Happy Are The Meek
November 16, 2014
Matthew 5: 1-5
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Now when Jesus saw the crowds, he went up on a mountainside and sat down. His
disciples came to him, 2 and he began to teach them. He said: 3 “Blessed are the poor in
spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. 4 Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be
comforted. 5 Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.
For the last few weeks we’ve been talking about this section of Matthew’s Gospel known
as the Beatitudes which comes as a part of the Sermon on the Mount. We’ve talked about
how “blessed” really is the idea of being happy or joy-filled from the inside, not because
of the circumstances. So we could read the beatitudes as happy are the poor in spirit,
happy are those who mourn, happy are the meek, etc.
We talked about the idea that those who were poor in spirit were happy or blessed
because in the midst of their need, they drew closer to God and in that dependence on
God how they found happiness. Last week, we talked about comfort being someone
coming alongside of us and giving us strength and how Jesus is the ultimate comforter
who comforts us in our grief over loss and sin and circumstances in the world around us.
Today, we want to move on to looking at the 5th verse of Chapter 5 in Matthew, “Blessed
are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.”
Being meek. It is not a quality that we aspire to. Is it?
The dictionary defines meek as an adjective meaning: humbly patient or docile, overly
submissive or compliant; spiritless; tame.
But Jesus says the meek shall inherit the earth. We know better. The meek can't even
inherit the right-of-way at a four-way stop or inherit a parking space in a busy parking
lot.
When we think of someone who is meek, we think of someone who doesn’t ever stand up
for themselves. They always let others get their way. It appears that they get trampled
on time after time after time.
History seems to be built on the theme of the survival of the fittest. The meek just don’t
seem to fulfill that description.
Ever heard someone referred to as Casper Milquetoast? Well, I’ve heard that used in a
derogatory manner to describe someone who was just bland, blah, wimpy, uninspired,
etc. What I didn’t know was that Casper Milquetoast was a cartoon strip character
created in the 1920’s by H.T. Webster in the strip The Timid Soul. Poor Casper really
was afraid of his own shadow. When his hat blew onto a lawn with the sign “keep off the
grass”, he decided it was time to go and buy a new hat rather than challenge the sign.
When he saw a billboard that said “watch this space” he stood and watched it for a long
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time before he said that before too long he’d have to leave if something didn’t happen.
He was held captive by the world around him.
Is that what Jesus meant by being meek? Are we just supposed to let the world around us
happen to us and just acquiesce to whatever happens to us?
Fortunately, the answer is “no”!
So, let’s look at the word for meek in the Greek of the New Testament. The word used is
praus.
Now praus means good will toward humanity and reverent obedience toward God. It is
not sad resignation. It is not being Casper Milquetoast and letting the world trample over
you.
In the Greek sense, this meekness describes humility, the acceptance of the necessity to
learn and of the necessity to be forgiven. Perhaps in this sense “blessed are the meek”
might be translated, “Blessed is the one who has the humility to know their own
ignorance, their own weakness, and their own need.”
Here meek is the opposite of aggressive. It is not a trampling in brute force, but being
humble in the strength of reverence.
This passage is actually an echo of Psalm 37:11 (TNIV) “But the meek will inherit the
land and enjoy peace and prosperity.”
You know in the Bible, there are two specific people who are described as being “meek”.
Those two people are Moses and Jesus.
Now, think about what you know about Moses and Jesus. Were they meek in the sense
that we use the world today? Did they let other people trample all over them? Were they
mild-mannered and submissive?
I don’t think so.
Moses led the Hebrew people out of slavery in Egypt. He convinced Pharaoh (with some
help from God) to let them go. He was their leader for 40 years as they wandered in the
desert. You don’t think of someone who is meek as a leader, do you?
Moses was bold in telling the Hebrew people what it was God was calling them to do.
Moses even argued with God a few times about whether he should even lead these people
and about how the people were behaving.
Exodus 3:9-14 God said to Moses, 9 And now the cry of the Israelites has reached me,
and I have seen the way the Egyptians are oppressing them. 10 So now, go. I am sending
you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt.” 11 But Moses said to God,
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“Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?” 12 And
God said, “I will be with you. And this will be the sign to you that it is I who have sent
you: When you have brought the people out of Egypt, you will worship God on this
mountain.” 13 Moses said to God, “Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The
God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ Then what
shall I tell them?” 14 God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM. This is what you are to say
to the Israelites: ‘I AM has sent me to you.’”
Exodus 4
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Moses answered, “What if they do not believe me or listen to me and say, ‘The LORD
did not appear to you’?” 10 Moses said to the LORD, “Pardon your servant, Lord. I have
never been eloquent, neither in the past nor since you have spoken to your servant. I am
slow of speech and tongue.” 13 But Moses said, “Pardon your servant, Lord. Please send
someone else.”
Arguing with God, that doesn’t sound like someone who was meek by our worldly
standards, does it?
Think about Jesus. Was he really “gentle Jesus meek and mild” like the old song says?
Did he just let the world around him happen?
Well, the answer is “no”!
Jesus, wasn’t submissive and docile. When he came across a crowd ready to stone a
woman who’d been caught in adultery, he didn’t just let the crowd have their way. Did
he?
John 8: 2-11 2 At dawn Jesus appeared again in the temple courts, where all the people
gathered around him, and he sat down to teach them. 3 The teachers of the law and the
Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand before the group
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and said to Jesus, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. 5 In the Law
Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?” 6 They were using
this question as a trap, in order to have a basis for accusing him. But Jesus bent down
and started to write on the ground with his finger. 7 When they kept on questioning him,
he straightened up and said to them, “Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to
throw a stone at her.” 8 Again he stooped down and wrote on the ground. 9 At this, those
who heard began to go away one at a time, the older ones first, until only Jesus was left,
with the woman still standing there. 10 Jesus straightened up and asked her, “Woman,
where are they? Has no one condemned you?” 11 “No one, sir,” she said. “Then neither
do I condemn you,” Jesus declared. “Go now and leave your life of sin.”
Matthew 21: 12-13 12 Jesus entered the temple courts and drove out all who were buying
and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of
those selling doves. 13 “It is written,” he said to them, “‘My house will be called a house
of prayer,’ but you are making it ‘a den of robbers.’”
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Huh! Doesn’t sound very meek to me…
Or think about all of the times that someone was brought to Jesus or approached Jesus so
that they could be healed. Did he take action or did he say, “Oh, gee golly wiz…I really
shouldn’t touch you because you are a leper and I might catch your leprosy. Or oh, gee, I
really shouldn’t touch that person because they’re dead and if I do, I’ll be unclean and I
can’t go to the Temple to pray. Or gosh, sorry, I can’t heal you today because it is the
Sabbath.”
No. Jesus didn’t say any of that. He healed whoever asked to be healed. Whether they
were unclean, whether it was the Sabbath, whether he knew them or not.
So, in light of this understanding of Moses and Jesus as meek, then what does it really
mean when Jesus says, “blessed are the meek”?
Jesus stood up to the challenge of his enemies. When he returned to Nazareth, his
hometown, he was so forthright in talking with the people that they sought to push him
off a precipice, but he walked calmly through the crowd, untouched. There's nothing
weak about that! Jesus endured torture and ridicule from Roman soldiers without losing
control of his emotions. At his crucifixion he was so strong that he could pray for his
enemies; in the last hour of his dying his strength evoked the admiration of a toughminded Roman centurion, a man whose job compelled him daily to traffic in courage.
So, maybe meekness as the Bible defines it has something to do with strength…the
strength to do what is right in the midst of incredible odds.
It appears that meek (praus) is the proper ground between excessive anger and apathy.
It turns out that a meek person is not a weak person but a very, very strong one. They are
able to hold their strength under control, so that the strength is used for right purposes.
Think about it, our world needs the right kind of anger—the kind of anger that is
carefully channeled to curing the world's ills.
We need to be able to control our passions. We should be angry, indignant and want to
do something about children in our own community who don’t have enough food to eat
and people who don’t have a place to live and adults who abuse children. And we should
be angry about people who are in those same circumstances in other parts of our country
and our world. And we should be angry about people who are being persecuted and
killed because they believe in God. And we should be angry about rulers who live in
luxury while their people suffer abuse and hunger and illness.
There are things that we should be angry about and want to do something to help.
But, there are things that we shouldn’t be angry about…like if we don’t get just the
parking place we want or if we don’t get the birthday present we were hoping for.
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Being meek means that there is a balance. We have the strength to be angry about the
things that really need to be addressed and we have the strength to restrain ourselves
about the things that don’t really matter.
But of course, we can’t do it on our own.
The meekness that Jesus possessed is a matter of being God-mastered. We win mastery
over ourselves by giving mastery over to God.
To act when we should and not act when we shouldn’t is not something we can do
ourselves. But, if instead of trying to be self-controlled, we allow ourselves to be Godcontrolled then we can do it.
We can be happy that we are meek knowing that God is helping us to know when to sit
back and let things roll off our shoulders and when we need to jump into action.
And we know that when we do this, we have God’s promise that we will inherit the earth.
You know to inherit is to be given a gift, a legacy. It is not something that we seize. It is
something we’re given.
And in this case Jesus promises that those who are meek in this way will be given the
earth.
The meek don't have to prove themselves to anyone. They have the peace of mind of
knowing that God is helping them to use their strength and their power in appropriate
ways. They have inherited knowledge and wisdom. They know when to act and speak
and when not to. They know who they are, and are sure enough of their powers that they
don't need to parade those powers.
They are already partaking of the life of God's kingdom here on earth.
William Barclay puts it this way, “O the bliss of the person who is always angry at the
right time and never angry at the wrong time, who has every instinct, and impulse, and
passion under control because they themselves are God-controlled, who has the humility
to realize their own ignorance and their own weakness, for such a person is a king among
humans.”-Barclay p. 98
Let’s pray…
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