The Power of Meekness

The Gift Nobody Wants

            Blessed are the meek,

            For they will inherit the earth.

                        —Matthew 5:5

Following the Call—chp. 7: THE MEEK (November 3rd)

A story or two. What’s in a word?  Meek together. So what? Your turn.

For indeed the devil recognizes the image of the King, he knows the weapons of Christ, whereby he was worsted. And what are these? Gentleness and meekness. For when on the mountain Christ overthrew and laid low the devil who was assaulting him, it was not by making it know that he was Christ, but he entrapped him by these sayings, he took him by gentleness, he turned him to flight by meekness.

—      John Chrysostom (from Following the Call)

A Story or Two

I begin with a couple of stories. When my wife was nine or ten, she was in charge of washing the dishes after supper. One evening she refused to do the dishes and stubbornly bolted off to her bedroom. Her father, a quiet man who was often gone from home on account of his job, finally went to her room, picked her up, and placed her right in front of the sink. “Now you do the dishes,” he told her, but she refused and stormed back to her bedroom, locking the door. A few minutes passed, and then a few more. She heard nothing. So she quietly opened her door, tiptoed down the hall, and peeked into the kitchen, where her father was doing the dishes. She immediately burst into tears and said how sorry she was. Her father never had to say another word.

Last week I was watching the national news, when a human interest story came on featuring a group of forty dads in Louisiana who took turns greeting students and walking the halls at the local high school. They called themselves “Dads on Duty.” They had finally had enough of the violent outbreaks among the students. They decided to take turns just being on campus. The result? No more violence. When asked why, the principal said: “A dad’s look, you know, is mighty powerful.”

Chrysostom said it well. When tempted by Satan, Jesus, king of the universe, simply relied on the truth of God’s word. No shouting match, no threats, just a word. The one who humbled himself and took on human flesh, becoming our servant, disarmed the evil one without lifting a fist or calling down a legion of angels. The power of meekness.  

What’s in a word? 

“Meekness” is one of the most misunderstood words in the English language. I won’t bore you with an in-depth biblical word study, but one thing is clear: meekness has nothing to do with being mousy or weak. In essence, it means strength under control. Toward God, it means submitting one’s will and power in full and complete trust and obedience to him. It means to receive his word and do his bidding. Or as Matthew Henry puts it, to be delivered into God’s word as into a mold. “Meekness softens the wax, that it may receive the impression of the seal, whether it be for doctrine or reproof, for correction or instruction in righteousness” (Meekness and Quietness of Spirit).

Toward others, meekness is the power to govern one’s passions, especially anger when it is provoked. Meekness enables one to exercise anger at the right time and in the right manner for the right reason. Quoting poet Robert Browning, William Barclay notes that the one who is meek is one who “knows well that it is good have a giant’s strength, but it is tyrannous to use it like a giant” (The Beatitudes and the Lord’s Prayer for Everyman). The meek act with gentleness when they have it in their power to act with severity.

In other words, the meek use their strength on behalf of others. They neither force the truth on others nor feel compelled to make history come out right. They are able to leave justice to God while living justly themselves. Those who are meek are strong enough to keep themselves in check and not be blown about by their passions or the passions of others, even if they can justify them as being “right.” In the end, they sacrifice themselves for the good of others. Christ standing before Pilate is a picture of true meekness. “He could not be bought or bullied,” writes E. Stanley Jones, “for he wanted nothing—nothing except to give his life for the very ones who were crucifying him. Here is the supreme strength—it possesses itself, and hence possesses the earth” (A Working Philosophy of Life).

Meek Together

The word meek in this Beatitude is plural. “The meek” is not the single, lonely individual. In Jesus’ community the meek belong together. When Jesus promises the earth itself to the meek, therefore, he isn’t thinking of divvying it up so that, in the words of James C. Howell, “each individual meek person can have a little slice of the pie.” No, a new family is birthed, “and the meek inherit the earth together as one family or not at all” (The Beatitudes for Today). When Jesus rules and reigns in our midst, we cease having to advance our own private agendas. Moreover, we don’t have to try to get ahead at the expense of others. In Jesus’ band of followers, an extended family comprised of mutual deference and humble kindness comes into being.

In this kind of fellowship, Jesus promises that the meek shall inherit the earth, or the land. They do not have to grab it or fight for it. They don’t have to own it either. The meek can enjoy it with one another without possessing it. Charles Spurgeon describes it this way:

There is a sense in which the meek do really inherit the whole earth. I have often felt, when I have been in a meek and quiet spirit, as if everything around belong to me. I have walked through a gentleman’s park, and I have been much obliged to him for keeping it in such order on purpose for me to walk through it. I have gone inside his house, and seen his picture gallery, and I have been grateful to him for buying such grand paintings, and I have hope that he would buy a few more so that I might see them when I came next time. I was glad that I had not to buy them, and to pay the servants to watch over them, and that everything was done for me. And I have sometimes looked from a hill, upon some far-reaching plain, or some quiet village, or some manufacturing town, crowded with houses and shops, and I have felt that they were all mine, although I had not the trouble of collecting the rents which people perhaps might not like to pay. I had only to look upon it all as the sun shone upon it, and then to look up to heaven, and say, “My Father, this is all thine; and, therefore, it is all mine; for I am an heir of God, and a joint heir with Jesus Christ.” (Spurgeon’s Sermons on the Sermon on the Mount)

So What?

I can’t help but think of all the recent talk and dismay over abusive, narcissistic leaders, especially in the church. If only we could recapture the gift of meekness. But meekness doesn’t apply only to pastors; it applies just as much to all the rest of us who are so easily star-struck by charismatic, self-assured leaders who cast before our eyes visions of the extraordinary. What impressed the religious leaders about the first church in Jerusalem? “When they saw the courage of Peter and John,” Luke writes, “and realized that they were unschooled, ordinary men, they were astonished and they took note that these men had been with Jesus” (Acts 4:13). A pretty good anecdote, in my mind, depicting the power of meekness. 

Your Turn

Why is meekness so repellent in our culture and society? I welcome your comments, opinions, questions, and personal experiences. Please click the little comment bubble below to leave a comment or see what others are saying.