Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.
I have a friend who is usually the smartest person in the room. In the rare occasion that he is not the smartest he is undoubtedly the wisest. As I have watched him over the years I have noticed that he never dominates a conversation. But he is not shy or timid. I have never seen him show off his intellectual prowess and yet he has engaged in every conversation. He listens to what you say and he asks questions that prove he not only hears you but wants to understand more clearly what you are saying. He commands attention when he speaks and is confident about his convictions. But you never sense he needs to be heard. He is not a people pleaser. He is able to be confrontational when needed but his confrontations are constructive and not intended to wound or belittle. His demeanor is always poised but he is not without passion. I have seen him moved to tears and I have seen him laugh with great joy.
Now I have never seen my friend in an argument with his wife and I never witnessed him when his children were teenagers. I am sure he has his moments when he loses his composure or demands his way or waits too long to make a decision. But it's hard to imagine that who he is in private is much different than who he is in public.
One word that describes him is meek. Meekness has nothing to do with weakness. It has nothing to do with having low self-esteem or shying away from challenging situations or being a doormat. It has everything to do with humility and contentment.
Is Meekness a virtue?
One of the debates about Jesus’ beatitudes in Matthew 5 is whether these characteristics - poor in spirit, mourning, meekness, etc. - are simply descriptions of what is lacking in a person or are they virtues that are to be cultivated. For example, the word for meek used here could also be used to describe someone who has no power - the powerless or even the oppressed. Is Jesus saying “blessed are the powerless for they will inherit the earth” as a way of encouraging the beaten down and broken that there is hope for even them in God’s kingdom? Or is “meekness” a spiritual gift that we are to cultivate with God’s help?
For instance, one of our great bible teachers of the past thirty years, Dale Bruner, and one of the leading protestant thinkers on spiritual formation, Dallas Willard, (both of whom I owe much gratitude to for their influence in my formation as a follower of Jesus and pastor) both suggest Jesus is is not saying people are blessed because they are meek or because they mourn or because they are poor in spirit but instead Jesus is saying that in spite of their poverty of spirit and in spite of their meekness they are blessed. In this upside down kingdom of God even the lowly will be exalted. In other words they are blessed not because they are mourning but because they will be comforted or they are blessed not because they are meek but because they will inherit the earth. So, Bruner says, “These Beatitudes do not first of all describe people with good spiritualities so much as they describe people in bad situations” (his italics). The gospel is the great reversal of these bad situations.
If you have read my previous two posts on the beatitudes you will know that I disagree with this interpretation. I will explain why in a moment. But I think Bruner and Willard rightly grasp how backwards the beatitudes are in comparison to the values of the world. There is nothing here the world admires. We celebrate the bold, the brash and those who posture for power and status. The go-getters seem to inherit the earth. I also believe Bruner and Willard are correct when they see that meekness or mourning or spiritual poverty are not “works” that we do to gain blessing. They are instead gifts that the Holy Spirit works into us through the gospel.
Contentment
Meekness is born out of contentment. Contentment is not resignation it is peace. Contentment is living from an awareness that grace is sufficient, that Jesus is enough and that when we have Jesus we have everything. We are co-heirs with Christ Paul says to the Romans and since Jesus is King our inheritance is the king’s ransom. As such, no posturing is needed.
Meekness is not the same as weakness but it does mean if I’m misunderstood or if my rights are trampled on or if I’m never noticed or if my “sphere of influence” is miniscule then that is not only okay but should be expected. Servants are not better than their masters and Jesus was misunderstood and his rights were trampled on. The meek throw their lot in with him.
One of my favorite stories is told by Helmut Theilicke, a pastor and writer in Germany during the Nazi regime. He describes the first Bible study he ever taught as a pastor. He was fresh out of seminary and had high hopes for his ministry. He was called to an old historic church in Berlin and he held his first bible study hour and only two “very old women and a still older organist” showed up. Outside the church building marched the battalions of youth in Hitler’s army. One was the picture of power and strength, the other weakness and irrelevance. Meekness is the ability to see where the true power lies and then to divest ourselves of the world’s counterfeits.
One of the great temptations the Church (and its members) is always faced with is to get caught up in believing that we are always losing. Two old women and a still older organist in a Bible study doesn’t seem like much compared to marching battalions of soldiers trained to destroy. As church membership diminishes and our influence on the culture feels markedly more and more irrelevant it is easy to despair. And when desperate we go after power in other realms - politics, or marketing, or a sin-lite and therefore Jesus-lite version of Christianity. The call to meekness is the call to trust in the reality that we are working from the victory that Jesus has already won. We can’t lose. In fact, the only way we can lose is to believe we need to take victory by force ourselves.
I am meek and lowly in heart
When the Zebedee brothers, James and John (and their mom) jockey for top position in the kingdom in Matthew 20, Jesus replies by telling them they “don’t know what [they] are asking.” What they don’t know is that the greatest is the lowest. What they don’t know is that drinking of the same “cup” as the king in this kingdom means going the way of the cross. The Son of Man came not to be served but to serve. Should the same not be true of his followers.
The reason I believe these beatitudes are spiritual gifts that we are to cultivate through the gospel is because they all find their fulfillment in Jesus. In Matthew 11 Jesus tells us about his heart - his heart is the engine (emotion, will, purpose, essence) that drives all he does. And what Jesus says about his heart is that it is “gentle and lowly.” He says, “take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls” (Mt. 11:29). The word “gentle” that Jesus uses here is the same exact word for “meek” that Jesus uses in Matthew 5:5.
Meekness in the world’s eyes is cowardice. I assure you Jesus is not a coward. But he is not a bully either. The kingdoms of the world only understand a dog-eat-dog economy of life. The kingdom of Jesus is different. Blessed are the meek.
* I am currently working my way through Dane Ortlund’s book Gentle and Lowly, so far I highly recommend it. The whole book, in a sense, explores true meekness found in Jesus.
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