“Beats
and Beatitudes”
4.
An Inheritance for All of Us
The Reverend Thomas A. Sweet
Text:
“Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.”
-Matthew 5:5
As
we read through the Beatitudes of Jesus, it soon becomes obvious that the
blessings announced in them are not to be found in the conditions and attributes
per se that the beatitudes describe, but in the gifts that come as a consequence
of them. Now I realize that is about
as obtuse an opening sentence as a sermon can have, so here is what I mean:
“Blessed
are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”
We said last week that being poor in
spirit means being available moment by moment to respond to the call of God’s
Spirit in and on our lives even when that summons may ask us to defy long held
traditions and our own and other peoples’ expectations.
Being poor in spirit requires a willingness in us to venture into places
and circumstances we never imagined going, but going anyway if God’s Spirit
asks it of us. Being poor in spirit
means trusting the ways of God to bring renewal to the world more than falling
prey to the seeming inevitability of the present practice and arrangement of
things. My point is that the
blessing is not that we are poor in spirit for to be so can be laborious and
lonely. The blessing is that those
who live in such a manner find themselves immersed in the work and wonder of the
kingdom of heaven (which is Matthew’s name for the
Or,
take as another example, “Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be
comforted.” The blessing does
not come in the mourning exactly. Rather,
blessing comes to those who are willing to enter deeply into the pain and pathos
of loss because they then will find themselves somehow comforted.
Walter Brueggemann, the eminent Old Testament theologian, contends that
it is only grief that permits newness. So
perhaps the comfort that comes is the experience that after a dark night in our
lives, there is given to us again a dawn that is different, but no less
beautiful, than the ones before the loss. In
any case, it is the comfort made possible by authentic mourning that blesses us.
“Blessed
are the peacemakers,” Jesus said, “for they will be called children
of God.” Here, the blessing is
not to be found so much in doing the work of peacemaking for such activity opens
us often to the taunt and ridicule of those who prefer the vainglories of might
and militarism, of those who call peacemakers naïve, impractical, unrealistic,
dreamy, and dangerous. Peacemakers
hardly ever are popular. The
blessing comes in our deep down knowing that to be a maker of peace is to be a
chip off the old Divine Block.
And
then there is the beatitude we are going to consider a bit today:
“Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.”
Of all the beatitudes, this one might be the hardest for the most
people to swallow. Not many people
revel in being called meek. The
sound of the word itself seems to suggest that meekness is weakness.
The satiricist J. Upton Dickson once wrote a book about meekness entitled
Cower Power. He also
said he wanted to found a group of submissive people that he would call
DOORMATS, an acronym standing for “Dependent Organization of Really Meek and
Timid Souls” – if no one objected. Their
motto was to be: “The meek will inherit the earth – if that is okay with
everybody.” Their group symbol
would be a yellow traffic light.”
But
people who confuse meekness with weakness are grossly mistaken.
Would you like a definition of meekness, or, better yet, a picture?
Jesus said of himself, “Come unto me, all who are weary and carrying
heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take
my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am meek and humble in heart, and you
will find rest for your souls” (Matthew 11:28-29).
Surely no one thinks of Jesus as weak, he whose life and ministry
birthed a movement still venerable, vital, and viable two thousand years later.
Compare
that to our own country, two hundred thirty-two years old by my count, that is
these days not out, but surely in many ways down.
Stephen Edington, a Unitarian Universalist minister and the author of a
book entitled The Beat Face of God, writes of having dinner with a
French Canadian friend in the months following the 9/11 attacks.
Here is what Edington writes about that conversation:
“English
is not Jacque’s original language. But
since his English is far better than my French, our conversation was in English.
Jacques reached for words he hoped would adequately represent his
feelings as he expressed to me the shock and horror he felt as the terrorist
attacks took place. He reached for
words he hoped would convey his deep remorse over the Americans who perished on
that horrific day. It seemed he
needed to say these things to an American, and I was providing him the
opportunity to do so. Then he
struggled even harder, to the point of stretching out his hands into the air as
if her were trying to pull the right words from somewhere beyond him:
‘But…Steve…do you know…do you see…you (meaning the United
States) are so rich…you are so powerful…?’
That was as much as he could do…What he was trying to say to me had to
do with the image our country projects, in large measure, to the world.
We do look like a nation that has gained much of the world while losing
much of its soul.”
That
may be a hard word for us to hear, but our refusal to heed the cacophony of
voices singing that same somber song could some day spell the end of the
American experiment. “The earth
is the Lord’s,” chants the psalmist, “The earth is the
Lord’s, and the fullness thereof; the world, and all who live in it…”
David
Amram was a contemporary of Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, Lawrence Ferlinghetti
and the other instigating members of the beat culture of the late 1940s and 50s.
He wrote of the “Beats” that “We were true believers in the
sanctity of life and the miracle of being here, knowing that there (is) a
Greater Power somewhere. We also
knew that no matter how crazy things got it was of the utmost importance to
remember to honor each and every person on earth…None of us felt that the
spiritual life was anything other than a natural reflection of how to look at
things as they really (are), try to understand why we are here, and to do what
we could and should to honor that Higher Power.”
Honoring
that “Higher Power” whom we know as the God of Jesus stands as a pretty fair
description, I think, of what it means to be “meek.”
And, as Amram and the Beats remind us, we honor that Higher Power by “honoring
each and every person on earth” and, of course, the earth itself.
Our nation is served best when we formulate our policies and take our
actions with that principle in mind. The
“national interest” is too small a rationale on which to devise our
political and strategic decisions. And
our own relationships with other people only really can thrive in an atmosphere
of mutuality. We might have the
power to lord it over other nations or individuals, but we do not have the
authority. “The earth is the
Lord’s and the fullness thereof; the world and all who live in it.”
The earth is an inheritance for all of us that comes to us through
meekness without which increasing calamity and chaos are certain.
Heather
McHugh, one of
A
Physics
When you get down to it, Earth
has our own great ranges
of feeling – Rocky, Smoky, Blue –
and a heart that can melt stones.
The still pools fill with sky.
as if aloof, and we have eyes
for all of this – and more, for Earth’s
reminding moon. We too are
ruled
by such attractions – spun and swaddled,
rocked and lent a light. We
run
our clocks on wheels and our trains
on time. But all the while we
want
to love each other endlessly – not only for
a hundred years, not only six feet up and down.
We want the suns and moons of silver
in ourselves, not only counted coins in a cup.
The whole
idea of love was not to fall. And
neither was the
the whole idea of God. We put
him well
above ourselves, because we meant,
in time, to measure up.
Meekness
is not about asserting ourselves, but assenting and ascending to the ways of God
and making them our ways in the world – nations, peoples, people, persons,
you, me – all of us. The blessing
of so living is that we shall inherit a world like unto heaven on earth.
Amen.