The Counterintuitive Blessing of Meekness
The fourth in a series on the Beatitudes
Have you ever found confusion arising in a conversation when the same word means different things? I remember the time I went with one of my sons to a Chicago White Sox game. It was supposed to be a great father-son experience, and it was in so many ways, until a bat landed on me during the game. Not a baseball bat, thankfully, but a literal bat—the animal with wings. The woman in front of me at the game said, “You better get that checked out.” I said, “Oh, it barely touched me.” Then she said, “You could get rabies. You better call your doctor tomorrow.” She wouldn’t let go of it, so I promised her I’d call the doctor the next day. When I did talk to a nurse on the phone, she said that because of potential exposure, I had to go to the hospital and likely would need to receive the rabies vaccine. When I arrived at the hospital it took a lot of explaining for people to understand what I meant by “a bat landed on me at a baseball game.” Sometimes the same word can mean different things, leading to confusion about what is being communicated.
That same thing can happen with the way we read Scripture, that we misread words and situations in the text, leading us to misunderstand how to live the text. The beatitude we explore today may be one of the most likely candidates for such misunderstanding.
“Blessed are the meek,
for they will inherit the earth.” (Matthew 5:5)
Like others of the Beatitudes, this statement at first glance seems entirely untrue. In our world today it appears to be the brash and arrogant who inherit the earth, the steamrollers who get the goods, and the brazenly self-seeking who rise to the top. In a dog-eat-dog world, the meek hide in a corner utterly disregarded or are thrown into the center to be eaten.
Yet this meekness Jesus is highlighting points to a different way that requires a second look. Meekness is not passivity, but the appropriate counterpoint between passive inactivity or avoidance and uncontrolled anger. To be meek means that one knows how to be self-controlled and assert power in a way that is distinctively Christian. A friend once suggested to me that being meek is having a sword but knowing when and how to keep it sheathed.
To be meek in the sense that Jesus mentions in the beatitudes means not only that one is self-controlled but also that one cultivates an attitude of humility in relation to others. Humility, that distinctively Christian virtue, reflects the life posture of our Savior Himself. He is the One who “did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage” but “rather, he made himself nothing” (Philippians 2:6b-7a). In fact, Jesus describes Himself as “gentle and humble in heart” (Matthew 11:29) with ‘gentle’ being the same Greek word root as ‘meek’.
Turning our expectations on their heads, Jesus reveals the shocking truth that the meek and gentle do inherit the earth, even if it is costly. His humble journey to the Cross continued through death to a shocking reversal of futures: the Crucified Messiah is now also the King enthroned over all creation.
A little while, and the wicked will be no more;
though you look for them, they will not be found.
But the meek will inherit the land
and enjoy peace and prosperity. (Psalm 37:10-11)
Jesus’ life, death, resurrection, and ascension reveal that the world we are living in is in many ways upside-down. The meek recognize this, and choose to live in a different way that is constrained by God’s kingdom, marked by self-control, and displays humility about themselves and all others. To be meek is to let go of self-will, instead leaning into God’s will. To be meek is to forgive others, recognizing how much we, too, need to be forgiven. To be meek is to live at the intersection of action and contemplation, where all activity arises from the rest of abiding and keeping in step with the Holy Spirit and where passivity is replaced by trusting, dependent courage. For it is truly when we die to ourselves that we live. However, when we forcefully try to gain all the world we lose our souls.
I am reminded by the pathway of non-violent action that Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth took when engaging in civil rights action in Birmingham, Alabama, in 1963. The Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights outlined a “Ten Commandments” for action that reflects what we are talking about with meekness from the Beatitudes.
I hereby pledge myself—my person and body—to the nonviolent movement, therefore I will keep the following ten commandments!
MEDITATE daily on the teachings and life of Jesus.
REMEMBER always that the nonviolent movement in Birmingham seeks justice and reconciliation—not victory.
WALK and TALK in the manner of love, for God is love.
PRAY daily to be used by God in order that all men might be free.
SACRIFICE personal wishes in order that all men might be free.
OBSERVE with both friend and foe the ordinary rules of courtesy.
SEEK to perform regular service for others and for the world.
REFRAIN from the violence of fist, tongue, or heart.
STRIVE to be in good spiritual and bodily health.
FOLLOW the directions of the movement and of the captain on a demonstration.
Meekness is neither apathetic passivity nor the giving over of ourselves to anger. Instead it is an attentive realism to the world that enables us by the Holy Spirit’s power to channel awareness of the good and evil of the world into a self-controlled life that is open to what God wants and desires.
The invitation of Jesus at least in part here in the Beatitudes is to find the blessedness, the goodness, the flourishing way of meekness where we are free from the cycles of wrong and vengeance. In a world where we fight for our way and return wrongs done unto us so as not to appear weak, there is a goodness in being free to both take action through agency but also not succumb to violence and be able to turn the other cheek. Like Jesus, who did not utter a word when falsely accused, we can shame the strong and not be stuck in the patterns that seek to make us less than human.
The meek are blessed, Jesus says, and they will inherit the earth (or, as we read in Psalm 37, they will ‘inherit the land’). Entrusting ourselves to God amid the raging of the nations and the contentions of our accusers, we find there is a hidden territory with and in God that we are given and cannot be taken away. “Hope in the LORD and keep his way. He will exalt you to inherit the land” (Psalm 37:34). “When hard pressed, I cried to the LORD; he brought me into a spacious place” (118:5). By faith in Christ we are now sons and daughters of God, heirs of God, and members of the household of God (Galatians 4:1-7). No difficulty in life can remove this, so we can trust God meekly and humbly as we encounter trials.
We also know there is a new heaven and new earth which Christ will bring in the fullness of time. Walking in blessing for this present time as the meek we symbolize on earth the fullness yet to come and the saints who have gone before us as “foreigners and strangers on earth…longing for a better country—a heavenly one” (Hebrews 11:13, 16). Our eyes, hearts, and minds are focused on this country, which is “an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade…kept in heaven for you” (1 Peter 1:4). And if God keeps that for us, and no being is more powerful than God, then we can know it is trustworthy. God’s faithfulness enables us to live with meekness and courage now, piercing through any trials that come to us with God’s strong presence and rich blessings. While it may be counterintuitive, meekness is a vital aspect of the pathway to a flourishing life in God’s blessing.
Read the other posts in this series: