Blessed Are the Meek

Sermon manuscript for Green Lake Church of Seventh-day Adventists

February 23, 2013

Third in a series on the Beatitudes of Matthew 5

Blessed are the poor in spirit, For theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are those who mourn, For they shall be comforted.

Blessed are the meek, For they shall inherit the earth.

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, For they shall be filled.

Blessed are the merciful, For they shall obtain mercy.

Blessed are the pure in heart, For they shall see God.

Blessed are the peacemakers, For they shall be called sons of God

Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake, theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

The meekest man I ever met was John Barletta. That's not a compliment. Meekness in John's life was a curse.

When we first met, I was fresh out of seminary, living and working in an evangelistic center in Times Square. My job was to do direct, personal outreach. I visited door-to-door in the Hell's Kitchen neighborhood to the west. The neighborhood deserved its name. A half block east of the center was the famous intersection of Seventh Avenue and Broadway. That's where crowds gather to watch the ball drop on New Year's Eve. I would stand in the river of humanity on Seventh Avenue handing out fliers inviting people to Wednesday and Friday night Bible studies I led in the basement hall at the evangelistic center.

One of the first people to respond to my fliers was John Barletta. He came to the group studies for weeks, then indicated he might be interested in getting baptized. I was thrilled. He was going to be my first convert. This is what I had gone to seminary for.

When he showed up for his first study, I was ready. But I found it very difficult to make progress through my prepared outline. John needed to talk. About the problems he was having with his daughter and his son. About his hiatal hernia and his dandruff. About his dogged, and so far unsuccessful efforts to quit smoking. Above all, we talked about his job. It was killing him.

He worked for the transit authority, sitting in a booth selling subway tokens. Customers were often rude. His co-workers sometimes ripped him off at shift changes. They would “help” him count and cheat him in the process. His superior didn't like him. She made his life miserable.

He had fifteen years before retirement. He had too many years in to start over anywhere else and be able to earn a pension. Quite apart from retirement, he didn't have the skills, education or personality to get a job anywhere else that would pay anything like what he was making at the transit authority. So he he was stuck in a job he hated, a job where it seemed to him, he was hated. But what could he do?

He was helplessly stuck. This is the core meaning of “meek.” in our passage. When Jesus blessed the meek, he had in mind the words of Psalm 37:

Do not fret because of evil men

or be envious of those who do wrong;

for like the grass they will soon wither,

like green plants they will soon die away.

Trust in the LORD and do good;

dwell in the land and enjoy safe pasture.

Delight yourself in the LORD

and he will give you the desires of your heart.

Commit your way to the LORD;

trust in him and he will do this:

He will make your righteousness shine like the dawn,

the justice of your cause like the noonday sun.

Be still before the LORD and wait patiently for him;

do not fret when men succeed in their ways,

when they carry out their wicked schemes.

Refrain from anger and turn from wrath;

do not fret--it leads only to evil.

For evil men will be cut off,

but those who hope in the LORD will inherit the land.

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 great peace. Psalm 37:1-11 NIV.

David wrote this Psalm with his own experience painfully in mind. He spent years running from King Saul. David had on his side justice and the approval of God, but it sure didn't feel like it. He felt like a hunted rabbit, scurrying from one hole to another, wondering when he was going to run out of holes. David was meek, i.e. helpless. At this stage in his life David was “little people,” a “nobody.” He knew that what was happening to him was unjust. And since he wasn't willing to kill Saul, there was nothing he could do except keep running and pray that God would eventually step in.

God did finally step in. Things worked out for David. And his experience became a model of hope. It is the picture Jesus evokes in the Beatitude: Blessed are the meek, they will inherit the earth. Like David we may be hounded by injustice, bad luck, helplessness, powerlessness. If so, like David we can hope that God will finally act. And when God acts, he will act on the side of righteousness and justice. The meek will inherit the earth.

*See below for additional passages in Psalms that provide support for this perspective.

Those of you familiar with the King James Version of the Bible may remember the words of Numbers 12:3, “Now the man Moses was very meek, above all the men which were upon the face of the earth.” This reference to the meekness of Moses is clearly intended as a compliment. Moses does not fight for his privileges and prerogatives. He leaves his defense to God. This humble deferral to God is one meaning of the Hebrew and Greek words translated into English as “meek.” It is a meaning that is echoed in the usage of Paul and Peter. But Jesus clearly uses the word meek in light of its usage in the Psalms where meek refers not to a deliberately chosen humility, but an imposed state of helplessness. Jesus is offering consolation for those stuck in the state of powerlessness. He is not offering commendation for those who have acquired the virtue of humility.

Psalm 37 and Jesus blessing on the meek bring to mind a central theme running all through the Bible: The Grand Reversal. Evil may appear to triumph. The mighty may appear invincible, but God is going to work a Grand Reversal. The lowly can take hope. The mighty beware. Judgment day is coming and then we'll see who is on top.

This Grand Reversal is highlighted in words of the Magnificat (i.e. Mary's song) from Luke 1:

My soul magnifies the Lord,

And my spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior.

For He has regarded the lowly estate of His maidservant;

Behold, henceforth all generations will call me blessed.

For He who is mighty has done great things for me,

Holy is His name.

His mercy is on those who fear Him from generation to generation.

He has shown strength with His arm;

He has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts.

He has put down the mighty from their thrones,

And exalted the lowly.

He has filled the hungry with good things,

And the rich He has sent away empty.

He has helped His servant Israel,

In remembrance of His mercy,

As He spoke to our fathers,

To Abraham and to his seed forever." Luke 1:46-55.

Those on the bottom are lifted. Those on top are brought low.

This reversal, this lifting of the lowly and abasing of the mighty is a constantly recurring theme in the Bible. The meek, the helpless, the ones without power and without an advocate will finally be exalted by God. They will finally receive the abundance they have earned by their hard work.

This grand reversal for the meek is celebrated in the passage from Psalm 37 we read earlier.

Be still before the LORD and wait patiently for him;

do not fret when men succeed in their ways,

when they carry out their wicked schemes.

Refrain from anger and turn from wrath;

do not fret--it leads only to evil.

For evil men will be cut off,

but those who hope in the LORD will inherit the land.

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 great peace. Psalm 37:1-11 NIV.

Hang in there. It looks like the wicked are winning. It looks like God is asleep, but wait. Keep watching.

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 great peace.

Blessed are the helpless, they will inherit the earth.

John Barletta's helplessness reached all the way back into his childhood. Late in the afternoon when the kids in the neighborhood heard the elevated train pulling into the station on their street, they would run toward the station to see if their dads had arrived. John and his brother ran the other direction and hid until they were sure their dad was not coming down the street.

John repeatedly mentioned that he had grown up in the church. His dad had been a care taker at a Baptist Church in the Bronx. The family lived in the apartment at the back of the church. When John referred to growing up in the church he usually did so with a sad laugh. It was precisely life at church that had begun the destruction of his faith. Didn't anyone at church ever see how cruel his dad was? Did anyone care?

John's family lived in a church, and John's life was hell.

In the decade before John and I met, he had studied for a couple of years each with the Jehovah's Witnesses, Mormons and Catholics. He read constantly trying to make sense of life.

How did it happen that he ended up like a piece of Styrofoam bouncing in the surf? Other people had some measure of control over their lives. People were friends with their children. They did jobs that they enjoyed. They worked hard and their work paid off. They made choices and followed through with them. How did John end up a victim at every turn. He couldn't even stop smoking.

John was powerless. That is the central meaning of the word meek in Jesus statement, “Blessed are the meek, they will inherit the earth.”

Jesus blessing, of course, assumes God exists. That assumption was problematic for John. When I asked what he had learned in all his studying with various religions and his reading, he said he realized a lot of smart people believed in God. When I asked him what he himself believed, he said he didn't know. Faith had been beaten out of him in that apartment at the back of the church in the Bronx.

With all our conversation about his job and his kids and his health, it's no surprise we made little progress through the doctrines of the church. I left Manhattan and became a pastor out on Long Island. I thought of John occasionally, but he pretty much faded from my mind. That's the way it is with meek people. They are easily forgotten. Frequently they are invisible.

Several years into our pastorate on Long Island, I began doing an outreach service on Sabbath afternoon's at a church in Manhattan. Within weeks, to my astonishment John Barletta showed up.

His life was about the same. The job was killing him. He was estranged from his daughter because she had defrauded him out of thousands of dollars that were supposed to be a loan. His son was AWOL from the Navy and John worried constantly they would catch him. He was seriously alienated from his wife. His cat died. And the best thing he could say about God was that a lot of smart people believed in him.

But John showed up every Sabbath afternoon for our Bible studies, and when we began regular Sabbath morning church services. John attended regularly.

The church grew dramatically. Most of the new people were young adults. Beautiful, professional, smart young people. New York is a dress up town. Church looked like a setting for a fashion shoot. John stood out. His dandruff clearly visible on his jacket in the winter. On hot summer Sabbaths, he wore a discolored tank top.

He stuttered severely, but somehow we learned that when he read, the stuttering disappeared. So, occasionally John in his sloppy clothes and dandruff and weird body odor would sit on the platform and read the scripture. He would stutter his way through the introduction: T-T-T-T-To-To-To-d-d-d-day, we are r-r-r-read-d-d-ding Ps-s-s-salm 1. Then he'd fluently read:

Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the ungodly,

Nor stands in the way of sinners,

Nor sits in the seat of the scornful;

But his delight is in the law of the LORD,

And in His law does he meditate day and night.

He shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water,

That brings forth its fruit in its season,

Whose leaf also shall not wither;

And whatever he does shall prosper.

Psalm 1:1-3

John did his best to avoid walking in the counsel of the ungodly. He read the Bible and all sorts of books exploring Christianity. But it was not true that whatever he did prospered. Sometimes it seemed just opposite. Whatever he did went sour. His best efforts produced unhappy results.

He came to church one Sabbath with casts on both wrists. He had been collecting the tokens from the turnstiles at work when some guys jumped him. They threw him down the stairs and ran off with the tokens.

I can still hear the plaintive tone in John's voice as he said to me, “I don't know why they would do that to me.”

His dog died. His son-in-law drowned. His hernia got worse. He could no longer sleep in a bed. He had to sleep in a chair.

Perhaps the most horrific event in John's whole life occurred on the job. It was a couple of years after he was jumped and thrown down the stairs. He shouted at some fare-beaters who jumped the turnstiles. The next day they were back. They poured gasoline into his booth and threw a match.

John escaped without serious burns, but his soul was seared beyond the power of words to express.

His OCD book shopping had filled his house with so many books you moved around the apartment through little canyons in the waist-high books. He asked my help getting rid of a truck load or two, but he worried he would simply fill the space again with books or something else.

He did manage to quit smoking. It took eight years of endless struggle. It was his one triumph. He still knew that a lot of smart people believed in God, but that was as close to faith as he ever got.

One Sabbath, I invited people who felt called to consider baptism to talk with me after the service. I was astonished when John came to me and said he wanted to get baptized.

When we met later that week, I asked him what had made the difference. What had brought him to faith. He began telling his life story again—about his abusive dad and his time in the army. I interrupted him. “Yes, John, I know your story. But when did you become a believer?”

Again, he began a wandering story, about studying with the Jehovah's Witnesses and with the Mormons and the Catholics and about the abuse at work.

Again, I interrupted him. “John do you believe in God?”

“Well,” he said, “I know a lot of smart people do.”

I tried a different tack. “John do you believe that God has forgiven you?”

“It would be nice to think so.”

I handed him a Bible and had him read 1 John 1:9. “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”

“John, have you confessed your sins?”

“Yes.”

“Does the Bible say that if we confess we are forgiven.”

Yes.”

“So, are your sins forgiven?”

“W-W-W-Well, it w-w-w-would b-b-be n-n-nice t-t-to th-th-think so.”

As far as I could tell, John's beliefs hadn't changed from what they had been years earlier when we first met at the center in Times Square. John was stuck at work. He had to keep working. He couldn't change the rude customers or the crazy-making boss. He couldn't fix his kids. He couldn't magically fix his marriage. He was powerless. He was meek—at the mercy of forces larger and more powerful than himself. He even did not power over his mind. He had been chasing faith for decades and the most he had accomplished was the certainty that some of the people who believed in God were smart.

As far as I could tell John was no closer to faith than he had been eight years earlier when we first met. It appeared to me the best he could say about the gospel message of forgiveness is that it lined up with his best wishes. So I asked the obvious question. “John, you don't believe in God and you aren't sure Jesus has forgiven your sins. So, why do you want to be baptized.”

“Because,” he said, “This is the first place where I have been safe.”

John had spent decades chasing God. He hadn't found him. He chased wholeness and well-being, without much success. But he had found a place that felt like what the house of God should feel like—a sanctuary, a refuge. He wanted to be part of it. It was a foretaste of the promised land.

Blessed are the meek—the lowly, the hopeless, helpless, powerless. They will inherit the earth.

One of the highest callings of the church is to give the lowly ones a taste of heaven now. If you are not powerless, if you are not one of the little people, the invisible ones, then Jesus calls you to work with him to create safe places. If you are one of the lowly ones, if you are one of the meek ones, we extend to you the blessing of Jesus: you will inherit the earth.

Those on the bottom are going to be placed on thrones. Those without power will receive authority. Those we hardly notice now are going to be somebodies.

It is our calling to practice now for that grand reversal.

*

For he has not ignored or belittled the suffering of the needy. He has not turned his back on them, but has listened to their cries for help. . . .The poor (KJV: meek) will eat and be satisfied. All who seek the LORD will praise him. Their hearts will rejoice with everlasting joy. Psalm 22:24-26.

The LORD builds up Jerusalem; He gathers together the outcasts of Israel. He heals the brokenhearted And binds up their wounds. The LORD lifts up the meek (NKJV: humble); He casts the wicked down to the ground. Psalm 147:2-3, 6