Meekness is the New Power

Blessed are the Meek for they shall inherit the Land

This first week of the new year has focused on the struggle for power and the question of what is real strength. It’s been exhilarating for some, terrifying for others… and even within those categories, the reasons have been vastly different. One thing is certain: each side sees itself as the hero and the other side as the enemy. Each sees itself as righteous and the other as demonic. Each considers itself the victim who will fight to be victorious in this uncivil struggle for national culture. 

Those folks sitting on the hillside while Jesus of Nazareth spoke — they felt victimhood oozing from their very pores. Rome permeated their every bi-way and alleyway. Soldiers kept the peace, but not their peace. Roman authorities and those working for Rome required their share of the meager profits from a land that most farm workers couldn’t even afford to own. 

Inherit the Land? Who owns the Land in the first place? Is it the wealthy absentee landlord, profiting from the sweat of others while providing little in return? Is it the manager who is responsible for achieving maximum profit with minimal output? Is it the dayworker with no responsibility but to show up with ready hands that will return home dirtied and broken? Or is it the governor, keeping a tight leash on the people of the Land so that even higher authorities don’t step in? Does the Land belong to the local king, to the religious overseers, or to the pagan occupiers? Does Might make Right? Is it true that to the Victors belong the spoils?

Jesus announces that the Land ultimately goes to the Meek. I confess that as often as I read this, I focus on the Meek. But Jesus’ listeners focused on the Land. In the midst of the quest for power, in this contest of strength (whether of brawn or brain), Jesus says that it isn’t a matter of conquest or winning. It is a matter of rightful, inherited ownership. And guess whom the law sides with: the Meek. The Meek, really??

It didn’t make any more sense to those sitting on the hillside, any more than it makes sense to us. We watch an attempted government takeover (or take-back, depending on which side a person believes) enacted before us in living color via TVs and other media. Either way, the  motive was Power. With banners waved in Jesus’ name, the goal was Power. 

I admit that what when I read that Meekness is the answer to what has been occurring in our nation, it makes me uneasy. It’s irrational. It sounds like giving up. It stands in vivid contrast to everything I’ve ever been taught about the nature of strength. Power and might and winners and losers, victors and victims – isn’t this what life and the survival of the fittest is about?  Only the strong survive… but what is it that defines strength?

Undoubtedly, this is the most misunderstood, the most maligned Beatitude that there is.  It’s like flying inverted (my apologies to those who are pilots.) From what I understand, in normal flight, if you want to go down (in the direction of your feet), you push the control forward. If you want the plane to go up (in the direction of the top of the airplane), you pull back. But what happens when you are flying inverted? It confounds the senses, but a skilled pilot knows that the perception of “up” and “down” has also been inverted. Controlling the plane needs a different response that takes the “new up” and the “new down” into account. To insist on responding as if one is upright can mean death. 

Jesus is saying that it’s mankind who is unknowingly flying inverted — and what may seem like climbing up is driving mankind towards a violent crash. Real power and strength are not what they seem. The real landowners will take possession of the Land, not by force but by refusing to behave forcefully. It doesn’t make sense. It violates our perception of up and down. 

Welcome, Mary, to the second Beatitude. It’s going to be a hard month and I’d better get busy.