O, the Joy of Being Down and Out
O, the Joy of Being Down and Out by Rev. L. John Gable
July 17, 2022
As we launch in to the adventure of our study of the Sermon on the Mount (and I heard your auditory gasp last week when I said we were going to take 16 weeks to walk through this most essential teaching of Jesus) you may remember me saying that this teaching is radical and life-changing if we will slow down long enough to think deeply about what it is that Jesus is saying to us about life as it one day will be in the Kingdom of God, life as God intends it to be lived, beginning here and now, for those who call themselves His followers. Recall, John Stott refers to the Sermon on the Mount as “the manifesto of the Christian counter-culture.” If we want to make a difference in our world for Christ, which I believe we do, we can begin right here.
Having heard that reference one of you sent me a quote this past Tuesday from Henri Nouwen’s beautiful little book, The Wounded Healer. Echoing this same sentiment as to the radical nature of Jesus’ teaching, Nouwen writes, “It is my growing conviction that in Jesus the mystical and the revolutionary ways are not opposites, but two sides of the experiential transcendence. (By mystical, I believe, he means those who seek change by using spiritual resources and revolutionary through social engagement and activism.) He writes, “I am increasingly convinced that conversion is the individual equivalent of revolution. Therefore, every real revolutionary is called to be a mystic at heart, and one who walks the mystical way is called to unmask the illusory quality of human society.
“Mysticism and revolution are two aspects of the same attempt to bring about radical change. Mystics cannot prevent themselves from becoming social critics, since in self-reflection they will discover the roots of a sick society. Similarly, revolutionaries cannot avoid facing their own human condition, since in the midst of their struggle for a new world they will find that they are also facing their own reactionary fears and false ambitions.” So well spoken by Henri Nouwen in The Wounded Healer.
Tab has a long history of merging these two approaches to change through an evangelical witness from the pulpit and an active commitment to and engagement in the community, which when practiced faithfully together produces the desired affect both in individual lives and in society. Having come from years of ministry in a suburban setting I wasn’t quite sure how to do ministry in this urban setting, so just months in to it I remember asking one of the local pastors for advice. He simply told me, “Keep living in to the Sermon on the Mount.”
According to Harvard professor Harvey Cox, “The words of the Sermon on the Mount are the most luminous, most quoted, most analyzed, most contested, the most influential moral and religious discourse in all of human history. This may sound like an overstatement, but it is not.” That being said, however, these may also be among the best known statements of Jesus, yet the least understood and obeyed. Why? Because they are radical, counter-cultural, counter-intuitive to our way of thinking.
Consider this, Jesus says, “Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.” Those words can sound utterly ridiculous, or at least terribly insensitive. It is shocking to think of the joy of sorrow, the gladness of grief, the bliss of being broken-hearted (Barclay). Anyone who has experienced any kind of profound loss or heart-piercing grief would cry out at the callousness of such a statement, so what could Jesus possibly mean?
As we look to apply this Beatitude to our lives, what is it that we grieve or mourn over? In what circumstances of life does God promise His comfort?
We think first of the grief we experience in the death of a loved one. Grief is our natural, God-given, necessary response to loss whether that be the loss of someone or something we love: a person, an opportunity, an ability. I believe many of us have been living in a season of mourning these past two plus years as we have suffered the grief and disappointment of missing out on doing that which typically brings us great joy: attending weddings and graduations and worship; the compounded grief of denied visits with ailing loved ones and limited seating at funerals; and the forced or reluctant separation from family and friends in times of joy and sorrow. Grief is our natural response to loss, and there is a certain comfort that comes when we recognize our loss and remember the love that it represents. In those seasons we draw on the deep resources of our faith and discover the comfort which God promises. I can’t tell you how many people have said to me in the midst of difficulty or grief, “I don’t know how people make it without faith.” All I can do is agree with them. No, we do not celebrate our grief, but there is a blessedness in discovering anew God’s peace and presence and comfort, even in the midst of the valley of the shadow of death. As Neville Talbot writes, “There is comfort in knowing that when you come to the bottom there is God.”
There is another kind of grief we should be experiencing and that is in response to what we see happening in our world, our nation, this community. Our hearts should be broken by the warring of nations, the violence that pervades our communities, the injustice and inequity, the hatred, prejudice and racism that exists between the persons simply because of the color of their skin, their nation of origin, the zip code in which they live. This Beatitude becomes radical and revolutionary when it causes us to consider that we are not living life in the just and equitable way God desires us to live, and the grief and discomfort we experience when we come to that realization should then move us to do something about it. Using the Sermon on the Mount as his text, Dr. King once explained, “When I went to Montgomery as a pastor, I had not the slightest idea I would become involved in a crisis in which non-violent resistance would be applicable. I neither started the protest nor suggested it. I simply responded to the call of the people for a spokesman. When the protest began, my mind, consciously or unconsciously, was driven back to the Sermon on the Mount with its sublime teaching on love.” His recognition of the broken condition of his community and world moved him to action. As Henri Nouwen suggests, “the mystic and the revolutionary are two sides of the same coin” as each call for change
That concept then becomes even more pronounced as we consider a third reason we should be mourning, as we consider the depth of our own brokenness and sin. Of course, we mourn the death of a loved one or suffer the disappointment of a lost opportunity. Of course, we should mourn the ways of world that lead to violence and hatred and injustice, but do we consider often enough the condition of our own souls? Perhaps not. I have oft repeated the story of the time G.K. Chesterton was listening to a radio broadcast in London when the commentator asked rhetorically, “What’s wrong with this world?” Chesterton called in and said, “I am.”
We will consider this in greater detail as we make our way through our study of the Sermon on the Mount, but as we look deep within our own hearts we discover the source of so much of that which ails us, individually, as a community, a nation and the world. One of my gleanings was “at their core all issues are theological”, and that particularly so when it comes to what is broken within us. As we consider seriously the depth and pervasiveness of our sin and the darkness of our souls we must mourn our spiritual condition, and in so doing we open ourselves to our need for repentance and forgiveness. Like we read last week, “Blessed are you who are poor in spirit” for you know your need for God, so “Blessed are you who mourn”, for you know your need for a Savior. You know your need for the forgiveness of Jesus Christ, for He alone is our only true source of comfort in this life and the next.
The third Beatitude is not so much shocking as it is confusing, seemingly impractical and certainly counter-cultural. “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.” Make a list of the 100 personality traits you would most expect to find in the world’s great conquerors or the most successful entrepreneurs and my guess is not one of us would include meekness. Yet, Jesus says it is the meek who will ultimately inherit the earth.
Years ago J. Upton Dickson said he was writing a book titled, Cower Power. This is the same fellow who founded a group for submissive people which he appropriately gave the moniker, DOORMATS, an acronym for “Dependent Organization Of Really Meek And Timid Souls” They claim this Beatitude as their motto: “The meek shall inherit the earth – if there are no objections.”
In a world that appears to be dominated by the bold, the brash, the bully, we have come to expect the truly meek to get nowhere other than bowled over and pushed aside. Meekness is not a quality we would expect to find in anyone attempting to make a way or to make a difference in the world; yet it is exactly this quality that Jesus commends to us as we are fashioned for life in the Kingdom of God.
Perhaps part of the problem is we have misunderstood what it truly means to be meek. We tend to associate meekness with weakness, submission, spinelessness, an inability to stand up for ourselves or anyone else, but that is not what true meekness means at all; rather it speaks of gentleness and humility. Instead of being powerless, real meekness is associated with strength that is kept in check and is under control. William Barclay explains meekness as the “mean between two opposite extremes.” It is the halfway point between being too angry and never being angry at all. It is exactly the right proportion, held in perfect check. It means being angry at the right time for the right reasons in the right proportion. Seen in this light, meekness is the characteristic of controlled strength. It is, to use a good Presbyterian phrase, “all things in moderation.” So, perhaps gentle or humble might be a more helpful word for us to use to help us better understand this Beatitude, “Blessed are the gentle, the humble, for they shall inherit the earth.”
You know I am a great admirer of Abraham Lincoln and one of the things I admire most about him is this characteristic we now might call meekness. He had the remarkable ability to be extraordinarily gentle with people who served under him or came to him for help. Throughout his presidency, with the weight of the nation torn by war on his shoulders, he was unfairly criticized not only by newspapers and the public but also by those closest to him in his own cabinet. He could have flexed his presidential muscle and humiliated his detractors, but, time and time again, he gently, humbly, respectfully addressed their criticisms without anger or malice. It was not that he was too weak to act or too timid to rebuke; rather his meekness was an indicator of the true strength of his character.
As followers of Jesus we are called to be gentle in spirit, humble toward God and loving and respectful toward others. These are qualities which the world can neither know nor understand, and regrettably qualities which are becoming increasingly more rare in our civic discourse and even in our everyday dealings with one another; yet these reflect the character of Christ within us. I am convinced that if we were to be more committed to modeling meekness in our everyday lives people would sit up and take notice. “There is something different about you, what is it?” We could simply point to Jesus, who referred to Himself as being “meek and lowly in heart”, and no one has ever held such power and strength as He.
How is it then that the meek are going to inherit the earth? It certainly won’t be by brute force or hostile take-over; rather it will be by trusting in the steadfast promises of God to work His purposes out as we seek to do justice, love mercy and walk humbly with God. The meek will inherit the earth only because we belong to Christ and “the earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof.” We who belong to Him and seek to live by His Kingdom ways will be given a “two-fer” when the Kingdom comes in its fullness; not only will we be given the reward we call heaven but the earth will be thrown in as well. On that day, when the kingdoms of this world become the Kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ, the earth will not belong to the rich and the powerful regardless of how much they barter and trade and fight over it, but to the meek, the gentle, the humble for this is our inheritance in Christ, not by might but by faith.
These are the promises of God which are given to us and to all who put their trust in Christ. As we read in the book of Revelation, one day God will create a new heaven and a new earth, and its inhabitants will be those who “have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb…For the Lamb, in the midst of the throne, will be their shepherd, and He will guide them to springs of living water; and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.” So, blessed are you who mourn, for you shall be comforted with the true and eternal comfort of God. Blessed are you who are meek for you shall inherit the new heaven and the new earth. This is the blessing promised by God when He finally has His way with us, so let us begin living in to that promise now.
Rev. L. John Gable
Tabernacle Presbyterian Church
Indianapolis, IN