Sermon Library
“Blessed Are the Meek”
Rev. Dr. Gregg R. Anderson
March 06, 2011
Service Theme: Transfiguration Sunday
Transfiguration Sunday March 6, 2011
Blessed Are the Meek
Humor
As I have recently revisited the Beatitudes, I have learned that they are more popular than I initially imagined. I think this is simply due to the scope of information available on the internet. In fact there is a T-shirt one can purchase on the internet which states, “Blessed are the Geek, for they shall internet the earth.” There are other T-shirts, bumper stickers and sayings about the Beatitudes. Another is, “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth – less 40 percent inheritance tax.” And I like this one, “The meek shall inherit the earth – if that is okay with everyone.”
Human, Humility, Humor
Humor and the third Beatitude have something in common. It is most common to compare the word meek with the word humble. “Blessed are the humble, for they shall inherit the earth.” This could just as easily be the English translation either from the Aramaic or Greek. And so now I want us to look at three words in keeping with this third Beatitude. The words are humble, human, and humor. There is a significant interconnection with these three words. They all start with the letters “hum.” Without going into the intricacies of the etymology, “hum” essentially means lowness, lowly, ground, or earthly. Human means a man or homo of the earth, especially versus beings or gods of the higher heavens. Therefore human means a man of the lowly earth. Humility or “humilus” means a man who is lowly and minimizes significance. And humor means a lowly man as in “hum” combined with “umor” which means a certain state of mind.
As we know, humor is based on simply being human or the foibles of humanity. We make fun of our humanness and it is called humor and it can generate humility.
Human, humility and humor are intricately inter-connected and there is a reason and a truth about this similarity and inter-connectiveness. To truly be human is to realize our lowliness and be genuinely humble and humor allows us to really be who we are and persevere. The great thinker G. K. Chesterton coined the phrase, “Angels can fly because they take themselves lightly.” To truly know our humanness is to be humble and to laugh at ourselves or take ourselves lightly.
Humility and Humor in the Work Place
These qualities have very real applications in the real world. Steve Tobak, a business consultant, for example, provides a number of typical leadership qualities. Then he states that there are two qualities which really distinguish a leader in the business place are humility and humor. These two qualities are like the icing on the cake which makes leaders extra ordinary, likable and desirable.
Steve Tobak asks “Why are humor and humility so important in top executives? He answers, “Simply put, these are leadership traits because they attract and resonate with all kinds of people. As such, they facilitate an executive’s ability to build a sense of community and culture. You know, one company with common attributes executing in lockstep to accomplish common goals. Also, people who lack a sense of humor and humility often tend to be overly self involved, self important, egotistical, narcissistic, and dysfunctional. At least I’ve found that to be true in my experience. As a result, they may operate effectively in a narrow range of conditions, but as circumstances inevitably change, they eventually self-destruct. I guess we can summarize by saying that senior executives with a sense of humor and humility are probably more adaptive to a broad range of changing conditions and are more likely to be successful over the long haul than those who lack those traits.
Don Davidson, our chairman of the Board, and I recently attended a lecture on leadership sponsored by the Aspen Institute. The speaker was a professor from the Wharton School of Business named Michael Useem. He solicited a number of leadership qualities from the audience. One in which he added was to be a nice person and identify authentically with other people. He mentioned Ronald Reagan as an example. Humility is always a primary trait in simply being a nice person.
Humanness, humility and humor are intricately connected; etymologically, biologically, psychologically, sociologically, and theologically. Humor brings out our humanness and humility. Humor attracts us to one another. We identify with humor. Humor and humility break down barriers. Blessed are the meek has everything to do with being humble, human, and humorous.
Aramaic
I met with a minister friend in Denver this past week, Toni Cook. She is a person who has gone through a great deal of personal loss over recent years; her parents, her husband, her sister and a close uncle. Through all of this Toni would still look at the good things in life. She would always describe life as it is, but end her notes and emails with the phrase, “Life is good.” Toni is real, authentic, and humble.
Toni has also led me to a book by Neil Douglas Klotz entitled Prayers of the Cosmos: Reflections on the Original Meaning of Jesus’ Words. A significant emphasis of this book is to look at the original language in which Jesus spoke which was undoubtedly Aramaic. What Jesus probably first said when he cited this beatitude was Tubwayhun l’makikhe d’hinnon nertun arha.
L’makikhe (mah-kee-key) could be translated as “the meek,” from the Greek, but the Aramaic would be more like “gentle” or “humble.” Behind these words, the old roots carry the meaning of one who has softened that which is unnaturally hard within, who has submitted or surrendered to God, or who has liquefied rigidities, heaviness, especially moral heaviness, and the interior pain of repressed desires. Nertun can mean “inherit,” but in the broad sense of receiving from the universal source of strength and reciprocity. In this case, softening the rigid places within leaves us more open to the real source of power – God acting through all of nature, all earthiness.
To Soften What Is Rigid Within
This third Beatitude could be translated, “Healthy are those who have softened what is rigid within; they shall receive physical vigor and strength from the earth and the universe. I really appreciate this phrase, “softened what is hard or rigid within.” To be meek or humble is to soften what is hard and rigid within ourselves. I also like the phrase “to liquefy heaviness such as moral heaviness.”
Right after Jesus states the lines of the Beatitudes, he says, “Think not that I have come to abolish the law and the prophets; I have come not to abolish them but to fulfill them.” Much of the rest of the Sermon on the Mount is placing the laws of the Hebrews in a new perspective or to realign the original intentions of the laws and commandments. Jesus is saying that there is something more important than just following all the rules and becomes condensed in loving God and your neighbor as yourself. The rules remain, but the attitude is changed.
Think about this phrase, “softening what is rigid within.” We might think about other people who just always seem rigid and even litigious. They are usually not much fun and certainly not very human or humane. Actually, Jesus would probably not ask us to do that. He would ask us to first look at the log in our own eye before we look at the speck in another person’s eye, as he does later in the Sermon on the Mount. So, what might we soften that is rigid within ourselves? Think about this for a moment.
Think about those things you have said to your self that it always has to be a certain way or expectations that you have always had about another person or loved one or about ourselves. Think about our own guilt or remorse, anger or frustrations. Can we melt it down, let it go? Blessed are those who have softened what is rigid within, for they shall be gifted with the blessing of the earth.
Thoughts from Toni Cook
When we can soften ourselves within, we can be porous to allow the gifts of nature and people to enter our lives. We can move from defense to openness. Toni Cook states that “Inheriting the earth in an Aramaic sense is not about possessing a piece of property; it’s about receiving strength, it’s receiving our natural inheritance from nature, from all of the formed reality around us. On a simple level, we experience this whenever we walk in nature with a quiet mind and an open heart, we receive the strength of nature around us. Now is the blessedly ripe time to soften that which is overly rigid within, to absorb and to receive the healing power from all of nature, from the whole cosmos, which is our natural inheritance.”
Toni suggests that as we breathe in may we feel the blessing and the energy all around us as our natural inheritance. And each time we breathe out may we allow ourselves to soften a bit more and release any rigidity within us that is keeping us from receiving this healing wholeness of the earth. We can be dissolving as we breathe in and out and return into the right rhythm with the earth and God. This sounds like a good meditation thought, but I suspect we can apply it to our daily lives in various ways, both metaphorically and literally.
The Beatitude Window
As we have examined this third Beatitude more closely, let us look more closely at our third Beatitude window in this Chapel. The artist Jean Jacques Duval has chosen a Ram to represent meekness. We may typically think of the Ram as a strong animal with its bold curved horns. It has often been considered as such through history and used as a strong image. Today we have football teams and trucks named after the Ram. I strongly suspect the artist knew that to be genuinely meek, humble and soft, one needs to be quite centered and stable within one’s own soul and psyche. Humility is an inner sign of strength. Then Duval surrounds the Ram with a branches and flowers with a violet above the Ram’s head. The windows are all interspersed with golden sunlight and bright blue waters further representing the gifts of nature.
I suspect it was the artist who described, “In the third Beatitude window, the ram’s head in the lower portion symbolizes the strength of the ram in the flock, but which remains obedient to the shepherd. Meekness means a disciplined life: a gentleness in strength. The wreath of flowers, including a small violet above the ream’s head, is representative of the beauty of the earth which is God’s gift to man.”
Amen.
Gregg Anderson
Aspen Chapel
http://www.aspenchapel.org