Genesis
18:20-33 (Matthew 5:5)
“The
meek shall inherit the earth.” Jesus
didn’t come up with that on his own. It
is a loose quotation from Psalm 37:8-9.
“Refrain
from anger, and forsake wrath.
Do not fret – it leads only to evil.
For
the wicked shall be cut off,
but those who wait for the Lord
shall inherit the land.”
That
throws light on what is meant by “meek”, which often is taken to be the same as
“weak”. “Meek” and “weak” are two
different things. To be meek is to be
among “those who wait for the Lord.” Meekness is not timidity. Meekness is knowing your place with respect
to the Lord. A great example of real
meekness, instead of the kind of fearful backwardness that passes for meekness,
comes from the story of Abraham’s negotiation with God on behalf of the cities
of Sodom and Gomorrah.
The
lead-in is that Abraham had had a visit from three mysterious travelers who
revealed to him and Sarah that, despite their advanced age, they were about to
become parents, and not by adoption. As
they were leaving, they casually dropped the information that they were on
their way to oversee the destruction of the cities because of the way that they
(unlike Abraham) treated strangers and the vulnerable. Abraham’s nephew Lot was living there with
his wife and daughters, so Abraham immediately went into rescue mode. He would persuade God himself to relent. Only listen to how meekly he goes about it:
“So the men turned from there, and went towards Sodom,
while Abraham remained standing before the Lord. Then Abraham came near and said, ‘Will
you indeed sweep away the righteous with the wicked? Suppose there are fifty righteous
within the city; will you then sweep away the place and not forgive it for the
fifty righteous who are in it? Far
be it from you to do such a thing, to slay the righteous with the wicked, so
that the righteous fare as the wicked! Far be that from you! Shall not the
Judge of all the earth do what is just?’ And
the Lord said, ‘If I find at Sodom fifty
righteous in the city, I will forgive the whole place for their sake.’ Abraham
answered, ‘Let me take it upon myself to speak to the Lord, I who am but dust
and ashes. Suppose five of the
fifty righteous are lacking? Will you destroy the whole city for lack of five?’
And he said, ‘I will not destroy it if I find forty-five there.’ Again he spoke to him, ‘Suppose forty
are found there.’ He answered, ‘For the sake of forty I will not do it.’ Then he said, ‘Oh do not let the Lord
be angry if I speak. Suppose thirty are found there.’ He answered, ‘I will not
do it, if I find thirty there.’ He
said, ‘Let me take it upon myself to speak to the Lord. Suppose twenty are
found there.’ He answered, ‘For the sake of twenty I will not destroy it.’ Then he said, ‘Oh do not let the Lord
be angry if I speak just once more. Suppose ten are found there.’ He answered,
‘For the sake of ten I will not destroy it.’ And
the Lord went his way, when he had finished
speaking to Abraham; and Abraham returned to his place.” [Genesis
18:20-33]
It
was respectful, kind, and persuasive. In
the end, it didn’t work out but it wasn’t Abraham’s fault and the travelers
ended up rescuing Abraham’s family anyway, out of all the population.
That is closer to what the Bible
thinks of as “meek” than the way we usually use the term. Again, in the Bible, meekness has to do with
our relationship to God. If we are
respectful and humble before God, that is meekness. At times that makes us easygoing with people,
but at times it may also mean that we draw the line, because we cannot always
please both and, in that case, it’s always both right and advisable to choose
God. That should be obvious, but it
isn’t always so easy in the moment. As
one commentator puts it:
“Understood biblically, meekness
is making choices and exercising power with a divine rather than a social
reference point. Meekness has nothing to
do with blind obedience to the rulers in whatever country we happen to live in
or to bosses in our work place or compliance with that still more powerful
force, our peer group. Meek Christians
do not allow themselves to be dragged along by the tides of political power or
to be led by the smell of money. Such
rudderless persons have cut themselves off from their own conscience, God’s
voice in their heart, and thrown away their God-given freedom. Meekness is an attribute of following Christ,
whatever the risks.”[1]
So
you end up, over the years, with Christians who have been some of the most
peaceful, kindly people, just saying, “No,” and getting into trouble for it. Yet out of that, great good has come for
many, and the ability to lead peaceful, quiet lives – to inherit the earth.
William Penn went on trial in 1670
for street preaching.[2] Yes, the Quakers started out as street preachers
of the sort you see occasionally outside train stations and at bus stops. King Charles was trying to suppress dissent
after the English Civil War had finally settled down, to prevent further
trouble based on religious disagreement.
So he had folks like the Quakers rounded up. At his trial, Penn demanded to know the
specific law under which he was being charged and when the judge couldn’t point
to anything apart from a broad reference to disturbing the peace, Penn asked to
be released. The judge refused, and the
trial went on. The jury came back,
saying that they couldn’t convict a man simply for speaking on a street
corner. The judge ordered the jury to
reconsider (meaning to come back with a guilty verdict), and sent them
away. They came back again, saying they
couldn’t convict. The judge then had
them locked up while they reconsidered.
In prison, they became even more stubborn. Then he denied them food or water but they
still would not change their verdict.
Finally, the judge disbanded the jury but kept them in prison until each
juror paid a fine. Meanwhile, he had
Penn and one other man sent to prison for not removing their hats in court,
which was the best he could come up with.
Did
the meek get anything out of that? Consider
this: William Penn did not do anything but ask for his rights. That was not out of line. The jury did not do anything but consider the
facts of the case and act as responsible jurors, respecting the law more than
the judge did. Penn was meek and they
were meek, with respect to their Christian conscience. As a result of that one trial, juries in
English-speaking nations became independent of the will of judges, and because
Penn saw what could go wrong and wanted to put it right, we live in a
Commonwealth whose foundational laws allowed for people to follow their
consciences in religion and in civic life.
That’s why, not only here, but on a national level, Quakers and
Mennonites and Brethren and others are exempt from military service. That’s why United Methodists in Utah are not
forced to support the Mormon Temple, and why Jehovah’s Witnesses do not have to
say the pledge of allegiance to the flag.
There
are times and places it isn’t always easy to express that loyalty, but the meek
find ways. When I was in college, a
friend of mine inherited his grandfather’s record collection and started
listening to every record, one by one.
Eventually, he came to a recording of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony that
had been made in Berlin in 1942. The
conductor was Wilhelm Furtwangler, who was no friend of the Nazis, but remained
at his post throughout their rule. “You
have to hear this,” my friend told me, and he put the needle down at the
beginning of the “Ode to Joy”. It was
the oddest, yet maybe the best, rendition of it I have ever heard. It messed with Beethoven’s timing. There was no way that anyone in the hall
didn’t know how it was written, or what Furtwangler was doing, because there
was a point where he repeated a line that isn’t repeated in the score and then
held the last word, and held it and held it and held it, then a long rest
afterward. “Every cherub stands before
God,” they sang, “before God! Before
God! Before God!”[3]
There,
at the heart of an empire that was seeking to set one people above all others
and the control of one man over all that people, where that one man had been
trying to replace God’s name with his own wherever he could, the court
musician, as it were, led the imperial singers in these words:
“Joy, Daughter from
Elysium,
Your magic brings
together
What custom has sternly
divided.
All men shall become
brothers,
Wherever your gentle
wings hover.
Be embraced, you
millions!
This kiss is for the
whole world!
Brothers, above the
canopy of stars
Must dwell a loving
father.
Be embraced, you millions!
This kiss is for the
whole world!
Joy, beautiful spark of
the Divinity!
Daughter from Elysium!
Joy, beautiful spark of
the Divinity!
Spark of the Divinity!”[4]
In May of 1945, Furtwangler was relieved of his duties
when the Allies entered Berlin, but seven years later his name had been
cleared, and he spent the last two years of his life back at the podium where
he felt most at home.
“Blessed are the meek, for they shall
inherit the earth.”
[1]
Jim Forest, “Blessed Are the Meek” in The
Ladder of the Beatitudes (Orbis Books: Maryknoll, NY, 1999), 49-50.
[2]
See Paul Mark Sandler, “The Trial of William Penn” in The Daily Record, February 2, 2007.
http://www.shapirosher.com/pages/news/135/the-trial-of-william-penn
[4]
Translator unspecified; translation found at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symphony_No._9_%28Beethoven%29
.
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