, the greatest of God’s meek ones.
Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.