"The Source of Inheritance"
The strength in meekness
Sermon Preached by
The Rev. Dr. Andrew Stirling
Sunday, September 26, 2004
Text: Matthew 5:1-12
It will go down in the annals of sports history as one of the greatest collapses by an athlete of all time. It was the day when Greg Norman went into the final round of the 1996 Masters Golf Tournament with a record six-shot lead over the rest of the field, only to completely and totally self-destruct. He shot a 78 and the Englishman, Nick Faldo, shot a 67 and won by five shots. Everyone who watched felt an incredible sense of pain, it was almost too much to bear. But there is a lesson in this: Never underestimate an Englishman when it comes to playing golf. (And any of you who play with me be warned - someday a similar event might occur!)
We all felt Norman's pain and agony. A few days later The New York Times ran an interview with him that we can all learn from:
After the debacle the golf star says he experienced the most touching few days of his life. People from all over the world contacted him with words of encouragement. The mail ran four times the volume of what Norman received when he won the British Open in 1993. ”˜It's changed my total outlook on life and on people,' Norman said. ”˜There's no need for me to be cynical anymore. My wife has actually said to me, ”˜You know, dear, maybe this is better than winning the green jacket. Maybe now you understand for the first time the importance of it all.' ”˜I never thought,' said Norman, ”˜that I could reach out and touch people like that. And the extraordinary thing is that I did it by losing.'
My friends, the virtues of life are not always predicated upon success and achievement and fulfillment. Many times the greatest lessons that we learn are derived from the exact opposite. That is why when I read this morning's passage from the Gospel of Matthew, time and time again I realize that Jesus is speaking to those who understand that virtue is not always predicated on success or glory. Sometimes there is a blessedness that comes to us that transcends what would appear to be the difficulties and the challenges of life and of being a disciple.
Yet I also realize that these words of Jesus are counter-intuitive to the spirit of the age. In fact, what Jesus is saying runs contrary to most people's when it comes to the nature of blessedness. Most people in today's society believe that the blessed are those who are always right, that the blessed are those who have self-fulfilment, that the blessed are those who are the rulers, who have the ability to change events, who have power. We think that the blessed are those who are strong, those who enjoy life, those who are popular. In fact, we are bombarded daily, even in television programs, by the perceived success of such people. And when we see their successful lives it makes us envy what they have and what we do not have. It seems that they are the blessed and those who do not have these things are somehow the non-blessed. The spirit of the world grasps us at our throats and says, “Blessed are the successful.”
No wonder, then, that with that zeitgeist, prevalent in the minds of so many of us, when we read the words of the Beatitudes we are confused. Not only are we confused, but we think that Jesus must have it all wrong, particularly when you take a line that I want to emphasize this morning: “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.” The world reads something like that in the spirit of the day and it cannot comprehend it. It has in mind what I like to call “the Uriah Heep complex.”
All of you I'm sure have read or seen at some time David Copperfield. Uriah Heep was that character who was obsequious, capricious, clammy, anaemic and weak; when we think of the meek we think of the Uriah Heeps of this world. We listen to the words of Jesus and say, “Surely, Jesus, no, the Uriah Heeps of this world do not inherit the earth. What on earth are you speaking about?” It seems to be all wrong. But here we misread Jesus, we misunderstand what he is saying. We haven't read the signs properly.
It reminds me of a priest and a minister who were hammering in a sign at the side of the road that said, “The end is near. Turn around before it's too late.” Some guy drove up in a sports car with his friend, looked at the sign and cried out, “You're a bunch of religious maniacs,” and kept driving. All of a sudden there was a terrible crash and a huge splash. The priest turned to the minister and said, “Maybe we should just have said, ”˜Bridge out.'”
The world listens to the words of Jesus and dismisses them. “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.” The man is mad. What did Jesus really mean and was he mad after all? The word that is actually in the Greek text to describe meekness is the word “parootes,” and that word has great leverage and a great history within Greek literature. Particularly amongst the philosophers, parootes was considered one of the great virtues. Aristotle in fact, in writing on parootes, on this meekness, said that it is somewhere in between having a bad temper and a spirit of incompetence. It's a mean somewhere between those.
But that's not what Jesus meant by parootes. When he is talking about meekness he gives us an example from his own life of what he really means. He says in Matthew 11:28: “Come to me all you who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am parootes” - in other words I am gentle and humble in heart - and you will find rest for your souls.
Now, the same Greek word is used there as is used in the Beatitudes. In other words, it is to have an humble and gentle heart. For Jesus, meekness is not something that is a characteristic. It is not something to which we aspire. It is the attitude of those who in an humble recognition of God know their purpose and place in life.
Paul goes on to say in the Book of Galatians, Chapter Five that being meek, being of a humble and gentle heart, is actually a gift of the Spirit of God. It is not a virtue to which we somehow ascend, as the philosophers say. Rather, it is something that God gives us and when we have received it we are blessed.
Do not misunderstand. Having a gentle and humble heart does not mean that we become passive. It does not mean that we cease to be strong. On the contrary, Jesus said, “I will take your yoke on my shoulders because I am humble and gentle and meek. I am willing to carry the burdens of the world. I am willing to suffer for others. I am willing to bear up, lift up those who are in need, because I am humble of spirit.” Because, before God he knows that service is more important than any other source of blessedness. His meekness was strong because it was meekness for the sake of others. That is what God recognizes.
Not only are we to be humble and gentle of spirit, humble before God, willing to serve others, but notice Jesus goes on to say, “They will inherit the earth.” On an initial reading I thought Jesus had it all wrong. I look around the world and see the proud inheriting the earth. They are the ones who seem to be the beneficiaries, not the meek and the humble servants. Who recognizes the meek, really, if the truth were known?
But did Jesus have it wrong? W.E. Dubois, an American writer, once made this comment when he looked at the world and saw the need for civil and human rights in his own country: “If there is anybody in this land who thoroughly believes that the meek shall inherit the earth, they have not often let their presence be known.”
In other words, on a superficial level it appears that Jesus got it wrong. But did he? I don't think so. Because it seems to me that, rather than the proud possessing the earth the earth is possessing them. Their whole approach to life is based on the values and mores of the world and those are deceiving. They drive people to believe that they have to possess and accumulate in order to enjoy and appreciate what the world has to offer and therefore, deep down, they are never really ever at peace. They are never, really, ever able to say, “I now enjoy what God has given me,” because they are consumed with themselves and by their ability to consume. The world, the earth, has possessed them.
For example, do you have to own a Broadwood or a Stradivarius to appreciate good music? Must you possess a Rembrandt or a Group of Seven painting to appreciate the glory and beauty of art? Do you need a magnificent library with all the great leatherbound volumes in your house in order to appreciate great literature? No, but we think that we do. We think that we have to possess the earth, but really it's the spirit of the earth that's possessing us.
A couple of weeks ago this came home to me when a friend invited me to the opening of a new Mercedes-Benz dealership on Eglinton Avenue. He said, “Andrew, you've just got to go to this with me. You'll thoroughly enjoy yourself. There's a vehicle there that you've just got to see.”
So I took my friend up on the invitation and sure enough, the car that I have always wanted to see was there in the showroom: a Mercedes-Benz SLR. It'll do 220 miles an hour, costs around $600,000, does zero to 60 in about four seconds. It had its own room - I'm not kidding - it had its own showroom in glass on an elevated platform. I asked if it was possible for me to look at the car more closely. I must have looked particularly affluent that day, because the salesperson said, “By all means, you can go and look at it.”
My friend said to me: “I don't think he knows who you are.”
I said: “No, and I will murder you if you tell him. I want to see this car.”
I went in and touched the tires and turned the steering wheel, and I looked at the engine and caressed the paintwork and thought, “All ministers need a 220 mile an hour car to get from Leaside to Timothy Eaton Memorial Church.” I loved every minute of it. As we left my friend said, “Doesn't it depress you that you or I will never own that car?”
I said, “No, I just love it for what it is. It's like a piece of art and I've touched it.”
You don't have to possess something to appreciate it. You don't have to have it possess you, either, because once it does you never enjoy anything else. But the world thinks that it is the proud who inherit the earth. Uh-uh! The earth has inherited them.
Jesus goes on to say, “Notice that the meek, those who are gentle and humble, those who are caring, those who recognize the sovereignty of God, they shall inherit the earth.” It's a future reality. And by the death of the Meek One himself he started an era that will be consummated when the meek will inherit the earth, rather than be possessed by it. As the Son of God, as the Meek One, he knew and lived with nothing, owned nothing and, as I said a couple of Sundays ago, “lived nowhere” yet the Kingdom of God is his. And so it is for the meek.
Those of you who listened to Stephen Lewis this past week, I'm sure were all touched by the stories he told of the devastating impact that HIV/AIDS has had on a generation, and what terrible costs are being borne by families and economies and nations. On a personal note, I know of a family where I used to minister in the Eastern Cape of South Africa. One of the parents contracted AIDS through a transfusion and spread it to the other through sexual contact. They had young children who were left with nothing when their parents died. In fact, they'd never made out a will because they'd never had anything to pass on as an inheritance to these children, nothing whatsoever.
Even worse, the bondspeople came around when they realized that the house hadn't been paid for, took it away from the children and put it on the market. The children were left homeless. The local church, realizing the plight of these children who belonged to their Sunday School, prayed about what they should do, for they were not an affluent congregation by any means. This was in one of the poorest parts of that whole region, yet together the members of that church made a commitment and contacted the grandparents of these children who agreed to look after them, and the church went to the auction and bought back the house, so the children and grandparents would have somewhere to live.
My friends, the world has millions of stories like that on all continents. For those of us who have what the earth has to give, maybe in meekness and humility, maybe out of a self-giving love we can prop up those who do not, and place them on our shoulders. That's what Wednesday night was all about. That is what the Christian journey and faith are all about. That is what stewardship is all about.
My friends, I pray for you a spirit of meekness, an humble and gentle spirit that before a living God might take on its shoulders the needs of the world. Whatever the spirit of the world, we know that the ones who in the end will inherit it are the meek. Amen.
This is a verbatim transcription of the original sermon.